ABOUT THIS EPISODE
A surrogate was hired. Then, at 20 weeks, he was diagnosed with a serious heart defect, and everything changed.
McKenna West, a 28-year-old cardiac nurse and mother of two, says the intended parents asked her to abort their biological son after he was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). Their surrogacy agreement reportedly required termination for a fetal abnormality if the intended parents requested it.
McKenna scheduled the abortion. Then she refused to go through with it.
Instead, she began researching how to save the baby's life, eventually relocating to Texas, where he was born and underwent major heart surgery.
Now comes the extraordinary twist: the same parents who requested his abortion are pursuing treatment to save his life and fighting for their parental rights. His biological mother calls him “the love of our lives,” yet testified that she does not regret requesting his abortion.
How can those two things coexist?
In this episode of Bioethics Babe, Arina Grossu Agnew examines the extraordinary case of McKenna West and Baby Gabriel/Rumi and the profound bioethical questions it raises about commercial surrogacy, abortion, disability, reproductive technology, parental rights, and the commodification of women and children.
Can a surrogacy contract punish a woman for refusing to abort? Does a child's right to life depend on whether he is healthy and wanted? And why should the same heart defect that in their eyes justified ending his life before birth become a reason to marshal surgeons and intensive care to save him after birth?
This case ultimately forces us to confront one fundamental question: What makes a human life worthy of protection?
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