Chinese Surrogacy Agency Suggests Mother ‘Return’ Child Born with Brain Condition

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Getty Images

A Chinese agency that arranges surrogacy offered a woman to chance to return a surrogate-born child born severely ill in Cambodia.

The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times details the case of a single mother named Lin, who paid 450,000 yuan ($69,200) for a baby through a surrogate Cambodian mother, who has since been determined as suffering from a brain atrophy.

As surrogacy births are illegal in China, many infertile women turn to agencies to organize surrogacy through neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Russia. The process is organized through a Chinese agency offering a “golden package contract” that “guarantees the success of the operation, healthy birth, DNA test and their return to China.”

Having been forced to pay out over 2 million yuan ($300,000) in medical fees, Lin contacted the agency to question their contractual obligations, she was told they would “replace a new baby for her or arrange another surrogate birth, as long as it was verified to be their fault for causing the tragedy.”

The Times states that “Lin cannot imagine how a life—the life of her beloved baby—can be so easily rejected and replaced by the surrogacy agency.”

When the Times contacted the agency about their policy, they seemingly backtracked:

If the child was not yet born, it is indeed possible to consider other ways to make a ‘withdraw,’ but not after the boy was born. Now it is only possible for the agent to fix the problem through negotiation, and make corresponding compensation. If the two parties fail to reach a deal, we may consider raising the boy ourselves, or applying to the relevant department for establishment of a welfare institution.

Although Lin does not wish to return the baby, she claims that the cost of its medical care is placing a lot of pressure on her livelihood.

“An infertile mother is sometimes truly obsessed with having a healthy baby. Now it costs 1,000 yuan every day for my child to take the rehabilitation injection, which will continue until he is one year old. I don’t know how to survive in the future,” she was quoted as saying.

The industry is mainly driven by older women wishing to have a second child following the ending of China’s longstanding one-child policy, which has now been upgraded to two.

A report last December by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China found that authorities continue to force women into having abortions in the name of population control.

“Chinese authorities continue to actively promote and implement coercive population planning policies that violate international standards,” the report states. “Officials continue to enforce compliance with population planning targets using methods including heavy fines, job termination, arbitrary detention, and coerced abortion.”

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.

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