Surrogacy In Thailand?

[otissp]

I'm wondering if it's possible to have a baby with my wife via a surrogate mother here in thailand. Google tells me that in 2010, they were considering passing legislation that would formally establish and regulate surrogacy here, but it doesnt look like it went anywhere. As far as I can tell, it is not prohibited to have a woman deliver a child for you in a surrogacy arrangment, however, it appears that legally the child would originally be the child of the surrogate mother, and the surrogate mother would have to allow my wife to adopt the baby. Also if she decided to keep the child as her own, my wife would have no legal right to it and I would wind up being the father of a child with the surrogate mother, not an arrangement I want to establish. I wont give too much personal medical details, but basically my wife is able to provide an egg and we could fertilize it with my sperm, eg., IVF, but she cant carry the baby.

We were thinking about adoption, lately I decided to look into the surrogacy possibility. I can only find pretty shady appearing websites that talk about setting up such services, for prices that I think are pretty unlikely to be realistic by thai standards. I havent seen any reputable programs at well known hospitals that offer such services.

Does anyone have any knowledge or experience of the current state of things with respect to surrogacy?

If Thailand isnt such a great place to do it, maybe some neighboring country?

Thanks for any information.

[BuddhistDruid]

There is no law against surrogacy in Thailand. There is also no law allowing it. It is a grey area. The basic information you need to be aware of is that you can not legally pay a surrogate. You can not make a legally binding contract with a surrogate. And you can not get a prebirth order that allows your wife's name to be listed as the mother at birth. So you basically understand everything perfectly.

Having said that, surrogacy is a very safe and effective way of getting a child in Thailand as long as you choose a surrogate who you trust and who is unmarried. Relatives are always the best, because there are lines of responsibility that can be enforced and that exist outside of the legal system. If the surrogate is married, she must officially divorce at least 1 month before you transfer the embryos. This way, you are allowed to be listed on the birth certificate as the father. The surrogate will be listed on the birth certificate as the mother. Once the child is born, you will need to go to court to legalize your parental rights. Please note that in court you can not say that the baby was conceived through surrogacy. That doesn't mean that everyone involved, including the judges, doesn't know what is going on, but it just means that they don't want conflict. There is no law that says they can't legalize you as the father if you mention surrogacy, it is simply that nobody wants to go out on a limb and do it. So you will need to make up a story about how the child was conceived naturally with the surrogate. Your lawyer will help you. This is done all the time, and while it may sound fishy to someone who hasn't experienced it, it is just the way things are done here.

Once you have legally become the father with sole custody, your wife can then go with you to the DSDW and apply to legally adopt the children. As the child is legally yours at that point, the adoption proceeds very quickly. Technically, the surrogate mother doesn't actually need to approve the adoption at this stage if your lawyer properly asked the judge to have her relinquish all parental rights when you legalized yourself as the father. Practically it makes no difference though. You are correct that up until that moment when the surrogate signs the papers, she can hold your child hostage. Make sure you choose a surrogate who won't do this.

If you have any questions that you don't want to ask through a public forum, send me a PM. I'll try and help anyway I can. If you want children, then this is definitely a viable option. It is not without annoyances, but it is far from impossible. Do remember that thousands of people in Thailand do exactly this every single year.

If you are independently wealthy, I would admit that no country in the world approaches the level of contractual opportunities available to you in the states in the USA that allow prebirth orders. But if you don't happen to have several million to drop on this and the ability to remain in the states for an extended period of time, Thailand is not a bad choice of a country to do it in.

[otissp]

Hmmm a lot to think about. First, regarding whether there is a surrogate we would trust. We just started thinking about this recently. Thanks for confirming the above information. I had most of that by general impression through searching the net but good to have it confirmed as up to date. Appreciate the help.

[BILLinBCN]

Hi! We were about to start the cycle in India when our IVF clinic indefinitely postponed all procedures for same-sex couples. So now we're looking at Thailand.

Does anyone know someone who has gone through the surrogacy process in Bangkok? Our biggest fear is that we won't be able to get the genetic father's name on the birth certificate (or that it could take months of legal proceeedings to get). We live in europe, and there is no way to get the baby home without my name as father on the birth certificate.

Our agency says "no problem" which makes me feel even more uneasy. (My experience is that the more people deny there's a problem, the bigger the poblem is!)

Help please!

[PTG]

I have no idea about the law, but that is ignored for a few bat anyway !

I have read several western media report in the last year of families, one Australian and I forget the other country to name it, have a child born form a local woman for money. It was her egg and his sperm.

Good luck.

[ThaiLawOnline]

The law about surrogacy in Thailand is not passed yet. We expect it to be applicable in 2014.

Your agency is probably postponing you in India because they passed a new law in India about 3 months ago to what I heard. They bordidden importation and exportation of eggs and sperms, or restricted it a lot. This is why in the last few months, our office has received more and more requests about surrogacy.

Basically, there is a legal vacuum in Thailand. It means you can do what you want. You must choose a good clinic. The contract between the surrogate mother and the "clients" is not binding under the law. Our experience is that anyway, the surrogate mothers are chosen and do respect their contracts. The most important is that the surrogate mother is not married for the legal process.

Some clinics are completely crazy in Bangkok. For example, they promise you to put both of your foreign names on a birth certificate. This is fraud and should be avoided. Now, the process for getting back the baby in your country will depends where do you come from and laws in your home country. For instance, i know that some clinics will not work with certain countries to avoid too much problems.

As a law firm, we are often required to check all contracts as an independent legal advisor, and because of our experience, we can also provide you names of good clinics we know.

The problem in India is so big that even agency in India are starting to move here... What they might not know, is the content of the law next year might hurt them. But there is still a year to go.

In the last two years, in 20 cases that I know, everything went well. There is no restriction but this is for a limited time. Price of a good clinic with all services, medical costs, surrogate mother, etc is about 1 million baht. Depending on the process, some additional fees can be requested.

The name of the father appears on birth certificate. The name of the Thai surrogate mother also.

[tinkerbell88]

What happens to the child when he/she is born? The surrogate mum will have to relinquish rights to her child and the genetic dad can assume parenthood? What about the genetic mum (Assuming the mum's embryo and my legal spouse's sperm was used and the surrogate was a gestational carrier)? Do the parents have to go through the legal adoption process and how long will that take? Accordint to BuddhistDruid it does not take long if the genetic dad is the registered dad (my spouse) on the birth certificate? I am from Singapore and am contemplating this option. Would that be possible if I opt to do IVF in Bangkok and the clinic has surrogates I can choose from? How and when can I take the child back into my country? Please advise me. Do pm me or email me personally if anyone has any advice.

Thank you so much.

Edited March 3, 2013 by tinkerbell88