Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan declined Tuesday to get involved in a custody battle over a baby in a case related to surrogacy and abortion. 

Kagan, who oversees emergency cases that stem from California, declined to refer the case to the full Supreme Court and declined to block a lower court's order that gave custody of the baby to his biological parents, despite their request that the surrogate have an abortion when the then-unborn baby was diagnosed with a serious heart problem, which she refused.

The couple had asked the surrogate, nurse McKenna West, to terminate the pregnancy in April after the baby was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome at approximately 20 weeks of pregnancy. Decisions regarding abortion were supposed to be made by the parents, per a provision in West's contract, according to the New York Times.

The baby was born in Texas in August and the parents of the baby, a California couple, have since been living in Texas while the baby boy recovers from open-heart surgery in the pediatric intensive care unit at a hospital in Dallas.

West's lawyer claimed in the emergency filing that their client was denied “control over the medically fragile child, and that without intervention “she will receive no further information about the child she carried for 37 weeks and fought to save.”

The attorneys also argued that the case should be resolved in Alaska instead of California.

Lawyers for the parents of the child argued that they are devoted to protecting their baby now and have ensured that “their child receives the lifesaving care he needs — and they are committed to doing so for the rest of his life."

The attorneys for the parents also pledged that “a right to life is not at issue here."

Kagan did not give an explanation on the ruling in her order.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.