The booming baby industry
The booming baby industry - full story
16 September, 2012
Reporter: Tim Noonan
Producer: Rebecca Le Tourneau
They’re like any other Australian babies - except these twins have three mothers.
One sold her eggs, the second rented out her womb and the third is an Australian mum who paid to take them home from Thailand with her husband, who donated his sperm.
It’s one of the strangest and most complex routes to parenthood imaginable, and more and more childless Australian couples are using it to dodge surrogacy laws here.
Sunday Night’s Tim Noonan meets the Melbourne man who always wanted sons to follow in his football-loving footsteps. Now, after handing over $36, 000, he and his wife are bringing their baby boys home for the first time.
We also meet the young mum who sold them her eggs for a few thousand dollars, and the second young mother who gave birth to the twins in return for $17,000.
In Thailand, it doesn’t matter how old you are, or where you’re from – your parenting dream can be made reality if you’ve got the cash. But there is a dark underbelly to the practice, with claims of exploitation of poor, desperate women.
So should Australian families have the right to go overseas and buy a made to order child? In NSW, QLD and the ACT you can be jailed for bringing a surrogate child home. In WA, SA, Victoria and NT it is perfectly legal.
See the new beginnings of life, and make up your own mind on Sunday Night.
For more information about surrogacy, visit Surrogacy Australia.
If you'd like information about egg donation here in Australia, visit Egg Donation Australia.
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