The newborn at the center of a surrogacy dispute spanning California, Alaska, and Texas underwent surgery on Monday, according to Lee Budner, the attorney representing the child's biological parents. The baby was diagnosed in utero with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a condition in which the left side of the heart is too underdeveloped to pump blood to the body.
That development resolves, for now, the question that made this a medical story rather than only a legal one. Before the birth, it was unclear who had the authority to consent to surgery. A Dallas judge ordered two hospitals to provide life-sustaining care and barred the surrogate, McKenna West, from making medical decisions for the child or holding herself out as his parent, reinforcing the parental rights of Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, the California couple who are his biological parents.
