The Supreme Court declined to intervene in a custody dispute involving California parents and a surrogate who refused their request for an abortion after the unborn child was diagnosed with a serious heart defect. The surrogate, McKenna West, sought conservatorship of the child after delivering him in Texas, while the biological parents sued for breach of the surrogacy agreement and were previously ruled legal parents by a California trial court.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan declined an emergency request from surrogate McKenna West to intervene in a custody dispute involving biological parents who had told her to get an abortion. West sought to overturn a parentage judgment issued in California in favor of the couple, but the case was not taken up by the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan declined to intervene in a custody dispute involving a baby born via surrogate after the surrogate refused to terminate the pregnancy despite a diagnosis of hypoplastic left heart syndrome. The lower court's order granting custody to the biological parents, who are caring for the baby in Texas following open-heart surgery, was upheld without explanation from Kagan.
Haotian Bai, a U.S. Army veteran, runs Patriot Conceptions, a California surrogacy agency that connects wealthy Chinese nationals with American surrogates, enabling children born through surrogacy to obtain U.S.
Haotian Bai, a U.S. Army veteran affiliated with the Hoover Institution think tank, runs Patriot Conceptions, a California surrogacy agency that serves Chinese clients, including billionaire Xu Bo.
From April 2027, women and their partners in the UK who experience a pregnancy ending before 24 weeks, including through abortion, failed IVF, or other pregnancy losses, will be entitled to up to two weeks of unpaid statutory bereavement leave. The policy has drawn criticism for equating abortion with miscarriage, raising concerns about the recognition of unborn life and potential misuse of the leave entitlement, while also extending to commissioning parents in surrogacy arrangements.
A Texas District Court vacated an emergency order that had kept Baby Gabriel/Rumi, born via surrogate McKenna West, in Texas to receive care for hypoplastic left heart syndrome, allowing his genetic parents to move him to California if approved by doctors. The court found that the genetic parents have consented to all recommended medical treatments and that some restrictions of the emergency order were no longer medically necessary, while maintaining that stabilizing and life-sustaining care must continue and that the Guardian Ad Litem remains appointed for the child.
Approximately 6,000 pro-life demonstrators participated in Germany's annual March for Life held simultaneously in Berlin and Cologne, with the Cologne rally experiencing attacks from counterdemonstrators who threw paint and set off smoke bombs at a pro-life information stand. Several bishops joined the Berlin march, which drew around 4,200 people according to organizers, and speakers at both events addressed issues such as surrogacy and the right to life from conception to natural death.
Chinese billionaire Xu Bo fathered up to 100 children through IVF and surrogacy in the U.S., aiming to create a 'mega-family' linked to Elon Musk's children, a scheme revealed during a court case denying his parental rights to unborn children. The article critiques the push for IVF as a human right, highlighting ethical concerns about embryo status and the Catholic Church's stance that IVF is unethical because it treats embryos as commodities rather than human persons deserving dignity from conception.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled that Baby Gabriel, born via surrogacy with a severe heart defect, can be taken from Texas to California by his biological parents for further treatment. Surrogate McKenna West sought sole conservatorship to control medical decisions and prevent the transfer, but the court prioritized the child's medical care and allowed the parents to proceed with the ICU-to-ICU transfer for additional surgeries.
Kallie Fell, Executive Director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, discusses the ethical, social, and human costs of the domestic surrogacy industry, highlighting its exploitation of women and commodification of children. The presentation calls for a reevaluation of policies and cultural attitudes that normalize surrogacy as a commercial transaction, challenging its portrayal as an act of compassion or empowerment.
Virginia voters will decide on November 3rd two amendments sponsored by Northern Virginia Democrats: one to enshrine unrestricted abortion rights up to birth in the state constitution, and another to remove the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage while codifying recognition of transgender identity. The abortion amendment would protect a broad range of reproductive health care including abortion and reduce parental oversight, while the same-sex marriage amendment eliminates religious liberty protections and supports commercial surrogacy as a family formation method for homosexual couples.
Lena Dunham and her husband Luis Felber welcomed their first baby via surrogate due to Dunham's hysterectomy from endometriosis. A decade earlier, Dunham expressed support for abortion rights and stated she wished she had had an abortion herself, highlighting a contrast with her current role as a mother.
Olivia Maurel, born to a surrogate mother and now an opponent of commercial surrogacy, argues for the complete abolition of surrogacy based on her personal experiences of psychological and emotional trauma after discovering her origins. She emphasizes that the surrogacy debate should focus on the rights and experiences of surrogate mothers and children rather than the desires of adults seeking children, highlighting the importance of biological roots and identity for children born through surrogacy.
The ongoing issues in the largely unregulated commercial surrogacy industry in the United States, highlighting legal and ethical complications such as a custody battle involving an Alaskan surrogate and the exploitation of surrogacy loopholes by foreigners, including Chinese billionaire Xu Bo who allegedly purchased over 100 children born on U.S. soil for citizenship purposes.
A group of international organizations has petitioned a United Nations special rapporteur to recognize surrogacy as a contemporary form of slavery, arguing that it treats the child as an object of a contract and fits the 1926 Slavery Convention's definition of slavery. Surrogacy is banned in several countries and heavily regulated in others, with debates focusing on ethical concerns, legal recognition of children born via surrogacy, and the rights and protections of surrogates, especially in the United States where laws vary by state.
The surrogacy industry’s frequent association with abortion, particularly in cases involving multiple pregnancies or medical abnormalities, and highlights a recent case where a surrogate refused to abort a baby diagnosed with a serious congenital heart condition. It also presents the Catholic Church's condemnation of surrogacy as a violation of the dignity of both the child and the mother, emphasizing that a child is a gift and not a product or property.
A coalition of 160 organizations called the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child to formally condemn remunerated surrogacy as a sale of a child, referencing previous UN reports and special rapporteur findings that highlight surrogacy's exploitative nature and harm to children and women. The article also details ethical concerns and legal disputes arising from surrogacy cases, including a surrogate mother refusing to abort a child with a congenital defect and another surrogate carrying multiple children for a Chinese billionaire, emphasizing the complex issues surrounding surrogacy practices.
CBS News conducted a year-long investigation into the surrogacy industry, revealing widespread abuses including the exploitation of vulnerable women such as undocumented immigrants and single mothers, lack of transparency about intended parents, and surrogacy farming where multiple surrogates are contracted simultaneously without their knowledge. California was identified as a central hub for surrogacy due to favorable laws and geographic location, but the industry remains largely under-regulated, allowing practices like multiple surrogates for one intended parent to occur without legal oversight.
Surrogate mother McKenna West is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge a California court ruling that denies her parental rights to Baby Gabriel, whom she refused to abort despite the biological parents' request due to the baby's congenital heart condition.
McKenna West, a surrogate who refused to have an abortion at the request of the biological parents, filed an emergency appeal with the US Supreme Court to block a California court order that recognizes Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar as the infant's legal parents and allows them to move the newborn out of Texas. West, dismissed from the Texas court case and seeking custody or conservatorship, argues the judgment violated federal due process and fears the couple will not provide life-saving care for the baby, who was born with a serious heart defect and remains hospitalized in Dallas.
McKenna West, a surrogate who refused to abort a baby diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, has filed an updated brief with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking an administrative stay to prevent the baby from being moved out of Texas.
The request makes the case that surrogacy fits the definition laid out in the 1926 Slavery Convention that the practice entails the rights of ownership of a person. [...]
The Casablanca group of experts and the French NGO Juristes Pour l’Enfance have requested the United Nations to recognize surrogacy as a new form of slavery involving women and children, based on the 1926 Slavery Convention's definition of ownership over a person. They argue that surrogacy reduces the child in utero to an object and subjects the surrogate mother’s body to control by third parties, with several UN bodies and the Catholic Church also condemning the practice and calling for its abolition.
Surrogate mother McKenna West has filed an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt a California court order that recognizes the California couple who hired her as the legal parents of the child born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). West argues for custody or conservatorship, claiming she does not trust the couple to provide life-saving care and alleges they demanded she abort the baby, while the couple has obtained a restraining order barring her from seeing the child and is suing her for breach of the surrogacy agreement.
Helen Lewis's article in The Atlantic explores surrogacy through a personal lens, highlighting troubling cases of surrogate exploitation but also including positive stories, ultimately failing to fully confront the systemic ethical issues involved. The article notably omits discussion of children's rights and the consequences of commercial surrogacy contracts, while framing opposition narrowly and not addressing broader concerns raised by diverse groups about the commodification of women's reproductive labor and children.
Surrogate McKenna West, who fled to Texas after refusing to abort a child diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, has filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to block a California court order recognizing the biological parents as the legal parents. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened in the custody battle, and a Texas judge ordered life-saving care for the child and prohibited removal from the state, but West was dismissed from the case and now seeks to participate in medical decisions and prevent the child from being moved to California for hospice care.
Centrum Żoliborz, the venue in Warsaw initially cited for a surrogacy fair organized by the Ukrainian company BioTexCom, refused to rent its premises to the company and stated the event scheduled for September 12–13 was postponed due to client safety concerns. Despite the postponement, BioTexCom continues to promote the event on its website and has shifted to offering individual online consultations, indicating ongoing activity in the Polish market that requires continued vigilance and opposition.
Poland's Catholic bishops have condemned surrogacy as gravely immoral, emphasizing concerns about the commercialization of motherhood and childhood, the dignity of the child, exploitation of women, and potential links to human trafficking, while urging authorities to prevent its practice domestically and abroad. Concurrently, the bishops are contesting new Ministry of National Education regulations that reduce religious instruction to one hour per week and schedule classes at the beginning or end of the school day, arguing these changes hinder students' ability to attend and marginalize religious education in Polish schools.
