“Australia queries ‘moral responsibility’ over abandoned Down’s baby”

A complication of transnational surrogacy: what happens when the contracting couple/parent(s) decide after birth that they do not want the child? In this case, one of two twins carried by a surrogate was born with Down syndrome. His “healthy” sister was taken by the contracting couple back to their home in Australia. He, and his medical care, and debt therefrom, were left with the Thai surrogate.

Another complication: the Down syndrome was diagnosed in utero. The agent for the couple urged the surrogate to abort. She refused.
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“Australia queries ‘moral responsibility’ over abandoned Down’s baby” — 2 Comments

  1. Well, the Australian utilitarian Peter Singer certainly knows what to do with Down’s babies.

    This gets back to what I have said before on this blog about abortion and foetal testing (not to mention what I’ve said about utilitarianism and surrogacy tourism).

    I support abortion on demand all the way to full term but absolutely draw the line at parturition because at that point it becomes less a question of the situation of the mother and more a judgement of whether the child is ‘life worthy of life’. I would also severely restrict foetal testing for the same reason.

    Surrogacy tourism is illegal in Australia, even if non-commercial (it’s legislated at state level and I think it is now banned in all states) and this is one of the few occasions I would advocate throwing the book at the offenders. To do so to those who wish to keep their baby would be to put deterrence and punishment ahead of the welfare of the child so I would normally object to it.

    Scott Morrison’s comments can be ignored. He is driven by an ideological opposition to non-European immigration into Australia and has lied about the circumstances of would be immigrants and refugees on numerous occasions.

    What needs to be assessed (without the input of anti-immigration ideologues) is whether the welfare of the child is best served by keeping it in Thailand with its mother, bringing it to Australia for adoption or bringing both mother and child into the country. That’s probably a toughie, but if the opinion of the mother is being accurately reported I would tend to lean towards the first option. (Also, if her words have been accurately reported I think she sounds like an eminently suitable person to raise the child, with whatever assistance is necessary and available).

    In any case I think both the Thai and Australian governments have a financial responsibility towards the well-being of the child for either legislating in a manner that makes this sort of thing possible or for failing to adequately police legislation that should have stopped it. However they also have the right to try to recoup at least some of those expenses from the surrogacy tourists and the agencies involved (inasmuch as the latter were breaking any laws).

    And I’m not sure what ‘told her to abort’ means, but if there was any coercion whatsoever used by the agency involved it is morally indefensible. As it would have been had they ‘told’ her to go through with it if she wanted to abort.

    The test for Down’s should not have been carried out in the first place.

  2. Thanks for pitching in on this. That gets at a lot of issues that needed elucidation. Some articles out on this today indicate that the couple may not have been told of the existence of the second twin, per a friend of mine. I will try to check on that and post again here in the comments.

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