Australia Ignores Surrogacy Ban In Thailand, Continues Act As ‘Middleman’

Australia is allegedly playing a “highly questionable” role in Asian commercial surrogacy markets. The allegation comes from a top judge of the country.

Federal Circuit Court Chief Judge John Pascoe expressed concerns about the continuation of commercial surrogacy markets in developing countries. He appeared in front of a parliamentary committee to express his views on the issue.

According to Pascoe, Australians are one of the major middlemen in commercial surrogacy markets in Asia. He said that it was “deeply disturbing” that Australians were “heavily involved” in the production and sale of newly-born children. He called overseas baby markets as the “Wild West.” “My concern is the number of Australians involved in middlemen and often in activities that are highly questionable at the very least,” the judge told the committee.

Pascoe specifically talked about Thailand. The Asian country earlier passed laws against the continuation of the commercial surrogacy industry. The judge said that Australians continued to back for commercial surrogacy arrangements. He said that he was “very concerned.” He added that he was told that there had been Australians “very much involved in the surrogacy clinics.” “One of them is now both recruiting potential surrogate mothers and looking for commissioning parents in Australia and telling them, ‘Don’t worry about it; the law will change,” he said.

The parliamentary committee said that the Australian embassy was not giving much importance to Thailand’s ban against surrogacy. The embassy is apparently granting passports to “wombs-for-rent” babies. The committee also said that Childless Australian couples had been exploiting surrogate mothers from the third world.

The bipartisan House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs asked the Tony Abbott government to initiate a comprehensive inquiry into commercial surrogacy. George Christensen, the chairman of the committee, said that Australian embassy in Thailand was still issuing passports for surrogate ­babies without giving it a second thought.

According to Christensen, authorities are issuing passports “without thinking twice” even when they receive an application for a child which would be born through surrogacy ­arrangements. He said he was concerned that surrogate mothers could be forced into giving consent for Australian citizenship so that they could receive payment.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au