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Published on August 18, 2007

Interested? Please contact … (e-mail address) and send us your information: name, age, height, weight, complexion, eye colour, hair colour, blood group, educational background, and telephone number," read an advertisement on a popular website.

From the ad, it becomes clear how some people have commercialised surrogacy. Agents who provide surrogate mothers for infertile couples appear to reap sizeable profits.

Despite the lingering concerns that such practices will create a wombs-for-rent phenomenon, the bill to govern surrogacy has yet to be enacted.

According to the bill, surrogate mothers must willingly agree to become pregnant for the purpose of gestating and giving birth to a child for others to raise in a non-commercial manner.

"Without such legal conditions, foreign couples may flock to Thailand to hunt for a surrogate mother," said Nandana Indananda, a judge at the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court.

He heads a project to study surrogacy.

Nandana believes there are about 20 or 30 surrogacy cases each year in Thailand, but admits there are no official statistics on the issue.

Surrogacy, however, is no longer a topic of closed-door discussions even among close relatives. Today, some people openly search for a surrogate mother, while others openly offer the service on the Internet.

In a web site dedicated to parents, a woman posted the following message, "Surrogate Mother for Hire … I want to be a surrogate mother. Do you have any recommendation? I am in a financial crisis".

On the same website, a woman lamented how badly her husband wanted a child of his own while she was unable to produce him one throughout their 10-year marriage. "I ask for mercy. Do you know someone who is willing to be a surrogate mother? Do you have any recommendations? If yes, please call….".

Royal Thai College of Obstetricians and Gynaeco-logists secretary-general Dr Somboon Kunathikom said he had provided surrogacy for more than 10 couples.

"I empathise with couples who want to have babies. They feel dejected when they see other families with children," Somboon said.

He said if the government was concerned that surrogate mothers were being hired for commercial purposes, it should pass laws that impose legal penalties on those who did so - and ban advertising about surrogacy too.

Dr Somboon said he always explained to his patients that children born from surrogacy would not be genetically related to their wives.

"Another important point is that the couple will have an adopted child, not a biological child," Somboon said.

Current laws recognise a woman who gives birth to a child as the mother of that child. Because the surrogate mother is usually a married woman, the child born from surrogacy is registered as the child of the surrogate mother and her husband.