The biological parents of a child known as “Baby Gabriel” have given their permission for the first of three heart surgeries after previously requesting that the gestational carrier undergo an abortion.
“Baby Gabriel” was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a serious and life-threatening heart defect, in utero. Following the diagnosis at 20 weeks’ gestation, his biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, requested that his gestational carrier, a woman named McKenna West, have an abortion.
West refused to have an abortion and travelled from her home in Alaska to Texas, both because of the state’s pro-life laws and its proximity to one of the country’s top paediatric cardiology hospitals. Gilkar and Ahmed had previously said they would not allow “Baby Gabriel” to undergo surgery.
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome has a 70 per cent survival rate to the age of five if medical intervention occurs shortly after birth, but failure to intervene means the child will die within days.
A court filing on August 17 obtained by the website TMZ revealed that Gilkar and Ahmed have changed course and would now allow the child to undergo the Norwood procedure. The Norwood procedure is the first of three major heart surgeries aimed at correcting HLHS and must be done in the first weeks of an infant’s life.
The court filings did not say when the surgery would take place and, in the filings, the child is referred to by a different name from “Gabriel”. The hospital where the surgery is set to take place has a 100 per cent success rate, lawyers representing West have claimed.
“Baby Gabriel” was born on August 12, about two and a half weeks before his due date. The day before his birth, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sought and received a court intervention “to save an unborn child diagnosed with a treatable heart condition”.
That court order stated that medical care would be provided after birth and would not be delayed. It further forbade anyone from “withholding or obstructing necessary treatment or removing, discharging, or transferring the child while the court considers the case”, said a press release posted on the Texas Attorney General’s website.
“The court has made the right decision in immediately acting to protect baby Gabriel’s life and ensure he receives the care he deserves,” said Paxton in the release. “My office utilised every tool at our disposal to protect life, and we will not back down in continuing to support baby Gabriel’s well-being. Every child in our state deserves to be cared for and protected, and that’s exactly what I’ll fight for.”
