Tragedy of surrogate babies abandoned after parents changed their minds - including boy with Down's syndrome left behind by couple who only wanted his twin sister

The time, travel, emotional turmoil and expense of entering into a surrogacy agreement with a woman in another country can only suggest that the baby born at the end of the process is a much-wanted child. However, that assumption has proved tragically false in shocking cases, where parents have abandoned the newborns they claimed to want when circumstances changed after the birth. They include the much-publicised case of Baby Gammy, who was carried, by a Thai surrogate mother for an Australian couple - who took his twin sister and left him behind after it was discovered he had Down's syndrome.

Surrogacy, when a woman gives birth to a baby for another person or couple, has been flung firmly into the spotlight again this week after Emily in Paris star Lily Collins and her husband Charlie McDowell announced the birth of their daughter, Tove. Film director McDowell later penned an emotional Instagram post saying they'd been the victim of a 'hateful' response to their newborn's arrival - and they are not the first celebrity parents to come under scrutiny for using a surrogate.

The process - legal in the UK since the Surrogacy Arrangements Act came into force in 1985 but practised for centuries - involves a surrogate undergoing IVF to become  impregnated with an embryo using the egg of an intended mother or donor with sperm from the intended father or donor. For many, it has provided a precious chance at parenthood - but it also remains a highly controversial approach; the harshest criticism has suggested its a form of 'human trafficking' and 'rich people renting women's bodies'.

Others have suggested that if surrogacy is abused, it has echoes of The Handmaid's Tale; Margaret Attwood's dystopian novel about fertile women who are forcibly impregnated by the husbands of the ruling class. Baby Gammy, born to Australian parents using a Thai surrogate, became a global news story in 2014 after he was born with a heart condition and Down syndrome, and left with his birthing mother.

Khloe Kardashian, who gave birth to her daughter, True, herself in April 2018 but chose a surrogate to have her son Tatum, born in August 2022 has spoken about how hard bonding can be with a newborn you haven't carried yourself. On the Good American podcast after his birth, she told co-host Dr Thaïs Aliabadi: 'I wasn't carrying him, I didn't really feel anything.'. While celebrity surrogacy arrangements do come under scrutiny, regular parents from Western countries have also faced critisim for making surrogacy arrangements abroad where the women are often poorly paid and the system is highly unregulated.

Indeed, the most controversial cases seem to have arisen out of cases where surrogacy arrangements have been made with women in countries such as Ukraine, India and Thailand. In 2015, India announced a clamp down on the booming trade of foreigners struggling to conceive hiring young surrogate mothers after controversy over the 'rent-a-womb' exploitation of poor women. It came after a case in 2012 where an Australian couple were accused of leaving one of their twins behind in India after a surrogate birth because they 'already had' a child of the same gender and didn't want another.

The Down syndrome twin - Baby Gammy - left behind by his Australian parents, who chose to KEEP his healthy sister. Baby Gammy: The little boy's Thai surrogate mother, Pattaramon Chanbua with Gammy in August 2014, shortly after the controversy erupted. David John Farnell and his wife Wenyu 'Wendy' Li (pictured) took one of their surrogate's babies home, a healthy girl named Pipah, but not the other, Baby Gammy.

The little boy with Down Syndrome lives with his birth mother, Pattaramon Chanbua, and attends school thanks to the support of an Australian charity. In 2014, Australian couple David John Farnell and Wenyu Wendy Li paid a Thai woman, Pattaramon Chanbua, to act as their surrogate. When the arrangement fell apart leaving two twins separated, the story made global, heart-wrenching news. Ms Chanbua had given birth to twins Pipah and Gammy but the Farnells quickly found themselves at the centre of huge controversy when their birthing mother accused them of abandoning baby Gammy because the infant, born prematurely, had Down syndrome and a heart condition.

Not long after the birth, the couple flew out of Thailand and returned to their home in Bunbury, Western Australia but only with one child, Pipah, who was born healthy. The family's decision sparked outrage, further stoked when it was revealed Mr Farnell had historical child sex abuse convictions dating back to the 1980s - a judge had been scathing about Mr Farnell on sentencing, saying he had 'robbed' two young girls of their childhoods by molesting them in 1982 and 1983.