NO MATERNITY TRAFFIC organized a demonstration Place Royale on 3rd of May to protest against the surrogacy promotional conference of Men Having Babies.

The marked reaction of the Belgian civil society and political organisations about the surrogacy promotional conference of Men Having Babies clearly shows that surrogacy is an important political topic. The approach used by the American organisation Men Having Babies to promote surrogacy in Europe, in defiance of existing laws in several European countries, shows little respect for the Belgian situation on this matter. Moreover, the complicity of the Brussels local government accepting such conference in its buildings reflects the real nature of surrogacy. Surrogacy is primarily distributed by commercial and profit oriented companies managing women and children as pure objects in total impunity.

It is clear that it will be impossible to legalize a so-called “ethic” surrogacy. Allowing surrogacy, even with severe limitations, permits commercial companies to organize the circumvention of the law in processing surrogacy abroad and afterwards repatriating the baby in the country. This situation already exists in the UK where surrogacy is legal and where the vast majority of surrogacy is processed abroad without any respect of British laws. The only solution is a worldwide surrogacy prohibition.

No Maternity Traffic reminds us that surrogacy treats children as objects of contracts with the aim to create and separate them from their mother. No Maternity Traffic denounces this new form of slavery.

Surrogacy violates European and international law, particularly the conventions of the rights of the child (1989), on the elimination of all form of discrimination (1979), on adoption (1967 and 1993), against slavery (2005), on human rights and biomedicine (1997).

No Maternity Traffic is an initiative launched by the « International Union for the abolition of surrogacy ».

The International Union for the abolition of surrogacy works with all available legal means for an international prohibition to the commercialisation of the body, especially through surrogacy. The Union was founded at the initiative of national and European associations for the respect of childhood, of women, of human dignity and rights, particularly Action pour la Famille/Actie voor het Gezin, European Center for law & justice, l’Appel des professionnels de l’enfance, Alliance VITA, FAFCE, ECPM, La Manif Pour Tous, l’Agence Européenne des Adoptés, Care for Europe, European Dignity Watch, Fondazione Novae Terrae

Contact No Maternity Traffic – Brussels: +32 487 84 55 59

www.nomaternitytraffic.eu