ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian judge said Thursday that two years ago a couple rejected a child born to an Indian surrogate mother because of the baby’s gender, but took home its twin sibling.
News of the case that dates back to 2012 follows a recent furor over an Australian couple that left behind a disabled twin born to a Thai surrogate mother that prompted a ban on commercial surrogacy in Thailand.
Australian Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant said in a statement that she was told by Australian embassy officials in New Delhi that the couple’s decision to leave the baby they paid an Indian surrogate to deliver was based on its gender. The twins were a brother and sister. Bryant did not know what gender the parents wanted.
“They explained that when the commissioning parents were advised that twins were born, the commissioning parents refused to agree to take both children,” Bryant said.
“It is believed that they only wanted one child as they already had one and wanted one of a different gender,” she added.
The Australian High Commission in New Delhi delayed giving the Australian parents a visa for the wanted child while they tried to persuade them to take both children, Bryant said.
A person claiming to be a friend later took the unwanted that baby. But embassy officials doubted the person was a friend and suspected money had changed hands, Bryant said.
Bryant said the actions to delay giving the visa while discussing the matter with the parents “were in no way inappropriate.”
“In fact, they were doing their best to deal with a significant moral dilemma — there simply was no legal authority requiring the commissioning couple to take both children,” Bryant said.
Bryant’s statement repeated an account of the Indian case she made in an address on Wednesday to the National Family Law Conference in Sydney, which was reported in the media.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the High Commission’s role had been limited to assessing the parents’ application for citizenship and a passport for the chosen twin.
“As the parents decided to apply for citizenship for only one child and consequently the other child was not granted Australian citizenship, India became responsible for the welfare of the other child and adoption arrangements became a matter for its legal system,” the department said in a statement.
“Since this case, the Indian Government has tightened controls on commercial surrogacy arrangements in India,” it added, without elaborating.
Bryant said she backed Federal Circuit Court Chief Judge John Pascoe’s call at the same conference on Wednesday for a national inquiry into international commercial surrogacy.
“I think international surrogacy is the new front line in human trafficking and we have enough anecdotal evidence to believe that people are commissioning children willy-nilly without any proper protections for the children or for the surrogate mothers,” Pascoe told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Most Australian states outlaw commercial surrogacy but some allow Australians to pay surrogate mothers to have their babies overseas.
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