Aggregated News

When Sam Everingham employed an Indian surrogate to carry a child for him in 2009, he never imagined losing two baby boys in a Delhi hospital - nor terminating multiple pregnancies in women he did not know.

Yet these are some of the painful memories he and his partner Phil Copeland carry after spending four years navigating India's unregulated surrogacy system.

While the couple now have two healthy daughters, Ruby and Zoe, they say Australians should know about the moral, legal and financial risks in the booming global market.

Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia, leading hundreds of people each year to pay women overseas - mainly in India, the US and Thailand - to carry their children.

Mr Everingham, who runs a support group for Australians wanting to enter surrogacy arrangements, said while 95 per cent of people were happy with their experience, reports of abortions, questionable medical bills and baby mix-ups were increasingly emerging from overseas destinations where commercial surrogacy is legal.

One of the biggest problems was Indian doctors pushing people to transfer large numbers of embryos...