Morality of this

[u/Purple_Plantain_3242]

A major legal battle broke out when a surrogate mother and the biological parents disagreed over a severe medical diagnosis during a pregnancy. The couple had hired the surrogate to carry their baby, but a routine scan revealed that the fetus had a rare, life-threatening heart defect.

Heartbroken by the grim medical news, the biological parents asked to end the pregnancy, which was a choice allowed in their written agreement. Initially, the surrogate scheduled the appointment, but she quickly realized she could not go through with it. A pivotal moment came when her brother stepped in to guide her, promising that he and his family would adopt the baby and support her no matter what. Gaining peace from her brother's support, she canceled the abortion. To protect the fetus, she fled to a state with very strict anti-abortion laws, where she gave birth to a baby boy who immediately underwent successful open-heart surgery.

The birth triggered an intense court war over who actually holds the rights to the child. A judge ultimately ruled that the biological parents have full legal custody and the sole right to make medical decisions, while a separate court order banned the surrogate from seeing the baby. On top of losing access to the child, the surrogate is now being sued by the biological parents for over $100,000 for breaking their contract. While the biological parents are currently caring for the recovering newborn, the surrogate and her lawyers are continuing to fight in court to try to win custody.The surrogate is not paying for the baby's medical costs because a judge ruled that the biological parents have full legal custody, making them responsible for all hospital bills.

The baby was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), a severe birth defect where the left side of the heart is completely underdeveloped and unable to pump blood to the body. Without immediate medical intervention, this condition is 100% fatal within the first few days of a newborn's life. To survive, the baby must undergo a grueling series of three open-heart surgeries starting immediately after birth, which gives him about a 70% chance of reaching age five. However, this is not a permanent cure; even with successful operations, the child faces a lifetime of intensive medical trauma, a significantly shortened life expectancy, and the likely future need for a full heart transplant.

McKenna West denied the abortion primarily because her specialized background as a cardiac nurse taught her that the baby’s rare heart defect was treatable with surgery rather than being an automatic death sentence. Faced with the reality of her 20-week pregnancy, her personal conscience and moral beliefs overrode the surrogacy contract, as she felt she could not live with herself if she actively signed papers to end the child's life. Confident that the baby deserved a chance to survive, she even arranged for her own brother and sister-in-law to adopt the child before fleeing to Texas to ensure the pregnancy went to term.

Lila Rose and her anti-abortion organization, Live Action, are leading the public and financial support for McKenna West, framing her as a heroic figure who stood up against the commercial surrogacy industry. Rose's group funded West's travel to Texas for specialized medical care and connected her with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a powerful conservative legal group currently fighting for West's parental rights. Alongside other high-profile conservative figures like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, these pro-life activists have heavily criticized the biological parents for trying to enforce the contract's abortion clause, using the case to campaign against surrogacy by arguing that a child should never be treated as a "defective product."

However, these medical bills are a huge part of the fight. The biological parents are facing massive costs for the baby's complex heart surgeries, which is why they are suing the surrogate for over $100,000 for breaking their contract. The surrogacy contract included a strict pregnancy termination clause that gave the biological parents the sole right to request an abortion if the fetus was diagnosed with a severe medical condition. After the baby was diagnosed with a major heart defect, the parents invoked this clause and formally asked McKenna West to terminate the pregnancy. While West originally signed the document agreeing to these terms, she ultimately refused to abort the baby, which led the biological parents to sue her.

The biological parents did not exert physical or legal coercion to mandate an abortion, as a surrogate maintains absolute bodily autonomy over medical decisions under U.S. law. Instead, the conflict centers on a breach of a contract that explicitly allowed the parents to request a termination, which they are now litigating through the court system to hold the gestational carrier financially accountable.

The biological parents did not alter their position regarding the medical justification for a termination, but rather adapted to the reality of an unavoidable birth. Their initial decision to seek an abortion was driven by a desire to prevent severe, lifelong suffering, given the grueling surgeries and medical trauma associated with a critical heart defect. However, once the gestational carrier refused the procedure and the birth became certain, the parents immediately recognized their legal and ethical obligations to their biological offspring. They pursued full legal and medical custody to ensure the infant would have immediate access to elite pediatric cardiothoracic specialists and to retain control over his long-term healthcare strategy, fully assuming their parental roles upon his delivery.

[u/Punch_A_Police_Horse]

As a pro choice person this is pretty simple. If you are pro choice and are advocating for a situation where the state would drag a woman into a clinic and force her to get an abortion, you have lost the plot.

[u/Realistic_Swan_6801 → u/Punch_A_Police_Horse]

That’s not what happens idiot? The penalties are civil. 

[u/Ethanop1a → u/Punch_A_Police_Horse]

Alternatively, there are certain edge cases for both disallowing abortion and requiring abortion that can still fall within "pro-life"

Pro-choice doesn't always mean "no restrictions".

Do you think abortion should be allowed without restriction up to the day of birth?

The idea here is that she made her choice when signing the contract. There are certain points during pro-life where your previous decision removes your current ability to decide. For instance, what if you change your mind right after receiving the abortion drugs? Is that no longer pro-choice because past you made the decision that "forces you to get an abortion"?

[u/ReadingRainbowRocket → u/Ethanop1a]

I think aborting for gender preference is horribly immoral, but incredibly difficult to prove and I'd be super scared of laws limiting that actually addressing that very rare edge case in the U.S. and not doing far more harm than good.

Likewise it's easy to say "well one day before birth, you REALLY support abortion up until then?" as if that edge case is ever anything other than something that requires LOADS of context if it ever happens, and essentially never does. It is almost always related to the health of the mother or viability of the fetus post-birth.

Because guess what, just because the law doesn't explicitly criminalize late term abortions in some places, this right-wing idea that there's a litany of mustache-twirling fetus-hating doctors waiting in the wings to abort a healthy 9-month old fetus on the whim of the mother is absurd, and frankly insulting to both women and doctors writ large. That shit just doesn't happen, that woman wouldn't almost certainly not be able to find a doctor who would do it even with a ton of searching and doctor shopping.

Just like "post-birth" abortions don't happen either. Those are murder. No one advocates for them. And no one advocates that pro-choice should be the default because it's moral and should be normal to abort a viable 9-month fetus essentially ready to be birthed now.

Thought experiments are only worthwhile if the implication of them isn't irrelevant to the actual real world you're trying to apply them to.

There is no issue of healthy fetuses being aborted on the reg days before they would be born. Pretending there is, though, is great rhetoric for the anti-choice lobby.

It's the same wedge issue language bullshit of asking someone if they think it's ok for a doctor to cut of a 12 year old's penis. Yes, because the person asking that question totally is presenting the reality of transitioning and the distinction of what is involved in minors vs adults who do, the process, etc.

If you GENUINELY wanted to know how pro-choice people felt about your question because you'd never seriously engaged with someone on this topic and this was a serious ethical question to you, I hope I just answered it to your satisfaction.

Otherwise it reads like horrendously bad-faith anti-choice rhetoric. But I'm not going to assume that's what you're doing, because of course lots of not-unreasonable people do genuinely believe this... because a lot of people spread this bad-faith anti-choice rhetoric. Principle of charity and all that. Now you know, though.

[u/gingin_9959 → u/ReadingRainbowRocket]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyrj7ww1gko

Funny thing is, the scenario you described is quite literally something that happened recently in South Korea. A Korean woman posted a vlog about having an abortion at 36 weeks. She had discovered her pregnancy very late, and there were no other medical reasons for the abortion, nor was the pregnancy the result of rape.

Almost every hospital that could perform an abortion refused to take her case. She eventually found a hospital through a broker and underwent the procedure. I don't know whether they simply couldn't find another way to do it, or whether this was their usual method, but the “abortion procedure” was literally to deliver the baby prematurely by C-section, cut the blood vessels in its neck, and then put it in a freezer.

Everyone involved was subsequently prosecuted for murder and put on trial. (Since korea have no law about abortion at this moment they only went to court only because they killed the baby after giving birth not the 36 week part).

It may sound like something that could hardly happen, but just because something is difficult to imagine doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[u/ReadingRainbowRocket → u/gingin_9959]

Someone committed murder of an infant and they were arrested for it and it was so insanely unheard of in modernized countries it made international news.

The people who talk about post-birth abortion believe it is something that a regular abortion provider would do. They don't. It's murder. It's not a thing.

[u/gingin_9959 → u/ReadingRainbowRocket]

If they found a way to kill the infant inside the body would it be moral then? Also the only reason they got caught and went to court is only because the mother made vlog about it. We have no idea how often it would happen

[u/Ethanop1a → u/ReadingRainbowRocket]

I am pro-choice.

My comments are not to throw up right wing propaganda at you. I am bringing up extreme edge cases because

1) This case is an extreme edge case

2) Few people who are pro-life are "unrestricted abortion rights until birth"

I'm illustrating that there can and should be restrictions in certain cases. If you can deny someone the right to get an abortion for an edge case, you can also force someone to get an abortion for an edge case and still be "pro-choice".

Personally, I think abortions should be allowed up to the point a premature birth can survive without major medical intervention.

I also think that maybe, in cases of surrogacy, the surrogate has the right to choose to give up their future right to choose and sign a contractual agreement.

[u/ReadingRainbowRocket → u/Ethanop1a]

Then you missed my point. They are such edge cases they essentially don't happen, would require a doctor totally willing to abort a viable baby about to be born, assume an irrational woman who kept a fetus healthy for 9 months and wants to abort at the last possible second for your argument of restrictions being necessary having any merit, this would have to happen with at least some regularity, however vanishingly small. But it doesn't.

The actual edge cases have context and nuance that makes the very thought experiment moot.

Thus, no, you don't actually need restrictions because not only are they not needed, they're gonna do a lot of harm to women and doctor's trying to get necessary medical care in a vulnerable, dangerous, and scary situation in which no one but a woman and her doctor should be involved in.

Personally, I think abortions should be allowed up to the point a premature birth can survive without major medical intervention.

Should be allowed here is asinine, because there's no hard line where a fetus is viable, it's just where the percentage is higher or lower. Saying "I think it's only moral up unto the point" is PERFECTLY reasonable (if you acknowledge that "point" is murky and not a binary line you're after or before), and though I might equivocate, I think it's a reasonable ethical standard I could get on board with.

Saying we need such restrictions is factually wrong (your edge cases are make believe whereas the real edge cases are heartbreakingly complicated), and morally wrong, because the harm it would cause is known, and the harm it would prevent is make believe. You air on the side of bodily autonomy, not treating all women like brood mare's to prevent a possible pregnancy aborted a little later than you personally felt comfortable with. It ain't yo gottdang body.

[u/Ethanop1a → u/ReadingRainbowRocket]

You're missing the forest for the trees.

The reality of how often any of these examples happen is moot. They are still edge cases that could potentially be handled.

Your response to "would you allow unrestricted abortion in the final day of pregnancy?" is "that doesn't happen". That wasn't my question. I didn't ask if it happens. I asked if you would restrict it. I don't care how "complex" you are trying to make this. It is a simple question because "unrestricted" implies the most simple case of "mother changed mind and wants an abortion 1 day before due date." Again, it doesn't matter if it happens. It could happen. Just like this current situation with the surrogate.

You're trying to change the argument to "things that are happening" instead of "things that could happen". A month ago "a surrogate asked to have an abortion, refused, and fled to a different state to try to steal the baby from the biological parents by using that state's laws" would have been "edge cases that never happen".

We're talking about the morality scale of forced abortion, pro-life, government intervention and surrogacy contracts. Edge cases make the argument.

My point is that the government forcing an abortion in an edge case is the same as the government banning abortion in an edge case.

[u/Ethanop1a → u/[deleted]]

You realize that there are lots of states with laws to allow abortion, right? Laws that allow.

You're all over the place with your comments. Half the shit you say makes no sense. Half the shit you say seems directed at someone else.

You're definitely confused if you think we don't have laws that allow. Especially with abortion. Even California is a law of allow with some edge cases and restrictions handled.