[JURIST] Surrogacy campaigners on Saturday urged for the Thailand government [official website] to provide clearer regulations to address domestic and international surrogacy issues. Currently, Thailand does not have any established laws [advocacy website] which speak to issues regarding surrogacy. The movement for surrogacy laws in Thailand has became an international issue due to a recent incident where an Australian couple paid a Thai women to carry their child. When the surrogate mother bore twins, the male child was rejected by the adoptive parents [BBC report] due to complications such as a congenital heart disease, a lung infection, and down syndrome. The surrogate mother is currently taking care of the refused twin and is currently raising funds [campaign website] to support the child.

Courts around the world continue to grapple with legal issues surrounding surrogacy. In 2012 a judge for Australia’s Queensland District Court defined the term “conception” [JURIST report] as the act of getting pregnant. The definition was crucial because the Queensland Surrogacy Act of 2010 [text, PDF] requires that surrogacy arrangements be signed “before the child is conceived.” In the US the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, issued two rulings [JURIST report] expanding the rights of nonbiological gay and lesbian parents. In one case the court ruled 7-0 that a lesbian can assert parental rights over the biological child of her partner, reversing a lower court decision [JURIST report]. In a separate case the court ruled [NYTimes Blog] 4-3 that a lesbian could seek child support from her former partner.