Bangkok: Thailand’s parliament has voted to ban commercial surrogacy after outrage erupted over the largely unregulated industry following allegations an Australian couple abandoned a baby with Down’s syndrome, a legislator said on Friday.
A draft bill — which would see anyone profiting off surrogacy given a maximum ten year prison sentence — passed its first reading in the country’s military-stacked parliament yesterday, legislator Wallop Tungkananurak said.
“We want to put an end to this idea in foreigners’ minds that Thailand is a baby factory,” he told AFP.
“The bill was adopted with overwhelming support.” Commercial surrogacy was technically banned by Thailand’s Medical Council, but until recently even top fertility clinics were believed to offer the service.
The murky industry came under intense scrutiny this summer after a series of surrogacy scandals broke involving foreigners. In August, a Thai mother who carried twin babies for an Australian couple accused them of abandoning a baby boy with Down’s syndrome while taking his healthy sister. (PTI)
