On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a brief order declining to intervene in a custody dispute involving a California couple and the surrogate mother they had hired, who refused their request for an abortion after the unborn baby was diagnosed with a serious heart defect.
The woman, McKenna West, declined to follow Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar’s request to abort the baby and traveled to Texas, where she gave birth to the child. The couple then sued West for breach of their surrogacy agreement. West, in turn, sought a conservatorship over the child, arguing that they would not provide the child with necessary medical care.
After a California court recognized Ahmed and Gilkar as the child’s legal parents, West asked the SCOTUS to intervene and block the ruling. Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees emergency applications arising from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes California, declined to intervene.
The Church advocates for the eradication of surrogacy, a practice that, according to Pope Leo, “violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a ‘product,’ and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family.”
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