(LifeSiteNews) – The couple who wanted the surrogate mother of their baby to abort him over a heart defect are now seeking $100,000 for her refusing to do so, citing a clause in their surrogacy agreement that apparently contractually obliged her to do it.
As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed unsuccessfully sued Alaska nurse and single mother McKenna West to prevent the birth of their son, baby Gabriel, upon the prenatal discovery of hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a serious but treatable congenital heart defect in which the left side of the heart cannot properly pump blood.
They demanded she abort on the basis of a clause in their contract stating “there shall be a termination of the pregnancy for a fetal abnormality as determined by a physician designated by the Intended Parents if the Intended Parents request a termination of the pregnancy.”
No physicians in Alaska were willing to perpetrate a late-term abortion at that stage (22 weeks). The couple then scheduled an abortion in Seattle for late April (when Baby Gabriel was 23 weeks), which was delayed to a 24-week abortion in May.
West decided she could not go through with it, so with the help of podcaster Ellen Fisher and Live Action founder and president Lila Rose, she flew to Texas for treatment. On August 12, the baby – named Gabriel by West, Rumi by the “official” parents – was born around three weeks early in the Dallas area and moved to NICU for stabilizing care in preparation for heart surgery. The baby was promptly taken away from West, and custody was transferred to the parents who wanted him killed.
Now, TMZ reports that the couple is suing for more than $100,000 for breach of contract and “malicious, outrageous conduct,” to recoup the $60,000 they paid West plus damages for emotional distress stemming from the dispute.
“Every life matters. No woman should be forced to end the life of the baby she is carrying — including me,” West has said. “Baby Gabriel should receive a chance at life.”
The fight highlights the morass of moral, ethical, and legal complications that arise with the surrogacy industry’s effective transformation of human life and reproduction into a commodity that can be purchased, contracted – and reneged upon in the case of a “defective product.” The industry is largely unregulated and lacks many of the basic safeguards found in the adoption process.
Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation to crack down on the surrogacy industry, driven by horror stories such as the case of Brandon Mitchell, a Tier 1 sex offender in Pennsylvania, convicted of “sexual abuse of children” and “possession of child pornography,” who was nonetheless able to obtain a baby boy with his “husband” through surrogacy.