McKenna West seeks an administrative stay by Tuesday, fearing the baby could be moved from Texas.
By Catholics for Catholics
The surrogate mother who declined to end her pregnancy at the request of the baby’s biological parents, filed a frantic legal motion pleading the US Supreme Court to block the infant boy from being moved out of Texas – in a desperate attempt at keeping control over his care.
Last week, McKenna West, 28, filed the plea with the nation’s highest court, fearing that Los Angeles couple Nasheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed could try to take their son, who was born with a serious heart defect, out of a Dallas hospital as soon as Thursday.
The attorneys for the nurse from Alaska filed an emergency brief calling for SCOTUS’s intervention before the Thursday deadline – writing that “relief was urgently needed,” according to a story by Fox News.
West has been embroiled in a legal battle after she refused the parent’s request to end the pregnancy after a diagnosis of a serious heart condition, hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS).
West, who is represented by attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom and First & Fourteenth PLLC, asked Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency matters from the Ninth Circuit, for an administrative stay and a stay pending a possible petition for certiorari.
West’s application contends that the California courts transgressed federal due process by treating her jurisdictional defense as consent. It also claims that without a stay, the baby could be moved to California for hospice care while West remains unable to participate in decisions about the child’s medical treatment.
West is struggling for full custody or conservatorship because she believes Gilkar and Ahmed will not give the basic resources to the baby whom she calls Gabriel and they call Rumi.
Her lawyers said “future care for Baby G. is uncertain and unknowable” after the California court order was upheld.
West – who has stated that her only aim is for the baby to get the treatment required for his heart condition – even promised to abandon her custody bid if she could be assured the baby would receive the appropriate care, according to her lawyers.
Save and Share This Catholic Patriotic Minute!
