An Excerpt from They Wanted Him Dead. Now They Want Him.

Some stories don’t need embellishment. They just need to be laid out plainly, because the facts alone do all the moral work.

Here they are.

Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed hired McKenna West to carry their child as a surrogate. Around 20 weeks into the pregnancy, doctors diagnosed the baby with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a severe congenital heart defect. According to the Texas Attorney General’s office, the couple asked West to terminate the pregnancy after that diagnosis.

West refused.

She fled to Texas, gave birth on August 12, and the boy she calls Gabriel underwent the first of three life-saving heart surgeries days later.

He’s alive.

Now those same biological parents are suing West for more than $100,000, alleging breach of their surrogacy contract and “malicious, outrageous conduct,” while simultaneously pursuing custody of the child whose pregnancy they had sought to terminate.

Sit with that for a second.

Let’s also be fair about what’s disputed here. Gilkar and Ahmed’s attorneys have pushed back hard on the characterization that they “forced” or “threatened” West. Court filings reportedly claim West initially agreed to the termination and even scheduled the appointment before changing her mind. Their lawyer, Lee Budner, calls West’s ongoing custody claims “baseless” and says they violate parentage rulings already secured in Alaska and California.

They get their day in court. But even accepting that version of events, I’m stuck on the same problem. They wanted the pregnancy terminated. West didn’t.

Gabriel is alive because it wasn’t. And now they want custody.

You don’t get to want him gone and then want him yours. Pick one.

A surrogacy contract is not a hunting license. It does not purchase the right to order the destruction of a living child because his heart didn’t form the way everybody hoped it would.

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome is serious. It’s one of the most severe congenital heart defects a baby can have. But children do survive it. There are treatments. There are staged surgeries. Gabriel has already begun that road.

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