Several scandals triggered an international debate that accelerated legal reform in Thailand in order to prevent the recurrence of such cases, which endangered the human rights of surrogates and children.
The most famous case was that of a baby with Down syndrome, Gammy, whose story revolutionised the press and social networks during the summer of 2014. An Australian couple had hired a Thai surrogate, Pattaramon Chanbua, through an agency. According to the surrogate's version, she was informed after 7 months of pregnancy that one of the two babies she was pregnant had Down syndrome. She refused to abort, both because of her advanced gestation stage and because of her Buddhist beliefs. After the birth of the twins, the intended parent couple took the girl, Pipah, to Australia, but abandoned the boy in poor health. The surrogate then took charge of the child.
Another controversial case was that of a wealthy young Japanese man whose project consisted of generating as many babies as possible. According to the media, he managed to have more than thirty before he was discovered. Many of those babies had been born in Thailand to different surrogates.