Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied a surrogate’s emergency request, leaving custody of the baby with the biological parents in a surrogacy‑abortion dispute.
Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency filings from California, refused to intervene in a custody battle over a baby born via surrogacy, thereby keeping in place a lower‑court order that granted custody to the biological parents. Kagan acted alone and did not refer the matter to the full Court, and the order contained no explanatory statement.
The dispute began when Alaska‑based surrogate McKenna West, a nurse, declined to have an abortion after a fetal diagnosis of hypoplastic left heart syndrome at about 20 weeks. She later traveled to Texas, gave birth to a boy in August despite the parents’ initial objections.
The biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed of California, have been living in Dallas to be with the infant, who underwent open‑heart surgery and remains in a pediatric intensive‑care unit. The surrogate’s request sought to block the custody ruling in their favor.
The reporting provides no further details on the Court’s reasoning or any subsequent legal steps, and the available information is limited to the facts outlined above.