Family · Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Metro · August 26, 2026
Surrogacy Dispute in Dallas Pits Life-and-Death Custody Claims Against Contract
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The dispute has been reduced to one named woman on one side and one named couple on the other, and each side has even given the child a different name — "Rumi" to the intended parents, "Gabriel" to the surrogate and the activists who have taken up his case. The court order barring McKenna West from seeing or holding the baby freezes her out physically, and the counterclaim seeking over $100,000 from her personally makes the cost individual rather than institutional. Both camps now have a face to rally against, which is exactly the condition under which a legal question stops being argued and starts being fought.
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
If you speak about this case in your church or online, use both names the child has been given and say plainly that a Dallas judge has not yet ruled on custody. Refuse to make Nausheen Gilkar a villain by name from a pulpit or a comment thread — you were not in the courtroom and the accounts are disputed. If you want to stand with someone, do it concretely: give to the legal fund of whichever party you support, and say why in one sentence of fact, not in a paragraph about the other party's character.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
The breach-of-contract counterclaim seeking more than $100,000 does work far beyond this one case: any surrogate reading about it now knows what refusing a termination request may cost her. The dollar figure is the message, and it lands on every woman weighing a contract whether or not this couple ever collects a cent. The same is true in reverse — the threat of losing a child to the woman who carried him is being felt by intended parents watching from other states.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Cost the fear honestly instead of repeating it. Under Texas Family Code 160.762(a) a gestational agreement that was never validated by a court is unenforceable, so the size of a counterclaim is not the same as the size of a judgment — read that section before you tell anyone what surrogates "can be sued for." If your church has a benevolence or legal-aid fund, ask the deacons in writing, this month, what the fund would and would not cover in a case like this, and get the answer recorded before anyone needs it.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
The free 4-minute assessment identifies your mountain and your institution’s capture phase — so alerts like this one arrive matched to where you actually stand.
Facing this yourself? Ask. Describe what is happening and get what the book, Scripture, and the law of your state say, with the exact words to use. Your first one is free.