Known as "Baby Gabriel," the child was born after his surrogate mother fled to Texas when the biological parents requested an abortion following the child's severe heart defect diagnosis.
AFN reported previously on the case. According to the surrogacy agreement McKenna West entered, the intendent parents have the parental right to make choices regarding the fetus. However, Texas’ family law recognizes the legal mother as the one who have birth.
Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Texas) stepped in to secure an emergency order ensuring the newborn receives necessary medical care. But conservative advocates argue the case highlights a fundamental flaw in commercial surrogacy contracts.
Katy Faust, founder of the child advocacy group Them Before Us, says market-driven surrogacy treats children as commodities rather than human beings. She made these comments on American Family Radio (AFR)'s "Jenna Ellis in the Morning."
"It is as we often say at Them Before Us: on-demand, designer baby shipped worldwide, and that is what we got here... when you are paying that much money, you don't want a defect," Faust says.
Faust contends that contract law cannot adequately protect children in surrogacy arrangements, warning that commercializing human life splits the essential roles of motherhood and strips children of their basic rights.
"Once you throw another person in the mix, you realize very quickly that you've got a dehumanizing commercialization process to buy, sell and traffic in other people. That is the proper way of understanding what surrogacy is. It's not family building; it is baby buying," Faust says.
As AFN reported, Kelsey Pritchard from Susan B Anthony Pro Life America pointed out that the case highlights a broader pattern, where mothers who receive difficult fetal diagnoses are quickly urged to terminate their pregnancies.
As Texas courts continue to address the custody and medical care of Baby Gabriel, advocates say the case will have lasting implications for surrogacy laws across the country.
Gabriel’s intended parents deny that they tried to force West to have an abortion. They also say that the baby's name is not Gabriel.
Currently, the judge that ordered for Baby Gabriel to receive life-saving medical treatment also ruled that West does not have the legal right to make medical decisions for the child.
The custody hearing will take place on August 25.
