Rejected !

Ordinary Australians were quick to put their hands in their pockets when news broke about a surrogacy gone wrong in Thailand.   A childless Australian couple paid a young Thai mother sixteen thousand dollars to have their child and this pregnancy resulted in twins.   One twin was a perfectly healthy baby girl - but the other was a boy affected by Down Syndrome and with a hole in the heart that needed expensive surgery. The Australian couple brought the baby girl back to Australia with them, but rejected the boy - who his birth mother has called " Gammy ".

So far over $ 190,000 has rolled in by way of donations to secure the medical intervention that would be otherwise unaffordable.  Medically this little boy will receive the treatment he needs, but the rejection leaves both an ethical and a moral question to be answered.

The legal profession may probably argue over nationality.   The fact that this child was born in Thailand seems to confer Thai nationality, but conception was by way of the procreation of two Australian citizens - and presumably this boys sister is now a legal resident of this country.  In technical terms, this was an Australian child residing in a hired womb for the term of the pregnancy.  Had he been born with perfect health, he would now be resident in Australia.

It raises the moral question that arises with the concept of surrogacy.   Had the childless Australian woman been able to conceive without the need for a surrogacy, there is no question of rejection of a child born with medical problems.   The Australian health system would provide any rectification that was possible and the parents would be expected to cope with whatever limitations the condition imposed.

The laws that apply to surrogacy are varied and disjointed, and differ greatly between the Australian states. In some instances they are approved - provided no money changes hands.  It is common for a sister or other relative to share a womb with a childless couple as an act of love, but paid surrogacy is a booming business throughout Asia - and the motive is usually profit.

Many people will deplore the rejection of Gammy because of his disability.   It will be seen as a heartless decision.  The money is now available for the best medical treatment but it also means that a little Australian boy will live his life in an Asian city - because he has been rejected by his biological parents.  His birth mother has other children, but they have bonded and she accepts the need to give him the love and protection he will need to deal with his infirmity.

What we obviously need is firm and clear Australian law - covering this entire country - to make it unnecessary to conduct clandestine pregnancy arrangements in other parts of the world.   The IVF programme has come a long way in banishing the anguish of childless couples and there is no reason that surrogacy here could not fill any remaining gaps - provided reasonable laws were in place.   It would be sensible to concede reasonable compensation for the time and effort involved in a surrogacy - and in this twenty-first century it should take it's place amongst the medical services that we take for granted.