Hun Daneth felt that, counted on that.

When she gave birth to the boy, who didn't look like her, she knew it even more.

But four years after acting as a surrogate for a Chinese businessman, who said he had used a Russian egg donor, Ms Hun Daneth is being forced by the Cambodian courts to raise the little boy or risk going to jail.

The businessman is in prison over the surrogacy; his appeal was denied in June.

Even as she dealt with the shock of raising the baby, Ms Hun Daneth dutifully changed his diapers.

Over the months and years, she found herself hugging and kissing him, cajoling him to eat more rice so he could grow big and strong. She has come to see this child as her own.

"I love him so much," said Ms Hun Daneth, who is looking after the boy with her husband.

The fates of a Cambodian woman, a Chinese man and the boy who binds them together reflect the intricate ethical dilemmas posed by the global surrogacy industry.

The practice is legal — and often prohibitively expensive — in some countries, while others have outlawed it.

Still, other nations with weak legal systems, like Cambodia, have allowed grey markets to operate, endangering those involved when political conditions suddenly shift and criminal cases follow.

When carried out transparently with safeguards in place, supporters say, commercial surrogacy allows people to expand their families while fairly compensating the women who give birth to the children.

Done badly, the process can lead to the abuse of vulnerable people, whether the surrogates or the intended parents.

The practice flourishes in the nebulous space between those who can and cannot bear children; between those with the means to hire someone to bear their biological offspring and the women who need the money; and between those whose sexuality or marital status means they can't adopt or otherwise become parents and those whose fertility spares them having to face such restrictions.

Though she never intended to raise the boy, Ms Hun Daneth has come to see him as her own. "I love him so much," she said.

As the industry flourished, the government imposed a ban on surrogacy, promising to pass legislation officially outlawing it.

The ill-defined injunction, imposed in a graft-ridden country with little rule of law, ended up punishing the very women the government had vowed to safeguard.

In 2018, Ms Hun Daneth was one of about 30 surrogates, all pregnant, who were nabbed in a police raid on an upmarket housing complex in Phnom Penh. Although Cambodia to this day has no law specifically limiting surrogacy, the government criminalized the practice by using existing laws against human trafficking, an offence that can carry a 20-year sentence. Dozens of surrogates have been arrested and accused of trafficking the babies they birthed.

In a poor country long used as a playground by foreign predators — paedophiles, sex tourists, factory bosses, antique smugglers and, yes, human traffickers — the Cambodian authorities said they were on the lookout for exploitation.

"Surrogacy means women are willing to sell babies, and that counts as trafficking," said Chou Bun Eng, a secretary of state at the ministry of interior and vice chair of the national countertrafficking committee.

"We do not want Cambodia to be known as a place that produces babies to buy."

But applying a human trafficking law to surrogacy has imposed the heaviest costs on the surrogates themselves.

Nearly all of those arrested in the 2018 raid gave birth while imprisoned in a military hospital; some chained to their beds.

They, along with several surrogacy agency employees, were convicted of trafficking the babies.

Their sentencings, two years later, came with a condition: In exchange for suspended prison terms, the surrogates would have to raise the children themselves. If the women secretly tried to deliver the children to the intended parents, the judge warned, they would be sent to prison for many years.

This means that women whose financial precarity led them to surrogacy are now struggling with one more mouth to feed.

From behind the bars of a courthouse in Phnom Penh, Xu Wenjun, the intended father of the boy to whom Ms Hun Daneth gave birth, spoke quickly, his words tumbling out before the police intervened. He has been in prison for three years.

"My son must be big by now," said Mr Xu, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit.

"Do you think he remembers me?" Continue reading

While they argue it's the right of every woman to decide what to do with her own body, they are staunchly against surrogacy.

Surrogacy in this context is the practice of arranging for another woman to carry and give birth to another woman's child.

Members of Se Non Ora Quando met last week at a high-profile anti-surrogacy conference at Rome's Lower House of Parliament.

The many conservative Catholic politicians at the conference were delighted with the support they received from staunchly left-wing feminists.

These feminists came from Italy, Germany, Sweden and France.

They argued the United Nations should "ban the practice of surrogacy," describing it as "incompatible with human rights and with the dignity of women."

Surrogacy is not legal in Western Europe - and has been banned in several countries including Germany and France.

The European Parliament rejected surrogacy in a 2015 non-binding resolution.

However, many women reportedly seek women willing to undertake surrogacy roles in countries where the practice is legal.

It is an option, for instance, for women in Canada and the United States.

It is also legal in New Zealand.

The Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2004 authorises altruistic surrogacy in New Zealand, but prohibits commercial surrogacy agreements.

Source

• CNA
• The Atlantic
• Image: Surrogacy Insurance

In a submission to an Australian parliamentary sub-committee's inquiry, the bishops said it would be "intolerable" to argue "harm minimisation" as justification for commercial surrogacy.

"Children are not commodities and should not be bought," said Bishop Peter Comensoli, the bishops' delegate for life issues.

"Legalising commercial surrogacy would allow the introduction of market values into the intimate and loving role that women have of carrying and giving birth to their child."

The bishops criticised the concept of surrogacy, both commercial and altruistic.

The bishops acknowledged the pain and sadness couples face when they cannot have children because of infertility or the inability to carry a child to full term.

But the bishops pointed out surrogacy can transfer sadness from the infertile couple to the surrogate mother.

"Surrogacy allows for the exploitation of the women who act as surrogate mothers," Bishop Comensoli said.

"It requires a woman to deny many of the significant, integral parts of the experience of pregnancy, which could have a long standing psychological impact on the surrogate mother.

"It gives priority to the childless woman, man or commissioning parents over the woman who is the surrogate mother."

Bishop Comensoli added: "Surrogacy is not undertaken with the priorities and interests of the child in mind, but rather the interests of the adults who want a child."

Bishop Comensoli praised adoption, but said a child should never be produced for the purposes of adoption.

"Surrogacy is different to adoption," he said.

"Where children are adopted by a mother and a father, this matches the model a child should expect of a mother and a father in marriage as a good alternative for when a child cannot be brought up by her or his natural parents."

Sources

• Australian Catholic Bishops Conference
• Image: Emaze

A draft bill — which would see those caught profiting from surrogacy punished with up to ten years in prison — passed its first reading in the country's military-stacked parliament on Thursday, legislators said Friday.

"We want to put an end to this idea in foreigners' minds that Thailand is a baby factory," said lawmaker Wallop Tungkananurak.

"The bill was adopted with overwhelming support," he added.

A copy of the bill seen by AFP also forbids "any middlemen or agencies... receiving any assets or benefits" through the surrogacy process.

Under its current wording it is unlikely foreigners will be able to use Thailand as a surrogacy destination with the same ease they once enjoyed.

The murky industry came under intense scrutiny this summer after a series of surrogacy scandals broke involving foreigners, prompting the promise of a crack down by Thailand's military junta, which took power in a May coup. Continue reading

Dozens — possibly hundreds — of foreign couples are thought to now be in limbo after entering into surrogacy arrangements through clinics in the kingdom.

Australians have responded generously with support for this photogenic little boy so that he can receive appropriate medical treatment.

The Thai government has responded by proposing restrictions on this form of trafficking in human persons and there has been much criticism of the commissioning couple, culminating in the discovery of an apparent history of child abuse by the commissioning male partner.

The public and media reaction to these circumstances has been interesting.

The shared premise would seem to be a negative reaction to a couple abandoning their biological child because he has a disability.

There is also the plight of the birth mother who has not apparently received what was due to her under the commercial arrangement.

Disquiet has also been expressed about the fact that the arrangement was commercial and exploitative of the poverty of the Thai birth mother.

A matter that seems to be relatively hidden in this discussion is that it would have been normal Western medical practice (around 90% of cases) to have aborted Gammy when it was discovered that he had Down's syndrome, but his birth mother reportedly refused on religious and conscientious grounds.

The fact is that whatever a commissioning couple might want, a birth mother has the final say on such matters under the criminal law in most jurisdictions, though of course she may be placed under contractual and financial pressure to do as the agency or the commissioning couple want.

That decision about eugenic abortion generally favoured by the medical profession, and warranting expensive early detection by screening and invasive testing to detect abnormality, raises curious anomalies about attitudes to disability.

Disability discovered before birth is seen differently from disability after birth. Continue reading

Sources

• ABC Religion and Ethics
• Image: BBC

Surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua from Thailand is caring for seven-month-old Gammy after an Australian couple chose his healthy twin sister, but abandoned him.

The couple, David and Wendy Farnell, are the biological parents of the twins.

They say they did not know about Gammy, but news reports contradict this, with one having Ms Chanbua say the father had met the twins.

Other reports say when the couple found out about problems with Gammy, they asked Ms Chanbua to have an abortion, which she refused.

But the Farnells deny this.

In a strongly worded comment piece the Vatican's semi-official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano warned that other cases will follow.

The newspaper stated: "We should not be surprised that if parents have ordered a baby renting a woman's womb they will reject a child that is not healthy and perfect."

"If a child becomes a product to buy, it is obvious that as with any acquisition it must be to the purchaser's liking."

"People have no cause to be indignant that the couple refused a child that was ‘imperfect'," the article said.

"In realty there is little to be indignant about - if you accept the logic of a child a as product this is the obvious consequence."

The case has made international headlines, causing uproar in Australia.

Adding fuel to the fire are revelations that the father has child sex abuse convictions in the 1990s.

West Australian state authorities told the BBC they were now conducting a "full investigation" to assess Mr Farnell's "suitability" to have a young child in his custody.

Ms Chanbua has insisted Gammy's twin sister be returned to Thailand.

Both the Australian government and Thai health authorities are now looking into the case and the larger issue of commercial surrogacy in Thailand, which is mostly unregulated.

An online fundraising campaign so far has raised tens of thousands of dollars to help Ms Chanbua with Gammy's medical expenses.

He has a congenital heart condition and a lung infection.

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Independent
• BBC
• Daily Mail
• Image: Sydney Morning Herald

"I was just catatonic," she said.

The shock turned into depression, as she began to mourn what she had lost. "I was a daddy's girl. I had a great childhood, and was the apple of my non-biological dad's eye. [I] adored my dad," said Blessing, a homeschooling mother of five, who lives in Tennessee.

"It really hurt to find out [my dad] wasn't mine in the way I thought he was," she said. "I grew up hearing about his dad being a cowboy. Everybody on dad's side of the family could tool leather like nobody…my grandmother, who is about to turn 100…they aren't mine anymore," she said.

Then, she began to mourn the loss of her biological father. "As much as my dad adored me, it hurts to know that the man who helped create me chose to have nothing to do with my life," said Blessing. "People are deceiving themselves if they think they can love somebody enough to make up for the person who isn't there."

She had never suffered from depression before, and her husband, an evangelical pastor, had no experience in dealing with an issue quite like this one.

Blessing was finally told her conception story due to concerns she had over her dad's failing health from progressive supranuclear palsy, a condition similar to Parkinson's disease. Once in robust health, her father was having an array of physical and cognitive problems, and his health appeared to decline more with each visit. Was Blessing genetically disposed to this disease? Would her husband have to take care of her the same way her mother now had to take care of her father? Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: examiner.com

One of them is being developed by National's Nikki Kay and Green's Kevin Hague.

In an email to gayexpress on Monday Hague said "the cat's out of the bag" after the National Party's northern regional conference in Auckland last weekend passed a remit that supports adoption by couples who are in a civil union.

Hague confirmed that, "Nikki Kaye and I are working on an adoption reform Bill, which we hope will be ready soon and may be picked up by the Government.

"Contrary to the impression given by the Herald, it's actually a comprehensive reform, but one of its features is clearing the way for adoption by same-sex couples (and other queer people actually)."

The National party's national conference in July is expected to debate a gay adoption remit, although, should it be adopted as Government policy, such a matter would be a conscience vote in Parliament.

The Prime Minister John Key says he would give initial support to potential legislation to legalise adoption by gay couples.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• gayexpress
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: NewstalkZB

International case work director Paula Attrill said some New Zealanders were now stuck in tricky immigration nightmares. "The baby is born and therein starts the problem - the baby is not legally theirs. Sometimes the child is not entitled to a passport and travel documents cannot be issued. It is a really new area."

"In the past 18 months, at least two New Zealand babies had been born of Indian surrogates. But divergent surrogacy laws have meant the babies are not recognised as citizens of either country."

Domestic surrogacy arrangements can cost about $10,000 in fees to fertility clinics, and an extra $4,000 for legal costs.

In many countries however, the practice is not regulated. Costs vary but begin at about $30,000 for an Indian surrogate, to about $100,000 in the United States.

IVF treatment is publicly funded in New Zealand for two cycles. Since January 2010, CYF has received 63 inquiries from people considering or having already commissioned a baby from overseas.

The Government is aware of 15 children born overseas as a result of an arrangement from New Zealand.

Three sets of New Zealand parents are currently going through the international surrogacy process.

Source

• TVNZ
• DomPost
• Image: WhereismyDoctor.com

Laura Ashmore and Jennifer Williams are sisters. After that, their relationship becomes more complex. When Ms. Ashmore and her husband learned a few years ago that they could not conceive a child, Ms. Williams stepped in and offered to become pregnant with a donor sperm on behalf of the couple, and give birth to the child. The baby, Mallory, was born in September 2007 and adopted by Ms. Ashmore and her husband.

Ms. Williams, who has a lesbian partner, had a biological child, Jamison, who was conceived through a sperm donor, too. And the sisters wondered how to describe the relationship between Mallory and Jamison.

"Mallory is my daughter and Jennifer is her aunt," said Ms. Ashmore. At home, Jamison sometimes refers to Mallory as his sister. But at school, said Ms. Williams, "she's his cousin." The sperm donors, they agreed, had no place on the family tree.

Source

Read Laura Holson in The New York Times

Laura M. Holson is an award-winning reporter who currently writes about communications, media and the mobile lifestyle from New York. nbsp