Baby Gammy’s Parents Talk To 60 Minutes And Prove He Was Lucky To Be Left Behind
“I don’t think any parent wants a son with a disability.”
That was one of the more memorable quotes from the 60 Minutes Australia interview Sunday night of the parents of Baby Gammy, David and Wendy Farnell. You know when people are so awful that they really have no idea how awful they are? That’s this couple. Turns out Baby Gammy was lucky to be left behind with his surrogate mother.
There have been so many stories emerging about the couple and the adoption it’s been hard to figure what exactly happened. Some of the more disturbing stories that surfaced after the story of the abandonment broke included the father’s history of child abuse and the couple’s relationship being kindled on a Chinese mail-order bride site. There was also news of a trip by the SPCA to their residence to take their allegedly neglected dog away. Sex abuse, animal abuse, a mail-order bride marriage – what else could emerge to make this couple look terrible?
One can only assume they gave the interview to clear their name a little. If that was the intent, it totally backfired. They attempted to paint themselves as parents afraid to lose the child they did decide to take with them. They tried to downplay the accusation that they wanted the Thai surrogate mother, a Buddhist, to abort when they learned the baby had Down syndrome. David blames the agency for not sending the results soon enough for them to “do anything.” He said, ”The boy has got Down syndrome but there are different levels of Down syndrome. We were just hoping that it was not that severe.” And when they found out that the boy did in fact have several health issues including being diagnosed with Down syndrome, David recalls,
”We were very confused and we said that ”˜this is your fault, you must now take some responsibility for this’.”
I expected that there would be a financial”¦. Okay then”¦ Give us back our money because this is your fault. The money that we’ve given you”¦ give it back now.”
Interviewer: ”You wanted your money back?”
David: ”It’s not about the money, we were scared, we didn’t know what to do.”
They repeatedly claimed they wanted to take Gammy home, but when asked whether they made any attempts to do so, the answer was always, ‘no.’ When asked how many times they’ve called to inquire about their little boy, the answer was, “We haven’t.” When asked whether they contacted the Australian embassy to ask about bringing Gammy home, the answer was, “No.”
The interview takes an even more disturbing turn when they talk about his history of child sex abuse and he claimed to not have those “urges” anymore. He said, ”I think seeing my children and thinking that if someone did that to my children I would be devastated.”
The interviewer reminds him he had children at the time of his first offenses. Ugh.
He claimed to understand that people are concerned about their ability to parent – what with all the abandoning and sex abuse of children:
”I can understand that. For one, thinking that we have abandoned our little boy, is a terrible thing. And then to have be as a sex offender, everybody hates sex offenders, they are the lowest form of people. Not even worthy of breathing, I know that.”
At least he summed that up pretty well; yes, it was terrible to abandon that child and yes, child sex offenders should not be allowed to enter into surrogacy agreements. This whole case is a mess. Hopefully the infamy of the whole situation will force some serious change in the industry. In a press release published prior to the interview being aired, the station relayed the following information that the Farrells wanted to make clear:
They would like Australia to hear their side of the story, before passing judgement on them.
They have been cooperating with the Department of Child Protection since Wednesday morning, and will continue to do so.
They were feeding their dog every day until the RSPCA took her away.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR9wyUDrx7c]
(photo: YouTube)
