He was born from a rental belly and warns that with that practice we are manufactured to be sold

Olivia Maurel, an activist born of a rental belly, alerts that with this practice also called surrogacy, “we are manufactured to be sold.”

Maurel, one of the international experts signed by the Declaration of Casablanca for the universal abolition of rent bellies, granted an interview with Ewtn News in Lima (Peru), where a Congress is held on this subject.

“Casablanca’s statement is a group of experts. We are a hundred experts around the world. We are international, 80 different countries today. It is not a political or religious initiative, and we are here to abolish subrogated gestation; we are here to promote an international treaty for the abolition of surrogacy,” said the activist.

When asked about why this practice should be eliminated, Maurel stressed that it is necessary to “abolish the pregnancy subrogated today because we need to protect the rights of women and the rights of children. The body of women is not on sale. It is not a reproductive instrument for the rich, and children are not on sale”.

Identity difficulties

Maurel said later that he was born “due to gestation underrogant in 1991 in the United States and grew with many problems, such as abandonment and identity difficulties; this led me to consume many drugs and alcohol, which led me to a very complicated life.”

That is why “I know how much the surrogacy can affect a child, and I also know that, unfortunately, subrogated mothers are usually poor, and they are the ones who are in the sights of this industry, since my surrogate mother was poor and, in addition, mentally unstable,” he said.

Olivia also recalled that “I had a very intense connection with my substitute mother. She was my mother in the uterus and the only person I wanted once I left. And, unfortunately, that link that broke at birth led me to deal with the trauma of abandonment and all the identity problems that would come later.”

A “very difficult to heal” wound

The activist also indicated that “in these times, and I think it is something that people generally do not understand, the baby, whether genetically related to his pregnant mother or not, will want her at birth, because she felt it, smelled it and listened to her voice for nine months. He wishes her at birth, not an unknown. And when we break that link, we break something in that child forever, and that wound heal”.

With rent bellies, he warned, “we are reducing babies to products within these contracts, and it is very complicated for a child to grow with that too, knowing that you are only an object in a contract. Literally, we are created, made, made to be sold, and it is very difficult to grow with that idea.”

“As Pope Francis said, and I think of him today, the subrogated gestation or rental belly has to end; and I hope that with the new Pope León we will continue this battle,” he concluded.

Pope Francis received Olivia Maurel in private audience on April 4, 2024. That same year, in June, the Vatican requested the total abolition of rental bellies.

Two years before, in 2022, the Holy Father had denounced that “the dignity of men and women is also threatened by inhuman and increasingly widespread practice of the ‘rental belly’, in which women are exploited, almost always poor, and children are treated as merchandise.”