A Surrogate mother's plight in Thailand

Thailand is a favored destination for choosing surrogate mothers as there are no strict laws against surrogacy. Then the Thai women are beautiful, healthy and willing to become a surrogate mother, mostly driven by the need for money.   The price for surrogacy is nominal and in order to take care of hospitalization

 etc there are good hospitals in Bangkok. It was those considerations that made the medically infertile Australian couple to go to Thailand and meet an agent for arranging a surrogate mother. The couple did not directly contact the surrogate, their agent did all things for them like finding out suitable mother, fixing fees  and the hospitalization etc

. The surrogate mother the agent chose was 21 year old Pattharamon Janbua hailing from a village in Chon Bun province of Thailand, 90Kms from Bangkok and she has two other kids aged three and six. She agreed to become surrogate mother out of poverty. She was offered $15000/ which she found satisfactory to educate her children and pay back outstanding debts.

By the time the pregnancy reached 4 month old Doctors had found out that it was twins and one baby suffered down syndrome, a genetical disorder affecting growth and personal abilities. In such cases the Doctors advise abortion and in this case also the Australian couple had advised their agent to get the pregnancy aborted. But the mother, Ms Janbua refused to oblige and she said that being a Buddhist she  would not allow it.

Thus the pregnancy progressed and she gave birth to a baby girl and boy of which the boy, named Gammy suffered from down syndrome and congenital heart condition.

The agent  came to her  after she delivered the babes and took away the healthy baby girl leaving her with the sick kid , Gammy who needed expensive treatment to lead normal life. In addition to the Gammy’s routine treatment for the Down syndrome he suffered some lung ailments also which needed urgent medical attention. Janbua was virtually left high and dry.

The money Janbua got as surrogate mother was insufficient to meet even the immediate medical expenses and knowing her plight some people helped her put up a campaign named ‘ Hope for Gammy’ via the Newspaper and the ad read as such:  ‘ six month old baby Gammy was born in Bangkok with Down syndrome and congenital heart condition, He was abandoned by his family and is being cared by a young Thai woman who does not have the funds for the desperately needed medical treatment’ The ad concluded with a request for donation.

The request somehow got wide publicity and good response and she got more than $120000 in a couple of days. Now Ms.Janbua can give her Gammy the required love and care. She said she did not expect such overwhelming response. The identity of the Australian couple has not been revealed. They certainly would not have thought that their secret mission for a babe would wind up with such bad publicity against them. Everyone blames them as mean-spirited . They actually brought down the status of parenthood to a level of shopping.

In the end Ms Janbua advises her Thai friends not to stand as surrogate mothers. She asks them to think as to who will take care of the child if something goes wrong, like her own case.




 Images from Google