The mother and father of the twin baby Gammy, who wanted a surrogate to abort because he was diagnosed with Down Syndrome, are defending their decision to ask the surrogate mother from Thailand to have an abortion. But now they claim they never asked her to do so.
The horrific story highlights the problems associated with abortion, surrogacy and the targeting of babies with Down Syndrome, 90% of whom die in abortions, according to some reports.
As LifeNews has extensively reported, David and Wendy Farnell had not been seen since it emerged they abandoned Gammy in Thailand and returned to Australia with his healthy twin sister. Child protection officials had been trying to touch base with the man and his wife since Tuesday but visits to their home in Bunbury, south of Perth, went unanswered. An investigation was launched this week into the safety and welfare of the twin sister but authorities were unable to find the family. They were later found hiding in their home.
Now, they’ve taken to the television program 60 Minutes to defend their decision.
The father of a baby born with Down’s syndrome to a surrogate told Australia’s “60 Minutes” on Saturday that he demanded a refund on his surrogacy fees and would have aborted the baby had he known earlier that his baby had Down Syndrome.
Farnell, a convicted sex offender, cried and stumbled his way through an interview with the Australian news program.
“Parents want their children to be healthy,” he said through tears. “It was late in the pregnancy we learned the boy had Down’s. … They sent us the reports but they didn’t do the checks early enough.”
“If it would have been safe for the embryo to have been terminated, we probably would have terminated it,” Farnell said.
Still, Farnell said that they will head back to Thailand to bring Gammy home.
“We miss our little boy.”
However, 21-year-old surrogate Pattamaron Chanbua isn’t ready to give up the baby just yet, and may even try to have Pipah returned to her as well. She is soliciting funds online for their medical expenses and has raised more than $235,000.
After learning on Sunday night Mr and Mrs Farnell wanted to seek custody of Gammy, Ms Pattharamon, a mother of two, claimed that the egg used in the fertilisation process was not supplied by Mrs Farnell but belonged to another Thai woman hired by the surrogacy agency.
“They are not really related with the baby … I am not really sure they will give real love to Gammy’s sister,” she told Fairfax Media.
Farnell said the couple fled Thailand with their daughter because they were worried that Ms Pattharamon was planning to keep her.
“We miss our little boy,” he said. “She [Ms Pattharamon] said that if we try to take our little boy, she’s going to get the police and she’s going to come and take our little girl . . . and she’s going to keep both of the babies.”
Farnell claims he never told Chanbua to have an abortion and that “we still wanted him.” Chanbua denies those claims.
During the program, Farnell also claimed that his baby girl Pipah is safe with him despite his past as a sex offender.
“I am not going to harm my little girl,” he said. “She [Pipah] will be 100 per cent safe because I know I will do everything in the world to protect my little girl. I have no inclinations … They have 100 per cent stopped. I don’t have this urge to do anything anymore.”
