Overview
- McKenna West has filed an emergency application with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan asking for an administrative stay and a stay pending review to block a Los Angeles court’s ex parte parentage judgment that named the intended parents.
- Texas courts have given full faith and credit to the California parentage order and dismissed West from the Texas proceedings with prejudice, a step her lawyers say leaves her barred from contesting custody there.
- The newborn was born in Dallas on Aug. 12 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, received an initial Norwood procedure and remains critically ill in a Texas hospital that has been ordered to provide medically indicated life‑sustaining care.
- West’s filings say the intended parents demanded she abort after the diagnosis and later obtained a restraining order barring her contact; she warns the child could be moved to California for hospice care if the high court does not act.
- The case asks the Supreme Court to resolve whether treating a jurisdictional defense as consent and enforcing out‑of‑state parentage orders without full hearings violates federal due process and could affect how surrogacy, forum clauses and full faith‑and‑credit rules work across states.