By Jenna Ellis for THE CHRISTIAN POST
A contract is not a license. Americans believe strongly in freedom of contract, but that freedom has never meant every promise put on paper becomes legally enforceable simply because two parties agreed and signed their names.
You cannot contract to commit a crime. You cannot buy another human being or a human organ. You cannot hire someone to murder your enemy and then sue him for breach of contract if he gets cold feet.
And no woman should face breach of contract liability because she refused to abort a child.
Yet that issue is among the extraordinary legal questions raised by the case of McKenna West, a surrogate mother who refused to abort a baby diagnosed at 20 weeks with a serious congenital heart condition.
West carried a baby whose biological parents are California couple Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed. After the diagnosis, a dispute arose over terminating the pregnancy. West ultimately refused, fled to Texas for legal protection, and carried the baby Gabriel to term, giving birth in August. The intended parents have alleged numerous breaches of the surrogacy agreement and are seeking more than $100,000 in damages.
