Foreign wombs for hire
(cz) For some Singaporean couples desperate to have a baby, surrogacy is the answer if all else fails.
Because renting a womb is illegal here, they turn to countries like Malaysia, the Philippines and India to find a surrogate mother to carry their child.
At least two Singaporean couples are known to have successfully become parents through this method.
In the first case, a couple was reported to have approached the Dr L.H. Hiranandani Centre for Human Reproduction in Mumbai, India, in 2005. It supplied a surrogate mother who delivered a baby boy for them in May 2006.
Mr Low Soo Meng, 50, who runs Greenhouse Adoption Agency which matched couples with surrogate mothers in China, told The Sunday Times that he has also helped a couple become parents.
He started the service in 2006, but added that he stopped it last year because the surrogacy process became ‘too long and complicated’.
For the last three years, another company has also been providing rent-a-womb services to childless couples here and abroad.
Mr Michael Ho, who declined to reveal his age, offers this service under Asian Surrogates, which he set up with his wife. It has a website which is advertised on Google.
For $45,000, they find a suitable surrogate mother overseas, arrange for the medical procedures and take care of the financial and legal issues involved.
He said that he receives about two to three inquiries from couples here every month. Three of his clients have followed up. In the first case, the surrogate mother miscarried, while in the second case a woman is now bearing a child for the couple. He did not want to elaborate on the third case.
‘I found out that there were a lot of people with fertility problems who needed help,’ said Mr Ho, who also runs an employment agency. more…
From: »The Sunday Times« (Singapore)