Australians ‘wanted to take baby’

THE agent who brokered a surrogacy deal for an Australian couple at the centre of a scandal that left a Thai mother caring for a baby with Down’s syndrome, said yesterday the couple had offered to take the boy home with them along with his twin sister.

The case has raised questions about Thailand’s lax laws on surrogacy and caused an outcry in Australia, sparking calls for an overhaul of laws to cut the number of couples travelling abroad in search of surrogate mothers.

The agent said the biological parents made the offer to take the boy some weeks after the birth, despite claims by surrogate mother Pattaramon Janbua that the couple had abandoned the baby after they found out he had Down’s syndrome.

“In the end, they told me they would take both babies. They didn’t want to be a problem for the surrogate mother any more but she [Pattaramon] did not take that chance,” the agent, who only wanted to be identified by her nickname, Joy, said.

The boy, Gammy, now seven months old, is being treated for a lung infection in a hospital east of Bangkok and also has heart problems.

Australian couple David and Wendy Farnell have taken his healthy twin sister back to Australia. They have not spoken publicly about the case and reports of their actions have been muddled and contradictory.

Media reports that David Farnell was a sex offender have fuelled the outrage over the case.

According to Australian District Court documents, he was jailed in 1997 for a minimum of three years for sex offences involving three girls aged under 13. – Reuters