At the center of a major legal battle is a precious, tiny baby boy, born by God’s grace and mercy in Texas on August 12, 2026. Gabriel, as his surrogate mother, McKenna West, calls him, was found to have hypoplastic left heart syndrome at 20 weeks’ gestation. This syndrome is a life-threatening but treatable heart defect.

Get involved in state-level prayer with IFA.

View Comments (1)

The genetic parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed of California, upon learning of the heart defect, demanded that the innocent baby be aborted, citing a clause in their surrogacy contract. West refused. 

West, who resides in Alaska, fled to Texas, where abortion is banned, with the help of Live Action. Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an order requiring hospitals to provide lifesaving care to the child. 

Soon after his birth, he underwent open-heart surgery and remains in critical condition. 

Both sides are now involved in a custody dispute in a Texas courtroom. West is seeking to overturn a California court restraining order against her, which also declared Gilkar and Ahmed to be the child’s parents. 

During the hearing, Gilkar told the court, “She is trying to take him from us. He is our child. He is the love of our lives.” She also testified that she did not regret asking for an abortion. 

West’s attorney asked Gilkar, “Would you trust someone to care for your child who wanted your child dead?”

West testified, “He is here, and he has a birthday because of the fight I put up.” 

Judge Ashley Wysocki extended the temporary restraining order against West but did not issue a custody ruling. The order prevents West from “exercising any possession of the child,” including holding or seeing him. It also prohibits her from making decisions on his behalf or receiving information about his medical care. 

A custody ruling could come at any time. 

Meanwhile, Gilkar and Ahmed are suing West for $100,000 for breach of contract, alleging that she violated the terms of their surrogacy agreement by refusing to abort baby Gabriel at their request. 

Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Lincoln Wilson represents West and the newborn. He said West is grateful that a Dallas judge took steps to protect baby Gabriel. 

“We’re super grateful that the attorney general filed what he did when he did because he got the order we needed one day before the child was born,” Wilson said. 

West is seeking sole conservatorship, which would allow her to make medical decisions on Gabriel’s behalf. 

West told the court that she was 23 weeks pregnant when Gilkar and Ahmed scheduled an abortion. She testified that she was not comfortable terminating the pregnancy because of Gabriel’s diagnosis. West said she believed the baby had a strong chance of survival and the possibility of a long life, and she wanted to give him that chance. 

West has expressed that she will drop any custody claims if Gilkar and Ahmed commit to the baby receiving the lifesaving heart surgeries. Gilkar expressed that there is no blood flow to the left side of his heart, and that he is gasping for air, choking on tubes, and needs a blood transfusion. She also reported that he is suffering a lot. 

Under Texas Family Code § 160.201(a), the woman who gives birth is the legal mother by default unless there is a properly validated gestational agreement. 

Paxton’s office sent a letter on August 10 to UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, as well as the hospitals’ staff who were expected to care for the child. The letter was sent to notify them that they had a legal duty to provide lifesaving care upon his birth, without a court order, and regardless of disputed parenthood. The notice also urged them to prevent any unlawful transfer of the child out of state. 

Surrogacy has been coming under well-deserved scrutiny, with more and more people speaking out against it, and even some nations banning it. 

We have heard the disturbing stories of male gay couples using surrogacy as an avenue to have children. There is also the heartbreaking viral video of an innocent baby being held by his gay father while the baby says, “Mama… Mama.” The man responds, “No, do you want Dada or Pop?” The baby continues to say, “Mama… Mama,” while the father repeats, “Dada or Pop,” eventually ending with the baby crying. 

Then you have two gay men who crowdfunded their so-called surrogacy journey, now raising a baby boy. It was later discovered that one of the men, Brandon Keith Riley-Mitchell, was a convicted child sex offender. Riley-Mitchell’s criminal history was discovered after Irish activist Derek Blighe reposted a video of the newborn baby boy on July 27th, prompting questions on Riley-Mitchell’s identity and background.  

Riley-Mitchell was convicted of felony child pornography possession and one count of corruption of minors for exchanging over 12,000 messages with a teenage male student while he was a teacher at Downingtown West High School in Pennsylvania. The contents of the conversations were sexually graphic in nature. Also included were instructions to delete communications and the transfer of nude photos and videos, some of which were recovered from Mitchell’s devices. Mitchell was paroled just two months into his sentence despite the seriousness of the charges.  

No unsupervised contact with minors and giving up his teaching license were part of his sentencing. So, how did he end up with a baby? 

There are so very many problems with surrogacy. The heartbreaking stories above are just a few. There are no screenings of “intended” parents, unlike those that are performed by adoption agencies. This puts children at risk for placement in unstable, risky, and unmonitored households.  

Had Riley-Mitchell attempted to adopt a child, under Pennsylvania law, he would have been disqualified because of the background checks, home studies, and judicial reviews that take place through adoption agencies.  

Twenty-one children, many with surrogate mothers, were taken from a couple amid an investigation in California after one of the children was found to have a head injury. The surrogate mothers were all told that their babies were going to a couple with a small family, with only one child. The child with the brain injury was found to have been violently shaken by the nanny. All twenty-one children were taken into custody. 

The couple, Guojun Xuan and Silva Zhang, remains at the center of a state child abuse investigation and has drawn federal scrutiny. In 2025 alone, the couple had at least five surrogate-born babies in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Questions of child trafficking loom. 

Another glaring example of a lack of screening and background checks. According to Kallie Fell, executive director of the nonprofit Center of Bioethics and Culture, “Anything goes. And these clinics, these agencies are not regulated by any governing body.” 

Olivia Maurel, an author and activist known for her opposition to surrogacy, has been vocal about her own experience of having been born through surrogacy. She explained that puppies and kittens cannot even be separated from their mothers for two to three months, but babies born through surrogacy, once born, are immediately taken from their surrogate mothers and given to their genetic parents. 

She describes the trauma of this separation as completely unnatural and contrary to the way the bond between a mother and baby is designed to develop. A baby who grows and develops while being fed in a mother’s womb knows that mother, not the sperm and egg donors. She explains the importance of skin-to-skin contact immediately following birth, which generally does not occur in surrogacy. 

Maurel travels around the world to advocate against surrogacy and push for a national ban. She explains that there are laws banning surrogacy in countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, China, and Saudi Arabia. There is also a convention against the sale of children, but it still happens. These bans, in many cases, do not prevent the buying of children through surrogacy from countries without such bans, which is why she advocates for a national ban. 

Italy recently passed a law stating that citizens cannot travel to another country where surrogacy is legal and purchase a child through surrogacy. The punishment is a fine of up to $1 million or up to two years in prison. 

In a May 2026 interview on the ADF International YouTube channel, Maurel described a recent trip to Berlin, where she protested outside a “Wish for a Baby Fair.” Although surrogacy is prohibited in Germany, the fairs are permitted to continue because, she says, politicians do not want to get involved. 

The fairs feature catalogs of women and babies. She described how a friend went to the fair and spoke with a surrogacy agency from Ghana that was selling packages in which you can buy a baby, with a safari included in the package. 

She went on to share that the surrogacy industry is a multibillion-dollar industry and is growing. She noted that individuals from all backgrounds and political affiliations are coming together to end surrogacy because of what they see as its exploitation of women and children. 

Her desire is to show the world that surrogacy is ultimately eugenics because you can pick and choose based on sex, eye color, and, likely soon, embryos based on IQ. She explained that the surrogate has no rights in the process. According to her, all rights to the surrogate’s body and the baby belong to the commissioning parents, from implantation through birth, including the mother’s breast milk. 

As I write this article, I am in utter disbelief. If I am having this guttural response, I can only imagine what our Lord feels as He sees the violation of women and children through surrogacy. 

God’s mandate to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. We know and have sincere sympathy for any woman who cannot bear children. However, hearing how God’s perfect and beautiful design for procreation has been perverted to this degree in relation to surrogacy makes it plain to see that this is not a righteous solution to infertility. Adoption, though not perfect, is a better answer, with greater guardrails in place to provide homes for children who may otherwise not have a loving family. 

Psalm 139:13–15 says:  

“For You formed my inward parts; 

You covered me in my mother’s womb. 

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

Marvelous are Your works, 

And that my soul knows very well. 

My frame was not hidden from You, 

When I was made in secret, 

And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” 

Surrogacy is a violation of basic human rights and a direct violation of the sanctity of life. It is the literal buying of children, as well as the abuse and exploitation of both women and children, yet disgustingly, the industry continues to grow. 

Matthew 18:6 says: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” 

Where is the respect for life, the life in the womb, and the life of the mothers of these precious ones? Human beings are not commodities to be bought and sold or ordered from a menu, as though you were ordering a car. 

God made us because He wanted a family. He made us in His image, and since the beginning of time, the forever loser has hated us and has sought to steal, kill, and destroy us, perverting God’s plan. 

God promises us that the wicked will perish and that He will redeem this fallen world. He has us here to stand, pray, and war against the evil and wickedness that is so prevalent. 

I thank God for McKenna West refusing to abort innocent Gabriel. I thank God for Live Action being willing to help her get to Texas, where abortion is banned. I thank God for Attorney General Paxton ordering the medical system in Texas to care for little Gabriel.  

As hard as it is to stomach these stories, God is exposing the evil, and in the end, God wins. He will always champion life.  

Lord, I thank You that, even in the midst of all of this evil, You have a good plan. I thank You for exposing the evils of surrogacy and for all of the nations that have banned it. Please prevail upon every nation, including America, to ban surrogacy and end the exploitation of women and children.  

Please bring such conviction upon the hearts and minds of anyone considering surrogacy that they cannot go through with it. Please save little Gabriel, and let his real mom, McKenna West, win the custody battle because she wanted him to live, while his genetic parents ordered him to be aborted.  

Lord, we call forth the divine destiny that You have for little Gabriel. May what You do through him change many hearts and minds, moving them to honor and serve You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

How are you praying about surrogacy and little Gabriel? Share your prayers and scriptures below.

April Walker loves God and seeks to serve Him in all she does. She is a proud mom of a 20-year old son, a PA State Co-leader for IFA, a former School Board Director, an organizer for NDOP and ASHP events, a GOP Committee member for Carbon County, an Occupational Therapist, and a vocalist. She feels that writing for and working with IFA brings all her passions together. Photo Credit: Anna Hecker on Unsplash.