Baby Gabriel Is Neither Property Nor Political Ammunition -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

America’s surrogacy industry promises families. The battle over a terminally ill infant reveals the collision course between contracts, reproductive rights and interstate litigation and turns the child into collateral damage.

Alaska surrogate McKenna West was shopping for a Supreme Court intervention within the California judgment naming Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar as the newborns legal parents on September 9, 2026. The baby was born on August 12 in Dallas, and the couple has chosen West’s name for their son and Rumi’s name for their daughter. Her filing says that a Texas court dismissed West’s conservatorship effort, recognizing the California judgment on September 2.

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome was prenatally diagnosed and the conflict was never resolved. The intended parents asked for the termination; West refused and traveled to Texas. Her latest claim is they may opt for hospice instead of another potentially life-saving surgery. That claim should raise eyebrows, not immediately be given without scrutiny. The couple have disputed her behaviour and claimed paternity.

Three questions need to be kept separate from one another: Who has power over a pregnant woman’s health care decisions; who is the legal parent; and what treatment will further the interests of any newborn.

Individual pregnancies with veils of contracts to distance a baby from their rights should never be bought by unbreakable concession to abortion. At the time of the procedure, consent to an invasive procedure must be voluntary. Legislatures should also ban contractual penalties incurred solely for refusing termination. If not, then bodily autonomy becomes a right only for the women with enough resources to litigate.

But declining an abortion does not infer instant paternity. Statutory framework related to establishing intended parentage independent of the surrogate through separate attorneys and court orders prior to birth [California Family Code section 7962]. Not every legitimate parentage arrangement is rendered invalid by the need to protect a surrogate’s autonomy.

Likewise, being genetically related or being compensated in some way does not give anyone a right to a child. Legal parenthood includes obligations to a separate and autonomous person whose interests cannot be represented merely as the fulfillment of contractual duties.

Medical honesty is indispensable. HLHS can be treated but is not cured with surgery. Staged operations, potential lifelong complications and, if needed, transplantation are described by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It should be noted that a generalized survival percentage can not determine this infants prognosis at population level, treatment stage and follow-up time period.

Overly simplistic ideas regarding palliative care should never be equated with abandonment nor when aggressive treatment is performed, it cannot be presumed beneficial regardless of suffering. Individualized evidence not blanket restrictions are essential to determine need; independent review by specialists is necessary, to guard against assumptions that a life based on disability is automatically less valuable.

An independent advocate for the baby, an urgent call with pediatric cardiology and a clinical ethics review should be made top priorities. Judicial review ought to occur swiftly with respect to any challenged withdrawal of treatment that would likely be beneficial. It is vital that emergency relief considers proven risk and upholds principles of jurisdiction and procedural fairness.

States ought to have consistent protections for surrogacy: mandating independent legal counsel that in certain respects protects medical consent during a surrogacy and ensuring parentage proceedings are done right the first time, including contingency plans should an especially severe fetal diagnosis arise and making sure even non-viable newborns can access neonatal care. All conflicts should be disclosed, actions of counselling documented and agencies held to account.

Likewise, courts must distinguish the recognition of parentage from a review of a medical decision in other particular situations as well. Simply figuring out what counts as legal paternity does not address all of the questions about how best to care.

The international warning is unmistakable. The risk of reproductive commerce is that powerful contracts have more foresight about contingency than vulnerability.

Gabriel or Rumi needs choices based in his context and goals. His momentos mori should never be cause for a courtroom trophy, a contractual remedy or a campaign podium.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia