Bangkok: A six-month-old baby girl is trapped in the Thai capital in a bitter custody wrangle between her Thai surrogate mother and her biological father.
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Baby Carmen's future is uncertain as laws come into force in Thailand banning commercial surrogacy, with violations punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
More than 150 Australian couples with surrogacy arrangements in Thailand have taken their babies home after Thai authorities shut down the country's booming surrogacy industry following the Baby Gammy scandal 12 months ago.
But a Thai woman who was paid to be a surrogate mother for an American man and his same-sex Spanish partner is refusing to allow them to take the baby out of Thailand.
"Our lives have been turned upside down," American Bud Lake from New Jersey and Manuel Santos from Valencia in Spain say in an appeal for public support on the campaigning website change.org.
"Our jobs are in danger, our family is now divided, false allegations and criminal charges have been brought against us," they wrote.
"What was supposed to be the happiest four weeks of our lives, bonding with our little girl - our daughter and our son's new little sister - has turned into an absolute nightmare."
Mr Lake and Mr Santos agreed to pay the surrogate mother in March last year at a time when lax regulations made Thailand the go-to country for surrogacy in Asia.
Mr Lake is the biological father and the egg came from a donor.
The couple say there was no problem during the pregnancy and the surrogate signed a consent form that allowed Mr Lake to take the baby from a hospital in Bangkok and to put his name on her birth certificate.
But the surrogate mother failed to show up at a subsequent meeting at the US embassy to sign papers that would have allowed the couple to take the baby through Thai immigration.
"We've done everything by the book, we had an agreement, we commissioned a surrogacy and she agreed to be a surrogate," Mr Lake said.
"She received the monthly payments. She's the one who changed her mind."
The surrogate mother told the US's National Public Radio she is refusing to allow the baby to leave Thailand because Mr Lake and Mr Santos are "not natural parents in Thai society".
"They are same-sex, not like male and female who can take care of babies," she said.
"Second thing is, when I tried to contact them to visit the baby, they didn't want to talk to me," she said.
"And the third thing is, I was begging them to see the baby but they didn't allow me to see her … they treated me very badly and said I have no right to see the baby."
Mr Lake and Mr Santos deny the claims and say they were legally married in the US and Spain.
They are caring for Baby Carmen in a rented apartment in Bangkok with their two-year-old son Alvaro, who was born to a surrogate mother in India.
A court battle is looming over custody of the baby. The surrogate mother has also accused Mr Lake of abducting Carmen.
A Thai law that took effect on July 30 stipulates that only Thai heterosexual couples married for more than three years can hire surrogates, a provision that excludes gay couples. Same-sex marriage is not recognised in Thailand, though there have been attempts to change this.
Under earlier laws, a Thai surrogate mother had full rights over a newborn, even if she had no genetic ties with the child.
Thailand's military government implemented the latest law after Fairfax Media's revelations over the Baby Gammy case, where an Australian couple took a baby home but left her then critically unwell Down syndrome twin with her Thai surrogate mother.
Authorities in Thailand late last year granted a temporary provision to the law that allowed hundreds of foreign parents, many of them same-sex Australians, who had surrogacy contracts before the law came into force to petition a court for full parental rights, opening the way for them to take their babies home.
Mr Lake and Mr Santos have begun a #BringCarmenHome social media campaign and say they are not leaving Thailand without the baby, despite the criminal abduction accusation against Mr Lake that could see him jailed if convicted in a Thai court.
"We are good people who have gotten mixed up in a big problem," they wrote on change.org. "We only want to return home to our families with our daughter."
