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"I’m unable to stay silent while I still struggle with the traumatic legacy of surrogacy" Now aged 31, Olivia Maurel is testifying publicly for the first time about the trauma generated in her by the surrogacy from which she was born. First on social networks, then at an international conference on surrogacy at the Czech Republic parliament, Olivia Maurel calls for the universal abolition of surrogacy.
"From all my research, I cannot see there is a ‘good’ version of surrogacy," she tells the Daily Mail. Even when the surrogate mother doesn't donate her eggs, the reality remains that "it's a woman's body that's being rented out, and it's a baby who will be separated from its mother at birth", whereas "it's to her that it feels connected". And in countries that prohibit so-called commercial surrogacy, considerable sums of money are nevertheless paid as compensation. Olivia Maurel also cites the example of a British surrogacy agency, which offers financial incentives to would-be surrogate mothers: Apple watches, gourmet meal kits and even sex toys.
Olivia Maurel's insistence on the violation of children's rights and interests that GPA entails, contrasts sharply with the lack of consideration of these interests by the promoters of the legalization of surrogacy. For example, Belgium's Comité Consultatif de Bioéthique (Bioethics Advisory Committee) did not go into the question of the consequences of surrogacy for children in any depth in its opinion of April 17, 2023. As for the physical and psychological impact of surrogacy on the surrogate mother, the Committee confines itself to a single British study, concluding that the women concerned "did not generally encounter significant problems".
At European level, the European Court of Human Rights does not rule on the legality of surrogate motherhood. As for the European Parliament, it recently came out in favor of mutual recognition of "parenthood" in all EU member states. This regulation still has to be approved by the Council. Its adoption could overturn the meaning of filiation, and encourage the surrogacy market by obliging member countries to recognize on their territory, for example, a filiation that has been established on the basis of surrogacy in a member country where the practice is authorized.
At the same time, coalitions are organizing to demand the international abolition of GPA. Such is the case of the hundred or so experts who met in Morocco on March 3, 2023 to officially sign the Casablanca Declaration. This declaration will be proposed for signature by States at an international conference scheduled to take place in Rome in early April.