McKenna West broke the promise that makes surrogacy work

The surrogate at the center of the “Baby Gabriel” case had the right to refuse an abortion. She didn’t have the right to evade the agreement she signed, or more crucially, to take a child who was never hers.

Few surrogacy stories have drawn as much national attention as McKenna West’s. West, a cardiac nurse from Anchorage, Alaska, gave birth in Texas to a baby boy with a rare heart condition whom she was carrying for Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar. The case has been portrayed in the media as a battle over abortion. That takes focus away from the real key issue: West broke a promise she made knowingly, in writing, and then attempted to turn that broken promise into a custody claim for anther couple’s child.

A right to refuse is not a right without consequences

No court in America will order a woman to have an abortion, and no surrogacy contract can change that. That is right and correct and it’s how things should be. But it isn’t the end of the story, and can’t mean that breaking a contract has no consequences.

Just as any well written surrogacy contract does, the agreement West signed — with the advice of her attourney who was representing her interests — addressed this exact scenario. The surrogacy agreement the parties signed in August 2025 includes a section requiring termination for a fetal abnormality if Gilkar and Ahmed requested it. It wasn’t buried in fine print. The agreement states that West had carefully considered the issue of termination, including consulting with a psychologist, and was clear and knowing in her intention to follow the intended parents’ request. Then that exact situation arose. At about 20 weeks, the fetus was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a severe congenital heart condition, and the intended parents decided they wanted to terminate. According to their court filings, she first agreed, then changed her mind and cut off contact.

Surrogates who sign agreements like this are told what these clauses mean. Termination clauses don’t control the medical decision itself — they can’t, legally. They allocate financial risk. If a surrogate refuses a termination the contract anticipated, the intended parents’ remedy is usually financial. Depending on the contract and the state, they may be able to stop compensation, stop paying pregnancy-related expenses, or sue for damages. That’s the trade a surrogate accepts when she signs. She keeps control of her body, and she accepts that refusing what she agreed to has a price.

Refusing to terminate may have been legal. It was still, in the parents’ view and on a plain reading of the clause, a breach of contract, and a breach of trust with two people who had placed their best remaining chance at a biological family in her hands. Gilkar told a Dallas court the couple turned to surrogacy after eight unsuccessful rounds of IVF and a hysterectomy. West’s change of heart may have been sincere. But she set aside a commitment she had made deliberately, with professional counseling, and then tried to escape its consequences. She challenged the agreement in Texas court, arguing that enforcing the abortion clause or penalizing her financially for refusing violated her right to privacy and bodily autonomy. She is also reportedly suing the couple for breach of contract after they stopped her compensation payments.

Bodily autonomy protects her from being forced. It doesn’t entitle her to the full benefits of a contract whose key term she refused to honor. If the story had ended there, it would be an ordinary, painful contract dispute.

It didn’t end there.

From breach to custody claim

West left Alaska and flew to Texas, where most abortions are banned, and asked a Dallas court for custody two days before giving birth. That’s where she crossed a line. Declining a procedure is a decision about your own body. Asking a court to give you a child who is genetically someone else’s, and whom you agreed to carry for them, is not.

The courts didn’t accept it. The parents have won in California, Alaska and Texas. A California court recognized Gilkar and Ahmed as the legal parents, which led a Texas court to drop West from the proceedings there. When West tried to stop the baby — who hiss parents have named Rumi — from leaving Texas, the Texas Supreme Court sided with the parents, saying the child’s life was the paramount concern. In September, Justice Elena Kagan rejected her emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving the California ruling in place.

The other side

West’s defenders make serious arguments. As a cardiac nurse, she has said she knew from experience that the baby had a chance at survival through surgery, and she rejected claims that the case was political theater. Her lawyers argue that a termination clause, even a standard one, is offensive to state and federal law, and that penalizing a woman for refusing an abortion violates her autonomy. West has also accused the parents of breaching the agreement by bringing the custody case in California instead of Alaska. Many pro-life readers will see her choices as protecting a life, not breaking a promise. Where you land depends on how much weight you give a signed agreement and genetic parenthood, compared with conscience and the experience of carrying a child.

The promise starts before the pregnancy

The most important moment in the McKenna West case didn’t happen in a Dallas courtroom. It happened in August 2025, when she signed an agreement saying she had thought carefully about termination and would follow the intended parents’ wishes. If she had any doubt then, that was the time to say so and walk away from that match.

That’s the lesson for anyone considering surrogacy. As a surrogate, your beliefs about termination and selective reduction are valid, whatever they are. They just need to be on the table before you sign, matched with intended parents who share them, and reflected honestly in your contract. There are intended parents who would never ask for a termination, and surrogates who would agree to one. Finding each other is the whole point of careful matching. It goes without saying that a promise you can keep is worth more than one you’ll have to break.