Thai government moves to outlaw ‘wombs for hire’

Thailand’s military government gave preliminary approval for a draft law to make commercial surrogacy a criminal offence, following a spate of dramatic surrogacy scandals in the past two weeks.

The case of an Australian couple accused of abandoning their Down syndrome son to his Thai surrogate mother unleashed an international outcry over the “wombs for hire” business that rights groups say preys on poor and vulnerable women in countries such as India and Thailand.

“The NCPO has approved a surrogacy draft law,” Pattamaporn Rattanadilok na Phuket, a spokeswoman for the military government, officially known as the National Council for Peace and Order, told reporters.