Couple rejects twin baby based on gender

An Australian judge said on Thursday that a couple rejected one of the twin infants born to an Indian surrogate mother because of the baby's gender. They took home the twin sibling.

News of the case, which dates back to 2012, follows a recent furor over an Australian couple that left behind a disabled twin baby born to a Thai surrogate mother. That case prompted a ban on commercial surrogacy in Thailand.

Australian Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant said in a statement that she was told by Australian embassy officials in New Delhi that the couple's decision to leave the second baby behind was gender-based. One was a boy, the other a girl.

The embassy "explained that when the commissioning parents were advised that twins were born, the commissioning parents refused to agree to take both children", Bryant said.

"It is believed that they only wanted one child as they already had one and they wanted one of the opposite gender," she said.

Bryant said she backed Federal Circuit Court Chief Judge John Pascoe's call at the National Family Law Conference on Wednesday in Sydney for a national inquiry into international commercial surrogacy.

"I think international surrogacy is the new front line in human trafficking, and we have enough anecdotal evidence to believe that people are commissioning children willy-nilly without any proper protections for the children or for the surrogate mothers," Pascoe said.

The Australian High Commission in New Delhi delayed giving the Australian parents a visa to collect the one infant they wanted, and tried to persuade them to take both, Bryant said.

Moral dilemma

A person claiming to be a friend later took the unwanted baby. But embassy officials doubted the person was a friend and suspected money had changed hands, Bryant said.

Bryant said the action to delay the visa while the matter was under discussion was "in no way inappropriate".

"In fact, they were doing their best to deal with a significant moral dilemma - there simply was no legal authority requiring the commissioning couple to take both children," Bryant said.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the High Commission's role had been limited to assessing the parents' application for citizenship and a passport for the chosen twin.

Most Australian states outlaw commercial surrogacy, but some allow Australians to pay surrogate mothers to have their babies overseas.