Surrogacy is 21st-century slavery. Poor women are treated like living incubators, and children are sold like goods. “Defective” goods are killed, and “used-up” surrogate mothers are thrown out onto the street. The fuel for this inhuman industry is supplied by well-off couples (often same-sex) who buy themselves children at surrogacy fairs. In just a few days, a surrogacy fair is set to take place in Poland! In the very center of Warsaw. The Ukrainian company BioTexCom has announced that on September 12–13 it will hold a conference in Poland’s capital, at which attendees will be able to learn about its offer of so-called surrogate parenthood.

A harrowing testimony from a woman born through surrogacy

“I was programmed to be abandoned. My mother was supposed to disappear from my life. This separation was not accidental. It was the purchase of a product (…)

Throughout my childhood I felt a sense of abandonment, rejection, and emptiness. I had the feeling that something very important was missing. (…) I spent years trying to escape this pain through alcohol, drugs, and self-destructive behavior, and at one point I even tried to take my own life.”

Olivia Maurel – a woman commissioned and born through surrogacy

These words from Olivia Maurel shook those gathered at the June Ordo Iuris conference. They resonated powerfully within the walls of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, lending emotional weight to the voices of international experts demanding the global outlawing of surrogacy.

The need to ban “womb renting” – which leads to child trafficking, to the enslavement of women, and also to the growth of abortion and the IVF industry – was argued at the time by experts from Poland, France, Chile, and the United Kingdom, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem.

After the conference, the Ordo Iuris publishing house reached an agreement with Olivia Maurel to publish her book in Poland – a powerful testimony and a professional analysis of the terrible mechanisms of the global surrogacy industry.

Ordo Iuris took up this important issue literally moments before the surrogacy industry’s assault on Poland.

The surrogacy business wants to enter Poland

In just a few days, a surrogacy fair is set to take place in Poland! In the very center of Warsaw.

The Ukrainian company BioTexCom has announced that on September 12–13 it will hold a conference in Poland’s capital, at which attendees will be able to learn about its offer of so-called surrogate parenthood.

Surrogacy is 21st-century slavery. Poor women are treated like living incubators, and children are sold like goods. “Defective” goods are killed, and “used-up” surrogate mothers are thrown out onto the street. The fuel for this inhuman industry is supplied by well-off couples (often same-sex) who buy themselves children at surrogacy fairs.

Until recently, these modern-day slavery fairs took place only in Germany, Belgium, or France. Protests led to the fairs being driven out of Paris, which gave hope for a broad condemnation of this repugnant practice. All along, it seemed that Poland was a country free from surrogacy barbarism…

The September fair organized by the Ukrainian surrogacy magnate is meant to change that. And it is counting on the leniency of the Polish authorities.

That is why we have a duty to speak loudly about what surrogacy truly is.

As lawyers, we must also state clearly that surrogacy should meet with a firm response from criminal law. That is why, for years, we have been helping to build the international group of experts behind the “Casablanca Declaration,” who are demanding the global, treaty-based outlawing of surrogacy. Proof of the effectiveness of these efforts is the resolute ban on surrogacy in Italy, where both domestic surrogacy and “surrogacy tourism” are subject to punishment.

Surrogacy is a barbaric practice

The links between surrogacy and abortion cannot be emphasized enough. Recent weeks provide an example. On August 12 of this year, little Gabriel was born in Texas – a boy with a heart defect, miraculously saved from abortion. His mother is the surrogate McKenna West, who refused to carry out the contract and kill the child that his biological parents, Omar Ahmed and Neusheen Gilkar, no longer wanted. The surrogate had to flee to Texas, where the law protected the child’s life.

And so, for “failing to perform the contract” and refusing an abortion, she was sued for $250,000 in damages. For now, a court has barred the surrogate mother from contact with the child…

Gabriel was very lucky, but thousands of other children are not given such a chance. If they fail to meet the excessive expectations of those who commissioned them, they fall victim to abortion.

In the surrogacy procedure, the killing of children and trafficking in them very often go hand in hand with the modern-day enslavement of women. Surrogate mothers are subjected to humiliating selection and control. Very often they must live on so-called surrogacy farms – isolated from their families. And immediately after giving birth, they are forced to hand over the child at once.

According to the price list on BioTexCom’s website, the “standard” package costs €39,900, “standard plus” €49,900, and “VIP” €64,900. For that price, BioTexCom gives its clients access to a database with photographs, video interviews, and 3D footage – so they can view the women from various angles. The company’s clients themselves select both the egg donor and the woman who is to carry the pregnancy and give birth to the child.

Ordo Iuris against surrogacy

In Poland, surrogacy is illegal. That is why Ordo Iuris lawyers have prepared a notification to prosecutors of a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

In it, we point out that surrogacy-based child trafficking meets the conditions of Art. 189a § 2 of the Criminal Code, which provides for a penalty of up to 5 years’ imprisonment for preparing to commit the offense of human trafficking.

We also cite Art. 211a § 1, § 2(a), and § 3 of the Criminal Code, which provide that the illegal organizing of a child’s adoption for financial gain is an offense punishable by up to 5 years’ imprisonment. The same penalty applies to everyone involved in the transaction – including those who “buy” the child by declaring their intention to assume parental authority over it.

In addition – because the operating model of the “surrogacy business” is not a one-off but constitutes an entire, well-coordinated industry – we direct the prosecutors’ attention to Art. 258 § 1 and § 3 of the Criminal Code, concerning the direction of and participation in an organized criminal group. Those taking part in the activities of such a group face up to 8 years’ imprisonment, while those performing leadership roles face up to 15 years’ imprisonment.

We have launched an online information campaign revealing what surrogacy really is, along with a petition, “No to Surrogacy in Poland!”, in which we call on Poland’s Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General, Waldemar Żurek, to intervene urgently in this matter.

The response to the surrogacy fair in the center of the Polish capital is part of a strategy pursued for years, aimed at introducing an effective ban on surrogacy – both at the national and international level.

We must stand up in defense of the victims of surrogacy.

No one will do it for us.

Jerzy Kwaśniewski, attorney-at-law – President of Ordo Iuris

See also:

Source of cover photo: Ordo Iuris


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