Australian news sources are reporting that an anonymous Australian couple, who paid a young Thai woman to be a surrogate mother to their twins, returned to Australia with only one of their children.
The twins were born six months ago, and the one was left behind was born with Down syndrome.
The 21-year-old surrogate mother has named the little boy Gammy, and is trying to raise the money to save his life as he is also critically ill with a congenital heart condition. However, she agreed to be a surrogate mother because she was struggling financially in the first place, so she fears she won’t be able to afford to save Gammy’s life.
According to reports, the couple paid Ms. Janbua $11,700 to carry their baby in an illegal surrogacy deal. Thai law states that the only legal surrogacy cases are those in which a married couple get a blood relative to carry their child in an altruistic surrogacy arrangment - meaning they cannot pay someone to be a surrogate mother for them.
When the couple found out they were having twins, they gave Ms. Janbua more money to deliver the second baby. However, when it was discovered at four months that one of the babies had Down syndrome, they reportedly asked Ms. Janbua to terminate the pregnancy.
Ms. Janbua, who is a Buddhist, told the Sydney Morning Herald: “They told me to have an abortion but I didn’t agree because I am afraid of sin.”
She never met the couple, and all the dealings went through a surrogacy agent. When the babies were born in Bangkok six months ago, she lied to an official of the Australian embassy in Bangkok about the circumstances of the births, because she was threatened with not being paid. This allowed the couple to take the healthy baby home to Australia.
