SYDENY: A baby at the center of a Thai surrogacy scandal has been granted Australian citizenship, authorities said Tuesday, after his birth mother said he was abandoned by a Perth couple who went home with his healthy twin sister.
Baby Gammy sparked a global debate about the legal and moral issues surrounding surrogacy when reports emerged in August that he was left behind by the pair, who returned to Australia with his sister Pipah.
The couple have denied abandoning the boy, who has Down’s syndrome, saying they had wanted to bring him home and left Thailand fearing the surrogate mother would seize their daughter.
“The department can confirm that an application for baby Gammy’s Australian citizenship by descent has been assessed and found to have met all criteria for the grant,” an immigration department spokeswoman said in a statement.
“It is not appropriate for the department to make any further comments on this case.”
Surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua, who is in her early 20s, confirmed her son had been granted Australian citizenship.
“He got citizenship four days ago. The Australian Embassy called me on Friday to ask me to come and collect the documents,” she told AFP by telephone from her home in Chonburi province, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the capital Bangkok.
Pattaramon, also known as Goy, said she has no immediate plans to take her son to Australia but applied for citizenship with the help of the Australian charity Hands Across the Water as a safeguard for his future.
“I want him to be near me here (in Thailand) so that I don’t have to miss him,” the 21-year-old mother said.
“But if all of my family, including me die and if Gammy is left behind alone, at least the Australian government will help him.”
She added that Gammy is in good health and turned one in December.
The baby has moved into a new home in Chonburi province about 90 kilometers south-east of Bangkok using money donated by well-wishers across the globe, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Gammy’s biological father, David Farnell, a convicted sex offender, is under investigation by the authorities in Western Australia regarding the wellbeing and safety of Pipah.
Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia, prompting growing numbers of infertile couples to head overseas to countries such as India and Thailand to fulfil their dreams of having a family.
Australia gives citizenship to baby with Down Syndrome
Australia gives citizenship to baby with Down Syndrome
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
