Surrogate asks Supreme Court to intervene in baby custody dispute
McKenna West seeks to halt a ruling naming a California couple as legal parents to a child born with a severe heart condition.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Surrogate who refused abortion takes fight to Supreme Court as baby's life hangs in balance
Photograph: Internewscast (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Surrogate McKenna West has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in a dispute over a baby born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
- West refused a California couple's alleged request to abort the fetus after a serious heart diagnosis.
- A Los Angeles court order recognized the California couple as the child’s legal parents.
- West's lawyers filed an emergency application asking Justice Elena Kagan to temporarily halt the lower court decision.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 7 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
60/100
Craft
65/100
Hype
45/100
7 sources · methodology
Thin on the left so far
Only 1 of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Surrogate McKenna West is seeking intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding a baby born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). West refused a request from a California couple, identified as Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, to terminate the pregnancy after the fetus was diagnosed with the condition. A Los Angeles court subsequently issued an order recognizing Gilkar and Ahmed as the child’s legal parents. West's legal team has filed an emergency application with Justice Elena Kagan, asking for a temporary halt to the lower court's decision.
The baby was born in Texas on August 12 with HLHS, a disorder where the left side of the heart is underdeveloped. According to court filings, West stated that the couple asked her to end the pregnancy after the condition was identified during a 20-week ultrasound. West declined, citing the availability of medical treatment and her connection to the fetus. She offered to raise the child herself or arrange an adoption, releasing the couple from financial obligations. West's attorneys allege she was warned of potential financial penalties exceeding $250,000 for continuing the pregnancy.
Disagreement over court jurisdiction and parental rights
Gilkar and Ahmed pursued legal action in California to establish their parental rights. West contended that the dispute should be handled in Alaska, as per the surrogacy agreement, and argued she appeared in California only to contest the court's jurisdiction. The Los Angeles Superior Court determined that West had accepted its authority by addressing the case's substance in a lengthy filing. West's lawyers maintain that most of this filing consisted of exhibits supporting her jurisdictional challenge and that she repeatedly refused to argue the underlying case, stating that 'no' should not be interpreted as 'yes.' West also claims she was not properly served with court papers, which were allegedly delivered to her babysitter without disclosure of their contents. A California judge declared Gilkar and Ahmed the legal parents on June 22, and West's attempts to halt this ruling in state courts were unsuccessful.
What the coverage left out
None of the right-rated digests mention the specific amount of financial penalties McKenna West's attorneys allege she was warned of, which Internewscast reported as potentially exceeding $250,000.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 5 times, most recently on 10 Sept 2026, 15:30, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
1 rated outlet
- Courthouse News Service led on the multistate fight over custody of the newborn, framing it as a clash over abortion, surrogacy, and parental rights. The report noted that the surrogate had the baby against the parents' wishes and that this situation had drawn the Supreme Court into the dispute.
Centre
1 rated outlet
- Internewscast, which published a full report, focused on McKenna West's request for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. The outlet highlighted that West refused a California couple's alleged request to abort their baby after a serious heart diagnosis and that a lower court decision had left her unable to advocate for the medically vulnerable newborn. The report detailed West's legal arguments regarding jurisdiction, service of process, and the couple's alleged attempt to penalize her financially. It also included statements from the couple, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, referring to the child as 'our child' and 'the love of our lives,' and describing the baby as 'suffering a lot.'
Right
4 rated outlets
- The right-rated reports from Dagens Nyheter, nytimespost.com, Fox News, and wfmd.com all focused on McKenna West's refusal to abort the fetus and her subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court. Headlines from these outlets frequently used phrases such as 'baby's life hangs in balance,' emphasizing the critical nature of the situation. Fox News and wfmd.com specifically mentioned that the Supreme Court was being asked to block a California court ruling that declared a couple the legal parents of the baby born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Surrogate asks Supreme Court to intervene in baby custody dispute?
- Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 17% are rated left, 16% are rated centre, 67% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 7. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Surrogate asks Supreme Court to intervene in baby custody dispute left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Surrogate asks Supreme Court to intervene in baby custody dispute biased?
- Surrogate asks Supreme Court to intervene in baby custody dispute is one event reported by 7 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Surrogate asks Supreme Court to intervene in baby custody dispute?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Surrogate asks Supreme Court to intervene in baby custody dispute?
- 7 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- Who is McKenna West and what is her role in the dispute?
- McKenna West is a surrogate mother who carried a baby for a California couple. She refused their alleged request to abort the fetus after it was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and is now seeking Supreme Court intervention in the custody dispute.
- What is hypoplastic left heart syndrome?
- Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a rare congenital disorder where the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped. This condition requires significant medical intervention, including multiple surgeries, shortly after birth.
- What is McKenna West asking the Supreme Court to do?
- West's lawyers have filed an emergency application asking Justice Elena Kagan to temporarily halt a lower court decision that recognized the California couple as the child's legal parents. This action aims to give West a path back into the Texas case to advocate for the child.
Read it at the source
7 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
1Centre
1Right
4- Surrogate Mother Who Refused Abortion Asks Supreme Court to Intervene (opens Dagens Nyheter in a new tab)
Dagens Nyheter — is Dagens Nyheter biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Surrogate who refused abortion takes fight to Supreme Court as baby's life hangs in balance (opens nytimespost.com in a new tab)
nytimespost.com — is nytimespost.com biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Surrogate who refused abortion takes fight to Supreme Court as baby's life hangs in balance (opens Fox News in a new tab)
- Surrogate who refused abortion takes fight to Supreme Court as baby’s life hangs in balance (opens wfmd.com in a new tab)
Not rated
1How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
