泰國代孕法

Abstract

本研究探討了泰國2015年實施的泰國代孕法的立法背景、基本精神，以及施行前已存在之泰國民法（親子關係之相關規範）與代孕相關之醫療法規。在商業代孕被禁止之前，泰國只有醫學委員會相關法規來規範代孕服務提供商的行為，並禁止使用服務者選擇嬰兒的性別。代孕雖沒有被定為犯罪行為，也沒有明確合法化，當時吸引了許多外籍委託者赴泰國使用代孕服務，跨國代孕業務蓬勃發展。本研究介紹了委託父母和代孕母親之間所發生的著名爭議案例，說明代孕不僅在父母子女關係上產生糾紛，還引發了泰國社會對技術濫用、人口販運、代孕母親被剝削的擔憂。 泰國的代孕法亦即2015年〈生殖輔助技術下出生子女的保護法〉，禁止商業代孕，並為生殖輔助技術設定了一般標準，要求代孕契約須經委員會個案審查。該法還規定了委託父母和代孕女性的資格，並確定了出生子女與關係人間的法律地位，亦即，委託父母是子女的法律上父母並擁有親權，而代孕母親與子女間沒有法律關係，突破了泰國民法上的分娩者為母之傳統原則。然而，該法並未保護所有代孕子女，因為它只規範了合法的代孕契約所生子女的法律地位，這將導致不合法之代孕契約所生子女仍回歸適用民法，亦即其法律上之母親係代孕者之結果。此外，涉及商業代孕的關係人將有刑事責任，其中對代孕者所課之刑罰最為嚴厲，此作法是否妥當，不無疑問，且該法律對商業代孕缺乏明確的定義，也造成了法律適用的不安定。

Abstract The study explores the legislative background, fundamental principles, and specifics of the surrogacy law implemented in Thailand in 2015. It also examines the existing relevant regulations in Thailand's civil law (related to parent-child relationships) and medical regulations concerning surrogacy. Before commercial surrogacy was banned, Thailand only had Announcements of the Medical Council. The Announcements governed standard of surrogacy service providers and only forbade applicants to choose genders of baby. There was no other law directly regulating surrogacy. It was neither criminalized nor explicitly legalized. The absence of clear regulations led to various disputes between intended parents and surrogates. The study presents well-known controversial cases between intended parents and surrogate mothers, illustrating that surrogacy not only gave rise to disputes in parent-child relationships but also raised concerns in Thai society regarding technology misuse, human trafficking, and the exploitation of surrogate mothers. Thai surrogacy law named ‘The Protection of a Child Born from Assisted Reproductive Technology Act (2015)’ sets a general standard for artificial reproductive technology, authorizes a committee to approve surrogacy arrangement on case-by-case basis. It also regulates qualifications of intended parents and surrogate mother and determines legal status between child and all related parties. Accordingly, intended parents are child’s legitimate parents with custody, while surrogate has no legal relationship to the child, thus breaking from the traditional principle in Thai civil law where the birthing mother is recognized as the legal mother. However, the law does not protect all surrogate children, as it only regulates the legal status of children born from lawful surrogacy contracts. This leaves children born from illegal surrogacy contracts still governed by civil law, wherein the surrogate mother remains the legal mother. Additionally, those involved in commercial surrogacy face criminal liability, with surrogate mothers subject to the most severe penalties. The appropriation of this approach is questionable, and the law lacks a clear definition of commercial surrogacy, resulting in legal uncertainty in its application.