The Future of Wombs for Rent
        
            By Justine Drennan, 
                Foreign Policy
             | 03. 02. 2015
        
                    
                                    
                    
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                            
                              
    
  
  
    
  
          
  
      
    
             
  Untitled Document 
  
When Thailand’s parliament passed a law banning most forms of surrogacy late last month, its main motivations were   clear. Last year, two major scandals brought to a head long-standing   concerns that Thailand wasn’t doing enough to protect the women hired to   bear children for other people and the children born through surrogacy.   Last July, Thai media reported that an Australian couple had hired a   Thai surrogate to bear twins but abandoned one of the babies — a boy —   because he had Down syndrome and a congenital heart problem.   International media quickly confirmed the couple had left “Baby Gammy” with his surrogate mother and took his   healthy sister back to Australia, sparking widespread outrage.
 
  The second scandal materialized less than a month later, when reports   emerged that a 24-year-old Japanese man, Mitsutoki Shigeta, had paid at   least 11 women in Thailand through multiple surrogacy agencies to deliver at least 16 babies. His goal,   he told the worried staff of one agency, was to father 10 children per   year well into old age. The director of the concerned...
 
 
  
 
    
    
  
   
                        
                                                                                
                 
                                                    
                            
                                  
    
  
  
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