Funds raised for abandoned Thai surrogate child
Print Edition
WELL-WISHERS have raised nearly US$100,000 for a baby reportedly left with his surrogate Thai mother after his Australian parents discovered he had Down’s Syndrome and returned home with his healthy twin sister.
Pattaramon Chanbua from Chonburi Province, southeast of Bangkok, agreed via an agent to be a surrogate for the couple for a fee of A$16,000 (US$14,900), giving birth to twins — a boy and a girl — in December. But when the Australians discovered the boy, named Gammy by his surrogate family, had Down’s Syndrome they abandoned him in Thailand and returned to Australia with only the healthy girl, Australia’s ABC said.
“The money that was offered was a lot for me. In my mind, with that money, one, we can educate my children, two, we can repay our debt,” said Pattaramon, already a mother to two children, in an interview with the broadcaster in Chonburi.
But instead the 21-year-old was left to care for the boy who also suffers from a life-threatening heart condition requiring expensive treatment she cannot afford, according to ABC.
“I don’t know what to do. I chose to have him ... I love him, he was in my tummy for nine months,” she told ABC.
Pattaramon has never met Gammy’s Australian parents, according to Thai newspaper Thairath, which broke the story of Gammy last week, and their identities remain unknown.
“They (the surrogacy agency) told me to carry a baby for a family that does not have children ... They said it would be a baby in a tube,” she said.
A spokesman for Australia’s foreign affairs department said Canberra was “concerned” by the reports and was in consultation with Thai authorities over surrogacy issues.
The reports about Gammy’s abandonment have triggered hundreds to donate to a fundraising page created for him last week. Till late yesterday, the “Hope for Gammy” page had raised more than US$98,000.
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