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Thailand approves draft law against commercial surrogacy

Thailand on Wednesday gave a preliminary approval to a draft law to make commercial surrogacy a criminal offence after the country hit international headlines following an Australian couple allegedly abandoned their ailing baby from a Thai surrogate mother.

‘The NCPO has approved a surrogacy draft law...We will punish through criminal law those who practice and are involved in commercial surrogacy,’ a spokesperson for the National Council for Peace and Order, a body set up by the country’s military junta told reporters.

‘Those who hire surrogate mothers or make this a commercial business will be violating criminal law,’ Bangkok Post quoted the spokesperson, Pattamaporn Rattanadilok na Phuket, as saying. The step was taken after the Australian couple, David and Wendy Farnell, allegedly abandoned their baby suffering from Down’s Syndrome with a Thai surrogate mother.

The surrogate mother had alleged that the six-month-old baby, Gammy, was abandoned while his Australian parents took his healthy twin sister home.

The couple, however, denied that they abandoned the baby, claiming that the surrogate mother insisted that she be allowed to keep the boy and that she had threatened to also keep his twin sister.

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