A Queensland couple was granted by indemnity from prosecution for surrogacy in Thailand

23.03.2015

The couple from Queensland won legal permission to parent 18-month-old twins conceived by a surrogate mother in Thailand, but faces the prospect of jail. They also was awarded equal shared parental responsibility of the twin boy and girl who are being raised in Queensland.

The twins have been granted Australian citizenship, despite the state’s controversial surrogacy laws.

Couple faced a wait before they knew whether they would be charged under state laws for illegally entering into a commercial overseas surrogacy agreement.

The Queensland woman was unable to conceive following cancer treatment that’s why in 2010 the twins were conceived with a donor egg in a Thai IVF clinic. Her husband has already had two adult children from a previous marriage. He gave his own sperm to fertilise the donor eggs which were carried by the Thai surrogate.

Family Court Judge Judy Ryan revealed that the egg donor was unknown and that the surrogate mother, who was paid $7350 by the couple, did not wish to have parenting rights.

The couple could be liable to prosecution and potential jail for three years under the Surrogate Parenthood Act 1988 in Queensland. But Justice Ryan had granted them indemnity from prosecution, ruling their evidence could not be used in any criminal proceedings against them.

“Of course, imprisonment of the (couple) would see two much-loved children inexplicably separated from the only people they have known as parents,” Justice Ryan said.

“The potential for long-term psychological and emotional harm to the children were such an event to come to pass is obvious.”

The Queensland government will ban single people and same-sex couples from having a child through surrogacy. But now it is still legal.

International commercial surrogacy remains illegal and the only way to get a parenting declaration is to go to the Family Court and seek it through Commonwealth laws.

Altruistic surrogacy, without any payments to surrogate, is legal and couples can apply to the Supreme Court for a parenting declaration.