Texas surrogate birth sparks legal clash over life-saving care for baby with heart defect

A California couple’s surrogate gave birth in Texas to a boy with hypoplastic left heart syndrome after a dispute over abortion amid Texas’ abortion ban. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened with emergency orders to keep the fetus in-state and to require hospitals to provide life-saving care, while the surrogate says she felt trapped by the contract, and the couple asserts they had initially agreed to abortion. The HLHS condition requires multiple, non-curative surgeries and lifelong implications, highlighting tensions among surrogacy agreements, abortion laws, and medical treatment.