March 19, 2024

Thailand cracks down on surrogacy

An Australian couple who commissioned a surrogate mother in rural Thailand abandoned a Down syndrome twin and left him with his impoverished mother.

An Australian couple who commissioned a surrogate mother in rural Thailand abandoned a Down syndrome twin and left him with his impoverished mother, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The story of 21-year-old Pattharamon Janbua, who is married with a three-year-old and a six-year-old in Chonburi province in northern Thailand, emerged as the Thai military government begins to crack down on Thailand’s burgeoning surrogacy industry.

The couple asked her to abort the Down syndrome boy, named Gammy, but she refused. After the birth, the surrogacy agent took the girl twin and left the boy with the surrogate. Now Ms Pattharamon realises that she had been terribly naïve. Gammy has serious heart problems and without an operation, he will probably die. The agent cheated Ms Pattharamon of a good chunk of her fee; she never met the commissioning couple. 

“I asked the agency, ‘Did I have to sleep with the man?’ I was an innocent young girl and I don’t know about this business,” she told the SMH. “The agent told me, ‘We are going to make a glass tube baby,’ but I didn’t understand. “My husband agreed because we didn’t have money to pay our debt and I didn’t need to have sex with another man.”

The case has been widely publicised in Australia. This is “an incredibly sad story,” said Prime Minister Tony Abbott. “I guess it illustrates some of the pitfalls involved in this particular business. It’s a very, very sad story and I hate to think that a child could be abandoned like that.” 

To put a stop to abuses like this, the military government plans to ban commercial surrogacy. From now on, the intended parents have to be married, heterosexual and medically infertile, the transaction must be altruistic, and the surrogate must be related to the intended parents. If the law is enforced, it will end a booming industry.

“The recent change in law in Thailand is likely to particularly impact upon same-sex couples, with many of the popular ‘low-cost’ destinations for surrogacy restricting surrogacy to married heterosexual couples,” says Anne-Marie Hutchinson, of Dawson Cornwell, a UK family law firm.

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