EU member states have to block international surrogacy, says instruction from Parliament
The 'celebration' of the acceptance of surrogacy as part of human trafficking in the EU Parliament. Photo CNE.news, Evert van Vlastuin
European Union
The European Parliament has decided to make international surrogacy part of human trafficking. The new directive that was accepted in Strasbourg on Tuesday afternoon with an overwhelming majority makes it possible to fight against surrogacy as a Union together.
The French MEP François-Xavier Bellamy had already organised a meeting to celebrate the vote beforehand. He did not know then that the new text would gain 563 against 7 votes.
For two years, he had been working to implement surrogacy in the new Directive against Human Trafficking. Originally, surrogacy was not part of the text; neither was forced marriage. After all the negotiations, he is happy. “It’s a historic moment for the EU. This is a European law that the member states have to implement.” Bellamy had also invited Olivia Maurel to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. After she shared her life story about being “a product of surrogacy” in an interview with CNE.news, she became an activist against this form of infertility treatment. Maurel is the spokesperson of the 2023 Casablanca Declaration. She met with Pope Francis as well.
According to Bellamy, surrogacy is against human dignity. “Children should not be subject to a contract because that is trafficking. We must protect the weakest.”
The present legal situation regarding surrogacy in the member states is varied. Some states have banned the practice, some states have made it possible. Bellamy: “Even if states have banned, they are confronted with surrogacy babies from other countries. That should be forbidden completely now.”
Also, Olivia Maurel was pleased with the vote in the EP. She shared her life story again, that she was born in Kentucky, USA, in 1991 and was transported to her intended parents in France soon after that. That story is still not complete since she met her biological brother just a few weeks ago for the first time.
Surrogacy decreases a child to a product, says Maurel. “It is material. I had a price tag on me, too. I was part of a contract.”
The basis of this phenomenon is not love or affection but just material things. “I have never seen a rich woman that is pregnant for a poor woman. Surrogacy is pregnancy for money.” According to her, there is a 14-billion-dollar turnover in this business worldwide.
Surrogacy babies are there for many purposes: mothers who have waited too long to get children, gay couples who cannot conceive children themselves, and single men. This is one of the risky fields, says Maurel. “There are examples of paedophiles who bought a child for themselves to abuse it.” Regularly, the media tell beautiful stories about surrogacy babies for happy couples. Maurel wishes happiness to everyone. “Some slaves were happy, too. But that does not make slavery ethical.”
In the plenary debate, the Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen pleaded for a “total ban” on surrogacy, not only the international exploitation of it. “It is ethically very questionable to take a child away from the mother after birth.”
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