Ms Fiona Duffy:

It is complex. As I said at the beginning, surrogacy is complex. By way of clarification on the baby Gammy case in Thailand, I believe that was subsequently clarified in court in Australia. My understanding is what happened there was that the mother was expecting twins and discovered that one of the children had Down's syndrome. I believe there may have been a debate around an abortion but the mother wanted to keep the child because the child was, in her view, a lucky child. I know the family has been much maligned for having abandoned the child but my understanding is that in fact the mother chose to keep the child. That is something that should be clarified.

The whole issue around surrogacy is that in most jurisdictions the agreement between the parties is not enforceable. That is where the dilemma is. If it was enforceable, the parents would have to take the child but there is this very fine line between having a woman carry a child and then forcing her to hand over the child. I cannot really give the Senator a definitive response on it. When you look at it, however, and without even dealing with surrogacy but with other situations in which people conceived children naturally in a relationship, parents do walk away. Fathers walk away, as do mothers, for different reasons and because things happen. It is not something that is exclusive to surrogacy. It can happen anywhere in life.