“There Is No Right to a Child”: Olivia Maurel on Surrogacy, Parents, and Her Conversion

Yes. We don’t talk at all. It’s been three years.

That was a huge sacrifice for you.

It was a sacrifice, but at the same time, it wasn’t. I’ve always known that this is my calling. I truly see it that way – as my calling. If I have to die doing this, then I’ll die. That’s just how it is. I’m not afraid.

The problem was that my parents thought I was fighting against them. But I’ve never fought against them. I’m fighting against the system. Against governments that allow this to happen. I’m not fighting against my parents. I don’t blame them; I’ve never felt any hatred toward them. I’ve always loved them.

My children, however, still see their grandparents. I didn’t want to cut them off, because that wouldn’t be fair. My problem with my parents is not my children’s problem with their grandparents. My father is my children’s biological grandfather because his sperm was used when I was conceived. So he is also part of their story.

I’ve always said that I want to know my origins, my story, and have access to it. That was taken away from me. It would therefore not be fair if I were to take the same thing away from my children. They are good grandparents. Very good ones. My husband takes the children to see them and communicates with them. I, however, do not speak with them.

A year after you posted your first video, you met with Pope Francis and became one of the faces of the international movement against surrogacy, which is associated with the Casablanca Declaration. You also wrote the book Where Are You, Mom?, in which you describe your search for your roots. When you came to Slovakia last year, the Slovak translation had just been published. What has changed over the past year? What were the readers’ reactions?

The most heartwarming reactions come from people who originally wanted to use surrogacy but, after reading my book, decided not to become intended parents.

I receive a lot of wonderful messages. However, many of them come from people who were already on our side and didn’t agree with surrogacy to begin with. That’s why the messages that mean the most to me are from people who have completely changed their minds. They used to support surrogacy, but after reading the book, they rejected it.

I met a woman in South America. After a conference in Argentina, she came up to me and said: “Thank you. I was on a waiting list in California; I wanted to become a surrogate. But because of your story, your testimony and your book, I’ve changed my mind. I won’t do it anymore.”

Stories like these are wonderful to me. They show that even a single book can change the way a person thinks.

Why do you think people who desperately want a child decide to pursue surrogacy despite the ethical concerns surrounding it?

These people truly long for a child. Sometimes so much so that they forget everything else. I’m not saying they do it with bad intentions. They don’t say to themselves, “I want to buy a child” or “I want to take advantage of a woman”. They don’t think about it that way.

However, they’re so focused on their desire to have a child – and, moreover, a child with their own genes – that they stop seeing everything else.

And there’s often enormous pressure on the woman. If the problem lies with her and she can’t carry the child to term, she may feel guilty that she can’t give her husband a child.

I know one such case very well. A woman couldn’t have children due to a problem with her uterus. Surrogacy wasn’t her decision at all at first, but her husband pressured her heavily. She eventually agreed.

Today she regrets it and doesn’t know how to tell her seven-year-old son the truth about his birth. I’m trying to help her with that. It’s very difficult.

In your book, you also write about the trauma of abandonment. How did that manifest in your life?

Where do I even begin? It was there from the very beginning. Even as a child, I would throw tantrums when my parents walked away from me. I’d scream and kick. Even if they were only a meter away, I’d cry uncontrollably because I was afraid they’d abandon me.

Later, this carried over into my relationships. I had boyfriends, and I was so afraid they’d leave me that I smothered them. I constantly pushed them to their limits until eventually they did leave me.

I was too clingy, jealous and possessive – I wanted to control everything. I was awful. I tried to control others so they couldn’t leave me, but it was precisely my behavior that ultimately forced them to walk away. Then I would become depressed. It was really bad.

What helped you?

My husband.

At first, I smothered him, too. I think I was ten times worse with him than I was with all the people before him. I was jealous, possessive, terrible. But he met me and said to himself, “Okay, I’ll marry you.” And I told him, “No, you won’t.”

He replied, “Yes, I will.” And I said, “No, you’ll see.”

It went on like that for about ten months. I kept testing how far I could go, and he didn’t budge. It was as if he were saying to me, “Go ahead, I’ll marry you anyway.”

Then one day we were out to dinner together. I remember that moment very clearly. I looked at him and suddenly realized, “He’s not going to leave me.”

For the first time in my life, I could tell myself: Olivia, you’re safe.

From that moment on, I changed. I stopped being jealous and possessive. I was able to let him have his own freedom. He can live his own life. And we’ve been together for fourteen years now.

You also mention what you call the “salmon instinct”. By that, you mean the subconscious need to search for one’s roots. Why are they so important to you?

Roots are important because they are our story, our history. They help us find our bearings in the world. We need them to know who we are, who we are deep down inside.

Today we often hear: don’t look back, don’t dwell on your roots. In my opinion, however, we must look back. Without that, we cannot look forward.

And that is precisely what I consider to be one of the problems of today’s society. We want to erase history. I live in France. France has historically had very strong Catholic roots, but today we’re cutting them off. We have no values, we have no roots and people are lost.

It’s like a tree. A tree needs roots to grow. To me, this is perfectly logical. It’s part of what it means to be human. We need our roots, our values and our history to grow. Without them, we can’t do it.

We must also look back. If we don’t look back, we’ll lose our way.

In your book, you compare surrogacy to prostitution. Is that not a bit of a harsh comparison?

No. In my opinion, surrogacy is prostitution of the womb. I see enormous similarities between prostitution and surrogacy.

Women find themselves in situations they wouldn’t agree to under different circumstances. I think that if women who become surrogate mothers or prostitutes had enough money to live a normal life and provide for their children, they wouldn’t rent out their bodies.

That is why I use this comparison. I see a very similar trend in both prostitution and surrogacy. In prostitution, the term “sex work” has come into use. In surrogacy, the terminology is changing in a similar way.

We were recently in Latin America – in Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Argentina. Especially in Colombia and Mexico, we encountered information about the connections between these two spheres. We were told that women move back and forth between prostitution and surrogacy. It’s the same cycle. It’s terrifying.

You also address the question of whether “ethical” or “altruistic” surrogacy can exist. What do you say to its proponents?

In my opinion, altruistic surrogacy does not exist.

The problem is that we keep focusing on the surrogate mother. I say: let’s look at the child. In every single case of surrogacy, the child is separated from the woman who carried it after birth. It doesn’t matter whether we call it altruistic, commercial or anything else. In my view, the word “altruistic” just makes it sound nicer.

I still see an ethical problem with this, because we’re interfering with the child’s origins and separating the child at birth from the woman who carried it.

Moreover, if you look at countries that allow so-called altruistic surrogacy, even there a number of expenses are covered – food, clothing, travel, phone bills and other things. These can amount to significant sums.

People like to use the example of a sister who carries a child for her brother or sister. However, such cases represent only a tiny fraction of reality.

Uruguay, for example, has introduced a model of surrogacy within the family. I don’t want to give exact numbers right now – you can look those up yourself – but the point is that you can count such cases on one hand.

The situation is similar in the United Kingdom. There, they talk about altruistic surrogacy, but at the same time, a number of expenses are reimbursed. And since the number of women willing to carry a child does not meet the demand, British agencies and clinics are moving to places like Mexico. People then travel abroad for surrogacy.

Is that why you also oppose regulation? Would not a compromise be better than completely unregulated surrogacy, after all?

No. There is no room for compromise here.

And I’ll say it again: we need to change our perspective. Instead of focusing on the commissioning parents and the surrogate mother, let’s look at the child.

In my view, the problem remains the same in every case of surrogacy. We’re causing harm to the child regardless of whether we add “regulated” or “altruistic” to the term “surrogacy”.

The language is changing, too. We no longer say “surrogate mother” but “gestational carrier”. The word “mother” is being removed from the vocabulary. To me, this is just PR and marketing. Words are being changed to make the whole thing seem more acceptable.

And yet this is a huge and rapidly growing market. However, I see one significant change: public opinion has shifted in recent years. Just three years ago, when a well-known figure returned home with a child born via a surrogate mother, the reaction was mostly: “That’s amazing, congratulations!”

Today, you see a lot of critical reactions. Especially in the United States, I think the atmosphere is changing significantly.

When you speak with different political or social groups, do you adjust the way you present your arguments?

It depends on who I’m talking to.

With people on the left, I use feminist and economic language more often. The feminist argument is very important there. With conservatives, it’s simpler. When you start talking about human dignity, they understand very quickly what you’re talking about.

Basically, though, I say the same thing to everyone. It’s more a matter of the language I use to explain the issue.

Let’s take it a step further. What role does faith play in your struggle?

This is going to be my “coming out”.

I used to be a staunch atheist. In fact, I begin my book by stating that I am an atheist and a feminist. For many years, I was firmly atheist and feminist. Today, I am no longer an atheist.

I was baptized and as a child I received my First Holy Communion, but it meant nothing to me. My parents didn’t practice their faith. I was very much against religion. I hated it. I didn’t understand it. I thought that religions only caused wars. I was a typical representative of that new wave of atheism from the first decade of this century.

And then, eight months ago, God “spoke” to me.

Of course, a person always has a choice. It happened in December 2025, so it’s really very recent. There’s a story behind it. It’s rough, but ultimately very beautiful.

On 20 June, my husband and I received our First Holy Communion and were married in the Catholic Church. Before that, we had been married only in a civil ceremony for ten years.

And community is also very important to me. It’s like a family. It’s wonderful.

Personally, I see Christianity as the source of my identity – I try to see myself as a child of God. Did faith help you in your search for your own identity as well? You have often said that you were searching for it.

No. Christianity didn’t help me in the search for my identity itself, because I wasn’t a believer back then.

I began to discover my identity after taking a DNA test. It was my biological identity. The story from my mother’s side was also very important. My surrogate mother provided me with our family history, a family tree and photographs.

Is your biological identity more important to you now than your spiritual identity?

I think they’re two different things.

I really needed to know my biological reality. It answered a huge number of questions for me and healed a large part of my inner self.

But even though I found the biological answers, there was still an empty space inside me. There was still a little hole in my heart. On top of that, I no longer have parents with whom I have a relationship, so it was difficult.

It wasn’t until I came to faith that I felt completely fulfilled. That’s when I was truly healed. That’s when I was able to say to myself: now it’s in God’s hands.

When you were in Slovakia a year ago, you said that the world was at a critical juncture – countries were deciding whether to legalize or ban surrogacy. What has changed in the past year? Are you more optimistic today?

I’m very, very optimistic.

First and foremost, I think the public discourse has changed significantly. You can see it on social media, too. Many more people are speaking out against surrogacy today.

Developments at the UN in June of this year were also very important. Italy, the Holy See, Chile, Paraguay and several African countries said that we need a common position. Essentially, they said: surrogacy is a problem, and we must address it at the UN level.

We are now trying to get other countries on board. We would, of course, like Slovakia to join as well.

This is the first step. You can’t jump straight from nothing to an international treaty. That’s not how diplomacy works. We have to take small steps.

First, we need countries to say: let’s pause, let’s not pass any more laws aimed at legalization and let’s take a look at what’s actually happening around the world. Later, there could be a joint declaration addressing the need for an international treaty and then we can move forward.

In the meantime, Slovakia has enshrined a ban on surrogacy in its constitution. What significance do you think the Slovak decision has in an international context?

Today, the whole world is watching Slovakia. Wherever I go, I talk about your country and what you’ve done.

People react: “Really? Slovakia did that?” And I tell them: “Yes. Slovakia did it, so you can do it too.”

You’ve become an example.

It doesn’t matter that you’re a small country. On the international stage, you have one vote, just like every other country. A country’s size isn’t the deciding factor.

I recently returned from Chile. When surrogacy was being discussed there, my colleague cited the Slovak example during the negotiations: Slovakia has just banned it in its constitution because it recognizes the problem. And people suddenly took notice. It was similar in Ecuador.

When I was in Latin America, I talked about Slovakia constantly.

I also remember the day you voted on the amendment. I was in Germany at the time, and I received a message that the bill had passed. I burst into tears. I was very proud of you, because it’s a huge step.

At the same time, however, I think that’s not enough. It’s the first step. We need to go further.

I consider the Italian model to be very important, as it also addresses cases where citizens travel abroad for surrogacy. In my opinion, if you truly want to protect women and children from this market, you must also address cross-border cases. It’s not enough to ban surrogacy at home if citizens can travel to a poorer country and use it there.

In September, you became the executive director of the Association for the Casablanca Declaration. What does this new role mean to you? You are no longer just telling your story – you are leading an international organization. What do you hope to achieve?

Another goal is an international treaty.

For me, this role is a natural progression. For some time, I’ve been telling my story and sharing my experiences. Eventually, I was getting a little tired of repeating the same story over and over.

I want to do more diplomacy. I want to work at the UN, negotiate, lobby and meet with politicians. I now want to translate my personal story into concrete action.

As a spokesperson, I traveled to various countries and shared my story. But I didn’t make concrete decisions; I wasn’t directly involved in diplomatic work. Now I have that opportunity.

So I’ll be traveling less, which I’m glad about, because I’m already tired. I also want to focus more on research.

At the Casablanca Declaration, our work has three strands: diplomacy, communication and research. And in my opinion, there is still too little research on surrogacy. We don’t have enough research on people born through surrogacy or the women who carried the children.

I hope that in the coming years we’ll be able to publish serious research on children born this way and examine what consequences it has for them.

An international treaty and research – these are the two major steps we want to take.

Just a few days before your visit to Slovakia, 160 organizations called on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to address surrogacy in the context of the sale of children. What do you expect from this initiative?

We had a similar experience with Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls.

She attended our first conference in Rome in 2024. At the time, she said something along the lines of: “I’m neither for nor against it; I want to listen, because I’m not familiar with this issue.”

We had lunch together; I told her my story, and she listened very attentively. Afterward, she began working on the issue of surrogacy.

The report she later published, in my opinion, made a big difference. When we meet with politicians in various countries today, we can show them this document. It bears the UN seal and therefore carries great weight with politicians.

We’d like to achieve something similar on the issue of the sale of children. We view surrogacy through this lens as well. We would therefore like to see another UN expert report that could stand alongside Reem Alsalem’s report and serve as another powerful document for negotiations with politicians.

This time, you are visiting Slovakia for the National March for Life in Bratislava. What message are you bringing to the Slovak people on 20 September?

It will be a short message.

I am very proud that Slovakia has adopted a constitutional ban on surrogacy. I think you’ve taken a step in the right direction if you want to protect women and children.

But you need to go further.

So my message is this: you’ve taken a step; now you need to finish the journey. A constitutional ban is excellent, but in my opinion, it must also be accompanied by effective criminal law.

Italy serves as a model for me in this regard. It does not have a ban on surrogacy directly in its constitution, but it has adopted a criminal-law framework. You have taken the first step at the constitutional level. Now it must be translated into specific laws.

And what would you say to a couple who desperately want a child, are unable to have one themselves and are pinning their hopes on surrogacy?

I understand that the desire for a child can be incredibly strong. I’m not saying that people who choose surrogacy are bad people or that they intentionally want to hurt anyone. Very often, these are people who are suffering and who long for a child so much that they can no longer see all the other aspects of their decision.

That is precisely why I keep saying that we need to reframe the question.

We can’t just look at what adults want. We also have to ask about the child – about their origins, their story, their relationship with the woman who carried them for nine months and what this decision will mean for them.

There is no such thing as an adult’s “right” to a child.

A child is not something that belongs to us simply because we desire it so much. And in my view, it is precisely the child’s voice that we hear the least in the entire debate on surrogacy.

This article was originally published on the DoKostola website.