Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Surrogacy Laws here in Thailand. As some background before I get into the citation in this video, we made videos on this sometime ago. There was a case involving, it was called the "Baby Gammy case" going back some years ago; this goes back to all the way like 2014 and prior when basically surrogacy in Thailand was completely unregulated. Law always looks backwards and Thai Law just hadn't taken into account the possibility of reproductive technologies and the surrogacy that's associated therewith and so a lot of people were utilizing Thailand for surrogacy services because of its relatively sort of wild west for lack of a better term, atmosphere in a legal context. The thing to take away from this video is in the interim, surrogacy effectively became all but illegal. There were limited circumstances where Thai nationals who were engaging in such activity involving basically relatives, where a relative was being a surrogate, where it was possible for surrogacy to exist but it was very, very limited. Effectively again this became illegal. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Surrogacy services to be opened up to foreigners in a volte-face on a 2015 junta law which outlawed it entirely. Quoting directly: "Thailand is to liberalize its Surrogacy Laws. The Pheu Thai-led Government of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has just announced that foreigners will no longer be prohibited from surrogacy services in the Kingdom. At the same time, the new Surrogacy Amendment to a highly restrictive 2015 law will open up options to Thai couples seeking to have children." 

Yeah and again as we discussed, it was sort of theoretically possible to do it under the sort of intervening Law that we had in place from the time of the 'baby gammy case' up to now, it was theoretically possible but it was a really limited context. People had to use a family member and oftentimes that person may not be available, that just may not exist so as a practical matter it was all but impossible to engage a surrogate here in Thailand during roughly the past 10 years. Quoting further: "The move by the Government is seen as another gigantic step forward for LBGTQ rights. It comes at the same time as a new gender law is being pursued and a same-sex marriage provision is also before Parliament. It is also being seen as a step toward combating Thailand’s rapid decline in population. However, the move is a complete volte-face," (I don't know how that is said: volte-face, whatever) "to the 2015 junta law and may face opposition from conservatives and traditionalists in Thailand." 

Yeah look, I have my reservations about some things associated with surrogacy and we need to be very careful with it. There is definitely a discrete balancing act that needs to be undertaken to basically weigh the pros and cons, the costs and the benefits to society associated with surrogacy. That said a more permissive, albeit regulatory intensive set of rules on this topic, would probably be a good idea for Thailand and for general family law matters moving forward.