I don't normally post news stories here, but this is a story which is making headlines all over the place, and maybe it could bring up some interesting discussion.

Basically, an Australian couple paid a Thai woman to be a surrogate mother. Four months into pregnancy, one of the two unborn children was diagnosed with medical complications and Downs Syndrome. The couple asked the woman to abort the children, but she wouldn't because it was against her beliefs. Now that the children have been born, this couple (who are currently anonymous) took only the healthy twin sister, and left the baby with Downs and several other serious conditions with the Thai woman, who is too poor to pay for the child's health. However, donors around the world have offered donations to aid her. And the surrogate mother has vowed to look after the child and is raising him as her own.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-28621639

Well they did ask them to abort it. I would of likely done the same.

Same here. I don't know how the laws are in Australia or Thailand work in regards to that stuff, but it's the parents right over the fate of a fetus here, not the surrogate. Everybody should have that choice, and that Thai woman wrongly took it away from the parents. They shouldn't have to suffer because someone else did something they're not supposed to do.

Poor kid. And that picture of the baby is adorable.

I think the Australian couple should give up the other child as well. Asking for a child to be aborted because it has Downs Syndrome and wanted both babies to be aborted because of this.

To be honest I have to agree with Kaitou Kid, this child we be suffering all this life because of his heart & Lung problems

As for the Australian couple, where they told the baby had been born? although it doesn't say in the BBC article in my local paper they said the facts weren't clear yet

I have autism(though, it's Asperger's, which is one of the high functioning forms). I could have been this kid. What these parents did, especially since they were likely well off enough to care for the kid, is disgusting on quite a deep level for me. My parents didn't know I was autistic until I was in my mid-teens. I hope that kid's life gets better because no one deserves to be treated as unwanted just because they aren't neurologically sound. I am happy the person who gave birth to the kid isn't giving up on him.

I do understand that a child with these types of disorders is hard to care for and many don't have the patience to work with the kid. I feel bad that my various issues cause stress for my parents when they are the receiving end of some of them, but I am thankful that they look past those problems.

I do agree with Kaitou, but since the kid is in the world now, that part of things is in the past. At least this kid was lucky enough to not get kicked to the curb and had someone who wanted it. However long this kid lives, I just hope he gets to have more than just suffering in his life. Sorry for this emotionally charged post. It just is something that I could see having happened to me if I didn't have the luck of being born to parents who accepted having a kid with special needs.

The lung condition just sounds like it is an infection and if that is the case likely it will just be temporary. It could possibly lead to more serious issues but for the most part is not that bad. I have lived with chronic lung infection and do suffer from Asthma (But never taken any medication for it since I have taught myself how to handle the asthma attacks and I am usually a lot faster to defeat the attacks than any medication).

The Heart Condition is more of an issue but depending on how bad it is and what kind of treatment it might not be that bad. My Grandfather was born with one in Austria in the early 1900's and still wound up living up to about the age of 50. Likely he could have lived younger if he had a healthy lifestyle. He Smoked and worked about 15 hours a day and hardly slept. Doctors thought he would not make it into the teens. Stories I heard from my mom and Grandmother stated he loved life. His wife and my Grandmother also had massive health issues and my Grandmother lived until the age of 84. Doctors have told her many many many, many times that she will not live through the night. She out lived a few doctors.

Look if someone had decided to during their time in the womb to abort I would not be here. I love being alive so I say thanks to them and that I love them very much.

Pain and illness is a part of life and with that I think you get some sort of appreciation for all the good things in life as well. Yes it is hard seeing someone suffer but sometimes you can also see the great joy they have in life as well. Especially when they hear you complain about some minor pain like hitting your toe on a table leg or something and they say that's not pain and then have them kicking you in the nuts and say that is more like it. It happened to me since one of my best friends growing up had leukemia and had treatments.