The Texas Attorney General’s Office announced this week that it was intervening in a case involving McKenna West, an Alaskan woman who was paid to carry a child for another couple. The couple commanded her to undergo a late-term abortion after an ultrasound revealed her baby boy, who she calls Gabriel, had a treatable heart condition. McKenna then traveled all the way to Texas to protect him and secure pediatric heart care. The child was born in Dallas yesterday, and now a messy custody battle is underway in Texas and California courts.
Baby Gabriel’s plight is a symptom of a larger permissive regulatory environment that enables reproductive exploitation. When an unborn child fails to meet a buyer’s exact specifications, financial leverage and legal threats are weaponized against surrogate mothers who refuse to end a life. Crystal Kelley made national news in 2012 when commissioning parents offered her $10,000 to abort a child diagnosed with medical abnormalities. Like McKenna, she also had to move to another state to protect the child. In California, Melissa Cook was pressured to abort one of three triplets because the intended parents simply didn’t want that many kids. The “reduction” terms were in the contract.
Transforming pregnancy into a service, and unborn children into products that can be bought or sold, inherently debases human dignity. On the surface, it’s just consenting adults signing a contract with stated terms for monetary compensation. In reality, mothers are treated as leased incubators, while children are treated as manufactured goods subject to quality control, return policies, and the changing preferences of commissioning buyers.
To date, Louisiana is the only state that has put any meaningful restrictions on commercial surrogacy. The repugnant treatment of McKenna West by this couple, who deemed this child unworthy to live, should be a wakeup call for the rest of the country.
While Texas acted nobly to protect Baby Gabriel’s right to lifesaving care upon birth, temporary court interventions are not a long-term answer. We have a moral imperative to protect the dignity of women and their unborn children. The state of Texas should take a principled stand against reproductive exploitation in the upcoming legislative session.
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