An Australian couple hired a poverty-stricken woman in Thailand to be the surrogate mother of twins. They took the healthy child but the other one had Downs Syndrome so they left him with the mother.
From Thai surrogate mom not upset with Australia couple – The Washington Post:
A Thai surrogate mother said Sunday that she was not angry with the Australian biological parents who left behind a baby boy born with Down syndrome, and hoped that the family would take care of the boy’s twin sister they took with them.
Pattaramon Chanbua, a 21-year-old food vendor in Thailand’s seaside town of Sri Racha, has had to take a break from her job to take care of her 7-month-old surrogate baby, named “Gammy,” who also has a congenital heart condition. The boy, with blond hair and dark brown eyes, is now being treated in a hospital for infection in his lungs.
Pattaramon said she met the Australian couple once when the babies were born and knew only that they lived in Western Australia state.
“I’ve never felt angry at them or hated them. I’m always willing to forgive them,” Pattaramon told The Associated Press. “I want to see that they love the baby girl as much as my family loves Gammy. I want her to be well taken care of.”
Pattaramon was promised 300,000 baht ($9,300) by a surrogacy agency in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, to be a surrogate for the Australian couple, but she has not been fully paid since the children were born last December.
She said the agency knew about Gammy’s condition four to five months after she became pregnant but did not tell her. It wasn’t until the seventh month of her pregnancy when the doctors and the agency told her that one of the twin babies had Down syndrome and suggested that she have an abortion just for him.
Pattaramon recalled strongly rejecting the idea, believing that having the abortion would be sinful. “I asked them, ‘Are you still humans?’ I really wanted to know,” she said Sunday.
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