The " Surrogacy " mess !

When the baby Gammy story broke on the international news circuit it threw a spanner in the works of a well oiled surrogacy arrangement based in Thailand.   It could be said that the laws covering " wombs for hire " were at least opaque in that country, but now they have been stiffened to make that practice illegal - and at least two hundred Australian couples are stranded somewhere in the process of using surrogacy to obtain a baby.

There is panic as those who have received their child try and get it out of the country and it seems that the airport exit is no longer an option.  Surrogacy children lack a passport and the Thai authorities have clamped down on immigration checks.  It seems certain that getting over the border into a surrounding country will also present problems as the news story creates ever widening ripples.

The biggest source of despair is where the surrogacy is mid term.  In many cases a child with the biological genes of Australian parents will come into this world in coming months - and go immediately into legal limbo. If Thai law is unyielding, there is the prospect of Australian children being marooned in an Asian country - and possibly ending up in it's under resourced orphan facilities.   The only legal way to gain adoption involves the permission of a Thai judge and that could take at least a six month process to wend it's way through the courts.  The " Catch 22 " is that this also requires the adoptive parents to live in Thailand for the entire court application - and that is something many would find financially impossible.

Thailand is just one of many Asian  countries offering surrogacy facilities to the world, and in most the laws covering it are unclear.  It seems inevitable that the baby Gammy story will have repercussions and the least of those will be a tightening of whatever laws apply to taking babies out of the country of birth.  It is quite possible that there may be a clash between judicial law and religious practice in some countries to further complicate the surrogacy question.

For many childless couples this is an unmitigated disaster.   The thought of their child being born and then snatched away into legal limbo - and possibly abandoned by the birth mother if circumstances and poverty make maintaining the child impossible - is beyond comprehension.   Hopefully, the Thai authorities will be merciful and apply special circumstances to pregnancies entered into in good faith.

What is becoming crystal clear is the need for both the Federal government and the states to adopt a national set of surrogacy laws to apply to those who seek surrogacy here in Australia.   The fact that Australian couples are being forced to seek help in foreign countries is because this need has not been addressed within our framework of laws.   Huge strides have been made with IVF - and yet the issue of surrogacy has been virtually swept under the mat.

The citizens have a right to have this this omission corrected to  prevent future disasters similar to what is now happening in Thailand !