A prenatal diagnosis should never decide whether a child lives or dies.
This episode brings a unique perspective to the surrogacy case involving McKenna West and Baby Gabriel case, as OB/GYN Dr. Christina Francis and Pediatrician and Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) Dr. Jill Simons discuss the case from a medical perspective. They discuss what it reveals about disability discrimination, commercial surrogacy, and the urgent need to treat pre-born children as patients with dignity.
When baby Gabriel was diagnosed in the womb with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, the pressure on his surrogate to abort sparked a national conversation about who gets protected in medicine – and who gets treated like a commodity. In this conversation, listen to Drs. Francis and Jill unpack why that diagnosis is not the end of the story, what modern treatment for HLHS actually looks like, and why the right medical response starts with care, not abortion or abandonment.
