McKenna West, a 28-year-old nurse and mother of two from Alaska, agreed in 2025 to carry a child for California couple Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed through Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists.
The agreement contained provisions addressing termination of the pregnancy if serious fetal abnormalities were discovered.
Months later, an ultrasound revealed that the unborn child had hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a rare congenital defect in which the left side of the heart does not develop properly.
