{"id":432313,"date":"2026-09-11T01:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T01:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/432313\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T01:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T01:06:16","slug":"texas-judge-alaskan-surrogate-does-not-have-custody-over-child-she-birthed-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/432313\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas judge: Alaskan surrogate does not have custody over child she birthed in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Texas judge has ruled against an Alaskan surrogate in her bid to obtain custody over a medically fragile baby she birthed in Dallas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to a Wednesday filing<\/a>, attorneys for the surrogate McKenna West are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after Texas\u2019 unfavorable decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cA stay is needed to preserve the status quo and ensure M.W. (McKenna West) can advocate for her rights and remain informed about Baby G. during this critical time in his young life,\u201d the filing stated. <\/p>\n

The high-profile, multi-state dispute landed in Dallas last month after West flew to Texas, which bans abortion, to seek sole conservatorship over the child. She said she wanted custody so she could make medical decisions for the child instead of the biological parents Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar. She also accused Ahmed and Gilkar, who are from California, of pressuring her into getting an abortion because the fetus has a condition where the left side of his heart is severely underdeveloped.<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> intervened<\/a> and state District Judge Ashley Wysocki, a recent Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> appointee, ordered two Dallas hospitals to provide care and that the baby remain in Texas until a final decision could be made about West\u2019s conservatorship case.<\/p>\n

After West gave birth on Aug. 12, Ahmed and Gilkar, who named the child Rumi, obtained a restraining order barring her from seeing or holding the child. At a subsequent Dallas court hearing, they did not deny they at one time considered abortion after learning the child was diagnosed with an underdeveloped heart, preventing normal blood flow. But, they said they eventually decided the pregnancy should proceed.<\/p>\n

They informed Wysocki that their dispute with West escalated after they tried to get West to come to California to meet with medical experts to devise a plan for Rumi\u2019s medical care. <\/p>\n

Wysocki\u2019s decision last week is not publicly available because the entire case has been sealed, a clerk for the judge informed The Texas Tribune. Neither the legal team for West nor the one representing the parents immediately returned emailed requests for comment. <\/p>\n

However, within West\u2019s appeal on Wednesday are details that the Dallas court eventually ruled against her on Sept. 2 in her fight for sole conservatorship over the baby she calls Gabriel. The judge \u2014 apparently deferring to a decision by the California courts that upheld Gilkar and Ahmed\u2019s parental rights over Rumi \u2014 dismissed West as a party.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat irreparable harm from Texas\u2019s enforcement of the California judgment matters immensely because Baby G. is in the midst of a course of several life-saving surgeries needed to treat his condition,\u201d West\u2019s recent filing states. <\/p>\n

West\u2019s attorneys contend that because of that dismissal, \u201cfuture care for Baby G. is uncertain and unknowable.\u201d One surgery has been performed on the child but Rumi\u2019s parents have said through their lawyers that no other information about the child\u2019s condition will be released. <\/p>\n

West\u2019s appeal also indicates that the couple have sued her for at least $100,000 in damages. <\/p>\n

West\u2019s filing also revealed that Rumi may be transferred to California and placed in hospice care. \u201cIndeed, the child could be removed from the Texas hospital and taken to California for hospice\u2014despite his treatable condition\u2014around September 17, if not sooner,\u201d her filing states. <\/p>\n

Gilkar, Rumi\u2019s mother, told the Dallas court in<\/a> August that the couple sought out surrogacy after she underwent eight unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization and a hysterectomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s our child,\u201d Gilkar said last month, according to The Associated Press. Gilkar told the court that the baby had no blood flow to the left side of his heart. Since surgery, she said, he has gasped for air, choked on tubes and needed a blood transfusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the most beautiful person I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Gilkar told the Dallas court. \u201cHe\u2019s the love of our lives. He\u2019s suffering a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surrogacy is not regulated on a federal level and the case has drawn the attention of Texas lawmakers who are likely to move to restrict surrogacy next year during the regular legislative session. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas judge has ruled against an Alaskan surrogate in her bid to obtain custody over a medically…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[815,102,392,1562,1967,287,1564,27,29,293,28,14888],"class_list":["post-432313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-courts","tag-dallas","tag-greg-abbott","tag-health-care","tag-ken-paxton","tag-politics","tag-state-government","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-u-s-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}