Four couples from the US and Australia have been prevented from leaving Thailand with surrogate babies as part of a government crackdown on the burgeoning commercial surrogacy industry, an Australian broadcaster reported yesterday.
The crackdown follows recent publicity over a Thai surrogate mother who said she was left with a baby rejected by his Australian biological parents after he was born with Down syndrome. The biological parents, who took the boy’s healthy twin sister home, dispute the circumstances in which they abandoned their son.
Two Australian same-sex couples were prevented by Thai officials from leaving the Bangkok airport on Thursday afternoon with babies born to Thai women, Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported. One couple had attempted to travel with the Thai surrogate mother in the hope of avoiding a challenge at the immigration desk, ABC said.
Two US couples were prevented from leaving Thailand with babies in similar circumstances since Wednesday, ABC said.
Thai officials told ABC the couples would have to apply for court orders to take the babies from the country, a process that could take months.
Thailand’s immigration police spokesman Colonel Voravat Amornvivat said the Bangkok airport’s immigration departure section had no record of Australian couples with surrogate babies who were barred from leaving Thailand. However, he said that it might be possible that it was not flagged in the system.
“If it did happen, it could be because the couples could not provide sufficient documents to prove that the babies are theirs,” Voravat said. “Under the Thai law, in order to bring an infant out of the country, it has to be proven that the infant is traveling with or accompanied by the parents. And due to the recent surrogacy issue, the authorities are stricter in keeping an eye on those leaving the country.”
Melissa Sweeney, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Bangkok, said in an e-mail that the embassy was aware of reports that some parents with children born to surrogates have not been permitted to leave Thailand.
Embassy officials were seeking clarification about Thailand’s immigration requirements and talking to Thai government authorities to determine what the ramifications may be for US parents who have already entered into surrogacy agreements in Thailand, she said.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday would not confirm ABC’s report, citing privacy reasons.
“We strongly urge Australians entering Thailand for the purposes of commercial surrogacy to seek independent legal advice in both Thailand and Australia before doing so,” the department said in a statement. “In particular, they should seek advice on the implications of any new exit requirements.”
Scores of Australian biological parents are currently pregnant through surrogates in Thailand.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion