Ep 919 ｜ No Good Surrogacies： A Surrogacy Baby Speaks Out ｜ Guest： Olivia Maurel
Episode Stats
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Summary
Olivia Morrell was born via surrogate and has spent years of her life feeling abandoned like she didn t belong. And now she is speaking out about the dangers of child and female exploitation inherent in the surrogacy industry. Her testimony is so powerful. Before we get into it, we will talk a little bit about the Republican presidential debate last night. Also, I do want to remind you that we have amazing Christmas gifts for the relatable fan in your life.
Transcript
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Olivia Morrell was born via surrogate, and she has spent years of her life feeling abandoned
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like she didn't belong. And now she is speaking out about the surrogacy industry and the dangers
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of child and female exploitation that are inherent in the practice and the industry.
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Her testimony is so powerful. Before we get into it, we will talk a little bit about the
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Republican presidential debate last night. Also, before we get into that, I do want to remind you
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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I am so excited for you to listen to the interview that we've got for you today with the woman who was
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born of surrogacy. Her story is really, really powerful. I will say, so she's French, and so
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you'll hear some differences in the words she chooses to use for different things. So if there
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are some things that she says that you're like, wait, I didn't quite understand the word that she
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chose, it is because she is a French speaker. But her English is perfect. There are just some
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differences there. So I wanted to give you a heads up about that. But gosh, share this interview far
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and wide. For anyone who is on the fence about surrogacy or hasn't been thoroughly convinced that
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it is a corrupt industry and a corrupt practice, they've got to listen to her testimony that she
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is giving us today. But before we get into that, I did want to say a couple things about the fourth
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Republican debate last night. And you might be thinking, there's been four debates? What? I haven't
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been paying attention to them at all. Now is the time to probably start paying attention. Believe
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it or not, next year is election year. I cannot believe that it is already here. I can't believe
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it is already here. But starting at the beginning of the year, we're really going to be gearing up and
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looking at this primary, this Republican primary. And there have already been, as I said, several
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debates. Trump has not been present at the debate. So that's probably why you haven't been hearing quite
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as much about them. But I tuned in last night. I haven't tuned into all of the debates. I'll just
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be honest about that. But I did tune in last night, mostly because my girl, Megyn Kelly,
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was the moderator, one of three moderators, and she did a great job. All of the moderators did a
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great job. This was a News Nation debate. The Fox News debate that we saw a couple weeks ago,
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I heard some of those questions. I thought the questions were ridiculous,
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just completely superfluous in some cases. And in other cases, couched in like the liberal
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assumption of something like how they would ask a question would be like giving credit to the liberal
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position on, say, abortion or immigration. That was not the case last night. There were very hard
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hitting questions. So right out the gate, you had Megyn Kelly, always with amazing questions,
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taking no prisoners. She asked Ron DeSantis, basically, look, you won in Florida, you did a
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good job, but you are not even close to Trump in the polls right now. And so do you think the voters
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are saying not no, but not now? And here is a part of his answer to that question. I am sick of
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Republicans who are not willing to stand up and fight back against what the left is doing to this
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country. You've got to be willing to stand strong and you've got to be willing to beat these people.
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I'm the only one running for president that has beaten these people on issue after issue.
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We beat the teachers unions when we did school choice. We beat Fauci on COVID. We beat George Soros
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when we removed two of his radical district attorneys. We beat the Democrats on election
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integrity. I have delivered results. That's what we need for this country.
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So we didn't play you the whole answer, but right out the gate, I thought it was really,
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really strong. He said, you know what? I'm not looking at the polls. We did amazing in Florida.
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Here's who we beat. We beat Fauci. We beat the teachers unions. We beat the Democratic Party there.
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And we can do that on a national scale. Now, I believe that. But Megyn Kelly is right. He is way
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behind Donald Trump. Here are the polls, at least according to FiveThirtyEight. You've got Trump at
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59.6%. Wow. DeSantis at 12.7%. Haley at 10.6%. And Ramaswamy at 4.9%. And then we've got Chris
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Christie, who was also on the debate stage, who is not even like a part of these polls. No one actually
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thinks that he is going to win the nomination, but he's hanging in there. He's hanging in there. So
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Trump, who has not been a part of any of these debates, is taking the lead, the strong lead. And
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Nikki Haley is coming up close to Ron DeSantis, which is exactly why Ron DeSantis went after Nikki
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Haley in his question. And I appreciate that he did that because Nikki Haley, I mean, there are
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plenty of things about Nikki Haley that I think are very commendable that I like. If she somehow
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ended up being the nominee, of course, I would vote for her versus Joe Biden. That's not even
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a question. But she said some things recently that I really didn't like. She is a little too soft on
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abortion. She tries to be too nuanced, walk the line too much when it comes to Roe v. Wade and what
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laws should be on the books about abortion. She made a comment that we talked about on here
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a few months ago where she criticized Ron DeSantis for his war on Disney and then invited, of course,
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I'm sure in a tongue in cheek way, invited Disney to South Carolina, invited Disney to South Carolina.
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Now, does South Carolinians, the conservative South Carolinians, do you really want a company
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like Walt Disney to be infiltrating your school districts, to be influencing what curriculum your
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children are learning so that your children learn in kindergarten that they can switch genders?
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Is that the kind of influence, the kind of corporate influence that South Carolinians want?
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But apparently, Nikki Haley thinks so. And then, of course, she made the comment just this week,
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I think we did talk about it on yesterday's show, that the law has no place when it comes to
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the genital mutilation of children. It has no place when it comes to these, quote unquote,
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gender affirming surgeries on minors, the double mastectomies for teen girls, the chemical castration
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of preteen boys. She said in the interview, the law does not have a place. What in the Asa Hutchinson?
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Yes, we did talk about that yesterday because I think I said the same thing.
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So she is like running to the left of Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis called her out because he is,
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she is catching up to him. And then Ramaswamy also called her out really for being kind of a hawk.
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He's much more isolationist, or at least he says he does. And he says he's anti-corporation,
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whereas she has a lot of corporations backing her. As she said last night, Wall Street is backing her.
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She just had a meeting with BlackRock and Vanguard, these companies who are funding the moral rot
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at an institutional level in our country. So she addressed those things. Ron DeSantis obviously
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going after her. And then I've got a couple more things to say about Ron DeSantis and a little bit
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more of a superficial analysis. And then that'll conclude this segment of our podcast and everything
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Okay, so I just wanted to play one more thing that people are talking about. It's Vivek versus
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Nikki Haley. He called her on something because he is criticizing her and other Republicans for
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wanting to fund this war in Ukraine, which he doesn't believe that America should be involved,
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involved in that. I'm obviously sympathetic to that position, although it's probably
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a little more complicated than these formats of debates allowed. But I do think he's like
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very clear and consistent, at least on this issue. And he says he calls Nikki Haley out and was like,
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you can't even name three provinces in Ukraine. And that was that was a bet. He wasn't sure
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if he was right about that. But it turns out he was. So here's that.
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Foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom. I want everybody at home to know
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that I was the first person to say we need a reasonable peace deal in Ukraine. Now a lot of
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the neocons are quietly coming along to that position with the exceptions of Nikki Haley and
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Joe Biden, who still support this, what I believe is pointless war in Ukraine. And I think those with
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foreign policy experience, one thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of
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them could even state for you three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to
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actually fight for. Look at that. This is what I want people to understand. These people have
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I mean, she has no idea what the hell the names of those provinces are, but she wants to send
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our sons and daughters and our troops and our military equipment to go fight it. So reject this
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myth that they've been selling you that somebody had a cup of coffee stint at the UN and then makes
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eight million bucks after has real foreign policy experience. It takes an outsider to see this
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through. Look at the blank expression. She doesn't know the names of the provinces that she wants to
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actually fight for. And there's a puppet makers right there, the donors, the donors right there that
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are playing her like the puppet makers. Okay, hold on, hold on. Woo! Woo! I mean, he made a bet that she would
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not be able to name the three provinces. But I do want to say, because people are saying, oh, she didn't
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even know three provinces. He specifically said the three provinces that she wants to send troops to.
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So just to hedge a little bit to give her maybe the BOD, maybe that's why she didn't want to answer
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that question. But of course, this turned into the viral moment. So Vivek wins the Twitter debate.
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That's what happens is that I don't think he won the actual debate. I think Ron DeSantis was the
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strongest in his responses, but he is always going to win among the people on Twitter who did not watch
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the debate because he is so rhetorically sharp and rhetorically talented. And like he's, I would say,
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the like most online candidate. So he says what the Twitter conservatives want to hear, and he's going
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to go viral that way, which is a strategy. Like it might be an effective strategy because I don't think
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most people are watching the debates. They're just catching the highlights after. And he's probably the
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best at packaging the highlights for social media. So that's a strategy. Okay, let me give you my like
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hard hitting analysis that this is really just about their appearance. Okay, so I was telling my husband
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this actually earlier, and he was like, you know, you need to say that because that's interesting. One thing
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that I will give Nikki Haley, even though I disagree with some things that she has said some like really
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important things. She has dressed really well. She dresses really well as a female politician. And you know how I
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know that she is doing a good job when it comes to her hair and her makeup and her appearance. And I
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know, I know you're not supposed to talk about this. You're not supposed to talk about this for a woman
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because no one has talked about it. No one has talked about her clothing choice. No one has talked
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about her hair. No one has talked about her makeup. And you know, if no one is talking about a woman's
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appearance, then she is doing a good job of dressing herself. Because as a woman in politics, it's not fair,
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but this is how it is. You can't look like you're trying too hard. And you can't look like you're not
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trying enough. If you're trying too hard, then you're a pick me. If you're not trying enough,
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then you're slovenly. She doesn't look homely, but she doesn't look like she is trying to draw
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attention to her appearance. Everything is well tailored. Everything is nice and simple. So good job,
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Nikki Haley and her glam squad. It is really difficult, I think, as a woman in politics to strike that
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balance. But she's doing a really good job. Now, I will say Ron DeSantis, as someone who is a Ron
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DeSantis stan, I really like Ron DeSantis and everything that he's done. I just want to say
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this from love. He needs someone to tailor his suits. He needs someone to tailor his suits. He's
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lost weight. That's a great thing. But his suits need to be better fitting. Does that matter
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long term in either of these cases, Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis? It doesn't. Of course not. It
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doesn't affect how you can lead. But look, people are superficial. We have cared about the aesthetics
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of our presidential candidate going all the way back to Nixon v. Kennedy. And so I think that this
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is a very simple fix that whether it's fair or not can communicate something to voters. How someone
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looks and their ability to fill out a suit, it communicates something to voters. I'm not saying it's
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right. I'm not saying it's fair. It's just the way it is. And you don't want people talking about your
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appearance. But people are talking about Ron DeSantis' suits. And you don't want people noticing. You
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probably don't even remember what Vivek was wearing. That's because he had probably a well-tailored suit
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on. You don't want people to notice. If people are talking about it, then you're doing something wrong.
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Olivia, thanks so much for taking the time to come on. Could you just tell us a little bit about
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So I'm Olivia. I'm 31 years old. I'm about to turn 32, actually. I'm a mother of three. I live in the
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south of France. And I am married to a wonderful man. Today, I am fighting against surrogacy. I'm using
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my story to fight against surrogacy and try to, you know, speak my word and take my word out there.
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We have a lot in common. I am also 31, almost 32, and a mother of three. Yeah. So I first,
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I saw your testimony on Twitter a couple weeks ago. And I was like, gosh, I've got to get her on my show.
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It was the International Conference on Surrogacy. It was held at the Parliament of the Czech Republic.
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This was on November 21st, and it's been going around on Twitter. Back us up. Tell us why you're
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speaking out about this, why you're opposing surrogacy.
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I was born from surrogacy. So 30, almost 32 years ago, through traditional surrogacy in Kentucky. And I have
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suffered a lot from the trauma of what surrogacy has caused me. And I really wanted to make sure that
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people knew that surrogacy wasn't this beautiful kind of magical thing that we like to portray it on
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media. So yeah, I really wanted to show people that the negative aspects of surrogacy, that surrogacy
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isn't what it looks like in the media. It's dark. It's full of negative things. It's using women as
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incubators. It's selling and buying children. And it's also causing a lot of harm on children.
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I'm 32. I'm almost 32 years old, but I'm going to say I'm 32 years old. It took me 31 years of time
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to speak out. All these children that are starting, I mean, that are being born now,
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now. They can't speak up yet. We'll see in the future generations what it's going to cause. But I
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do thoroughly believe that we are going to see a generation of children that are going to be very
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hurt by surrogacy, because they were born that way.
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And you said that you were born via traditional surrogacy. I actually hadn't heard this term,
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but this means that the surrogate was also the egg donor, which from my understanding,
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that is now not only uncommon, but also illegal in most cases that the egg donor, the egg seller has
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to be separate from the gestational carrier. But your biological mother was also your gestational
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carrier, correct? Exactly. That's how it is. But it does still happen. And you can see it on
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internet, actually. A lot of centers still sell traditional surrogacy.
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Okay. And when did you find out that you were conceived in this way?
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That's a good question. I always kind of knew. I mean, I always felt like I didn't fit in.
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My entire life was kind of awkward with my parents. Up until I was about 16 to 17 years old,
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where I started getting more and more questions just popping up in my head
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concerning my birth, and I had to get answers. So I just went to Google. I Googled Louisville,
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Kentucky, and I started getting all these internet websites concerning surrogacy. And that's when
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it kind of all clicked into place. So as of then, I started saying to everyone that I was born by a
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That's when you were 16. And what... I know that you said that things were kind of like awkward with
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your parents, but were there any specific clues that made you think this? Because,
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like I'm thinking, I don't think I would have ever even known what that was or even
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tried to deduce that as a teenager. So how did you know to even search for something like that?
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I don't know. It was kind of like it was in me. My mother... I mean, we always had really weird,
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like not a very good connection with my mother. I love her, but we don't have like that mother-daughter
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kind of interaction thing going on. Yeah, exactly, bond. And she doesn't really look like me.
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We don't have the same passions. I really don't share much with this person, except that she...
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I know she... Of course, she offered me an education and whatever, but she... I don't share much with
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that person. And I knew something was off. So I knew it was either adoption or something else.
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And that's when I started just looking up maybe things that were happening with
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with surrogacy in Louisville, Kentucky at that point in time. So when I was 16, 17 years old.
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I was raised between Florida and the South of France.
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Okay. And you searched Louisville, Kentucky because you knew that you had been born there?
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Yeah, exactly. On my birth certificate, that's where I was born, on my passport, whatever.
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Okay. So you're 16, 17 then. And did you go to your parents at that point,
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the people who raised you, and say, hey, is this true?
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No, never. I would never have gotten to them. I felt like I had kind of this...
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I mean, I couldn't. It was impossible. I couldn't go up to them and be like, okay,
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hey, I know that this is... I was born through surrogacy. Tell me the truth. No, that just
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wouldn't happen. I was too scared of how they would react, what they would say. I was still living
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under their roof, so I couldn't go against them and the way I was born. It was impossible. And so I
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kind of just kept that inside of me. But I was telling the whole world, apart from them, that I was
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born by a surrogacy. That's what was insane. So I was telling the doctors, I was telling my friends.
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I met my husband at the age of 21. I was telling him, I told my mother-in-law. And because I told
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my mother-in-law, so my husband's mother, and she just knew and she saw me suffer. She just saw me
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suffer all these years. And so at the age of 30, she offered me a DNA test. And that's when I had
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the physical proof. Okay. So you just knew, intuitively, when you searched for surrogacy
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in Louisville, Kentucky, what exactly did you find that confirmed your intuitive feeling that
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this was how you were conceived and carried? Websites concerning surrogacy centers.
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Okay. Gotcha. And so you did not go to your parents at this time. And when you say that your
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mother-in-law saw you suffer, talk a little bit more about your suffering. Like, I know that you said it
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was awkward growing up. I imagine that that in itself is traumatic, not feeling like you have a real bond
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with your mom. That's such an important bond to have. But when you say that even in your adult life,
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you were suffering from this, what do you mean by that?
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Well, I had difficulties with addictions, such as drugs, alcohol. I suffered with a lot of things.
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I always felt the trauma of abandonment. So I was always in this position where I was scared that
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people would leave me. I have difficult, I have, I still have difficult, I have difficulty, sorry,
00:23:05.360
having friendships because I suffocate people. And I tend to like, you know, suffocate them and
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then they just leave me because they're, they're, they get annoyed by me, basically. But I'm so scared
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that they, that they'll leave that I suffocate them. So kind of, kind of annoying. And yeah, I, I'm,
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I still have that void. I mean, my mother, biological mother and surrogate mother,
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she left me at my birth. She left me, she exchanged me for a check. She, I mean, I don't,
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I don't blame her because she, she did it because she probably needed the money, but, uh, it's the
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truth. She did abandon me at one point in my life where I needed her the most. And that left a void
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void. And that void, I tried to fill it up my entire life. So I tried filling it up with alcohol,
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drugs, friendships. And, uh, also I had weird relationships with older women. So like, um,
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I would try to find the mother figure in every older woman that would come about in my life.
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Right. Right. And so your parents sought out this woman and it, so your dad is your biological dad.
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They sought out this woman and she went through, I guess the IVF process in order to conceive you,
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right? Yes, she did. Yeah. So I imagine even though there is a wound and a separation that happens
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with adoption too, this probably feels different though, because it was more transactional.
00:24:51.000
She needed money. And so she conceived you purposely with the intention of abandonment,
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right? Which is a little different than if you find yourself with a surprise pregnancy and you can't
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take care of your child and you give your child to a loving family. This was much more transactional.
00:25:08.160
I just imagine that that probably compounds the feelings of loss that you have.
00:25:14.820
Yeah, I, I agree. Um, that's how I describe the difference between adoption and, uh, surrogacy.
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And that's because people always compare surrogacy with adoption. I don't know why, but it's two
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completely different things in surrogacy. We are prescribing the abandonment. That's what
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René Friedman, who's a very well-known gynecologist. That's how he calls it. Um, the prescribed
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abandonment. I just love that term because it's exactly what it is. We are, um, intentionally
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programming, um, the abandonment of children by their birth mother, which is horrible. And we are
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intentionally going to create that primal wound that adoptees talk a lot about. Um, and yeah,
00:26:04.000
at one point in my life, I was a trend, I was part of a transaction. I actually have a price tag on my
00:26:11.100
head, which is sometimes difficult to carry and is also why I had a hard time speaking up because as
00:26:19.540
a surrogate born child, we have a price tag, we are worth a lot of money. And, um, so because of
00:26:25.880
that, we are not allowed to talk. We have to be grateful. We have to be grateful towards our intended
00:26:30.720
parents. Um, so yeah, that's, it's not the adoption and surrogacy are complete, two completely different
00:26:38.540
things and we must keep them different. Yeah. I like to say that adoption in general redeems a
00:26:45.840
broken situation where a surrogacy creates one. It's a life that's already been created. And the
00:26:52.260
next best option, if the biological parents can't raise that child is adoption by loving parents.
00:26:58.840
Surrogacy, you're purposely creating motherless and fatherless children, or at least you are creating
00:27:05.360
them to be separated from the woman that carried them. Um, and then excelling and sperm selling,
00:27:11.360
it's the same kind of thing. Um, one thing that we've also talked about is like the loss of
00:27:16.780
medical information that a child has when they are unknowingly, but intentionally separated from
00:27:25.060
their biological family. Half your DNA is from this woman, um, that you were not raised by. And
00:27:31.560
that has presented obstacles for you, right? Like you have only later found out some of the mental
00:27:37.820
health struggles that she had. Exactly. I had no idea, no clue. And I was struggling with mental
00:27:44.640
health issues throughout my entire life. And I had no idea why. And I just recently found out that
00:27:50.940
she struggles, of course, with these mental issues and that, of course, their head, I mean,
00:27:56.600
it comes from her. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, that, that's, um, that was a big issue for me because
00:28:02.340
when I got pregnant from my first daughter, Eleanor, um, I kind of was just like, okay, I'm having this
00:28:09.980
baby and I have no clue what I'm going to give to her. Like what kind of diseases am I going to give
00:28:17.760
her? Am I, is she going to have a breast cancer maybe later on? Or is she going to have a mental
00:28:23.680
health issues? Is there were so many questions that I was asking myself and I didn't have answers
00:28:29.680
to, but yeah, that's 25% of the DNA of my children that I didn't know, um, which is incredible to me
00:28:37.500
and it should not be allowed. It shouldn't be allowed.
00:28:47.760
So your birth certificate had already been altered, right? To remove your biological mother's name.
00:28:59.460
So she was supposed to like, we were supposed to just like erase her from your history without a
00:29:05.500
trace. Exactly. So what happens is that I was born, um, my parents had a house in Florida. So we moved
00:29:14.260
to Florida, uh, like right after my birth. Uh, but it took like three to four days to have a new birth
00:29:20.620
certificate delivered so that my birth mother, my surrogate mother was completely erased and it was
00:29:27.100
replaced by my intended mother. So on my birth certificate says that my intended mother is my birth mother
00:29:34.440
and that's false. Right. And it's kind of dangerous as well because I mean, it's right. It's, it's, it's,
00:29:47.120
it's not true. Yeah. It's lying. It's lying. And we're supposed to, these certificates are supposed
00:29:53.680
to be true and they're not. And, uh, it should have at least mentioned that I was born via surrogacy or at
00:30:00.520
least adopted or at least something. Right. But no, it says that my, uh, intended mother is my,
00:30:05.880
is my biological mother, which is not true. Yeah. And that's a piece of your identity that,
00:30:11.280
like you said, they are lying about it. It's an important piece of your identity.
00:30:15.880
Wiped away from my, it's just wiped away. Yeah. Don't consider it. Yeah. But it,
00:30:23.000
which is interesting is that they tried to erase it. But early on when I was,
00:30:30.020
when I was younger, um, I was like, I remember I was like eight or seven and I, you know,
00:30:35.620
we all have those little journals where we write, uh, our lover, like who we like and who we love and
00:30:41.260
who's our best friend whatsoever. And in my journal, I wasn't writing this stuff. I was writing,
00:30:45.920
I was in France at the time and I was writing, oh, I need to go back to America. I love America.
00:30:52.160
I am American. Um, um, I need to go back to America. Like it was just this one idea that I
00:30:59.900
had and I was, that I was writing down in my journal. And so you see the genes were calling,
00:31:05.560
like saying, okay, you are American. You need to go back to your country. So the papers lie,
00:31:13.300
but the genes, they don't lie. And at one point they come back and, you know, it was kind of like
00:31:19.380
America was calling me, you know? Yeah. Right. And the birth certificate thing in all of this that
00:31:26.720
you're talking about, I mean, they do that for the parents. They do that for the parents to give
00:31:30.980
the parents or, you know, the, uh, the people who raised you, your dad and the mother who raised you,
00:31:38.200
it's for them. It's to give them a sense of legitimacy so they can look at the piece of paper
00:31:43.300
and say, no, this is my real child. The transaction checked out. Like this is, you know, the, the check
00:31:51.000
cashed. This is my receipt basically, um, of that. And in all of this, it is because, I mean,
00:31:58.860
this is the pushback that I get when I talk about surrogacy. I'm sure you do too. But what about the
00:32:04.520
people who really want a child? What about the people who really want to be parents? What about
00:32:09.120
the people who have X, Y, Z health issue and they have to use a surrogate? They have to use an egg or
00:32:15.200
sperm donor. It's like, people can't get out of their minds that the primary, like the primary
00:32:22.380
thing cannot be what adults want. It can't be that adults want it. So anything goes right.
00:32:29.420
Exactly. There is no right to have a child. That's what I say. Every time people tell me these things,
00:32:36.000
there is no right to have a child. I mean, that has to just get into people's minds,
00:32:41.060
but children have rights and we have the right to know where we come from. We, we have the right
00:32:48.080
to not be separated from our mothers at birth. Uh, we have the rights to be raised by our mother,
00:32:54.180
our mothers. And those are just such primal and important rights that we step on and we just spit
00:33:02.960
on with surrogacy. Um, but people can't understand that they don't, they, they, they just can't.
00:33:10.400
Yeah. It seems, it seems like they, they really can't. And, um, you've met, well, okay, actually,
00:33:16.300
before I ask that, let me ask you about the moment that, so your mother-in-law, she helped
00:33:21.900
you get this DNA test that confirmed what your suspicion had always be, which is again, I just
00:33:26.640
think, I just think it's so wild and really cool that your intuition just knew it just knew. So this
00:33:34.700
DNA test just confirmed what you already knew about who you are and what your, uh, ancestry is. So tell
00:33:43.340
me about that moment. What was it like when you had that confirmation?
00:33:48.960
Oh, it was, um, it was surreal. I, I remember it precisely. It was on January 11th, uh, 2023. So
00:33:59.280
it's actually really recent. Yeah. Really recent. Yeah. Really recent. But she was, um, I, this,
00:34:07.120
I'm actually going to write in a book because I have to write a book about this. It's so important
00:34:11.140
to me. Um, but like when I opened the test, the first thing that you see is like your ethnical
00:34:18.760
background. And, and I mean, I had no French blood in my ethnic background, like nothing,
00:34:25.880
nothing came out. So at first I was like, okay, wow. That's, that's, I feel better because
00:34:32.480
that just, I mean, I had the answer to my questions. Um, and then I scrolled down. My dad is not French.
00:34:41.260
My dad is Swiss. Okay. So, but my DNA test identified that I was Swiss. So everything was covered. Um,
00:34:50.620
and then what was interesting is that this, I mean, we knew that it was going to help me
00:34:58.760
find my DNA. Um, I mean, my ethnic background, but we didn't know that it was going to help me
00:35:06.680
find my half siblings because I did find my half siblings via this test. Um, so I scroll down,
00:35:15.300
I find my, uh, cousin because, you know, the DNA kind of matches with all the other DNA
00:35:20.700
in the, um, in the, uh, whatchamacallit, the, um, like the, the, the, the DNA pond that the, um,
00:35:31.580
the system has. And I was matched with my cousin. And so I write to my cousin and I'm like, okay,
00:35:38.660
well, uh, I am this person. Um, I think I was born by a surrogacy. Maybe, you know,
00:35:45.280
someone in your family that you surrogacy and you can help me out and help me find my biological
00:35:50.920
mother. And she actually responded. And she says that she said that she does know someone
00:35:55.900
and she put me in contact with my half brother. And then my half brother put me in contact with my
00:36:01.960
half sisters. And then I got in contact with my biological mother. And that day I was, I felt
00:36:10.700
so much better, so much better because I just had 30, like 31 years of questions in my head. I was,
00:36:19.720
I just felt relieved, honestly relieved that, uh, I finally had the answers to my questions,
00:36:26.140
but now I have other questions. Like how could she have sold me? How could at one point I,
00:36:33.820
how could she have sold me? How could she have given one of her children and kept the rest?
00:36:42.120
How could I have been a product at one point in my life? You know, there's so many other questions
00:36:45.940
that pop up, um, and that are very emotional to me still. Yeah. And you know, some people might be
00:36:54.180
listening to this is, as you know, this is like a very hot topic that even, you know, I'm a
00:36:59.300
conservative Christian and the conservatives listening to this, you would think would be on
00:37:04.240
our same page, but not all of them are. Um, and so some of them might be saying, well, this is just
00:37:09.500
her. This is just one person. She happens to have these feelings that doesn't, that doesn't speak for
00:37:15.660
everyone born via surrogacy. And while that may be true, I have heard what you told me about how you
00:37:22.560
felt from every person that I know born via sperm or egg donation or surrogacy, they struggle their
00:37:32.040
whole lives with feelings of abandonment, feelings that their mom had been picked out of the catalog
00:37:39.020
or their dad had been picked out of the catalog feeling, as you said, you said it so profoundly that
00:37:44.700
like there was a price tag on your head and that, that is what we are for. That is the burden that we
00:37:51.100
are forcing tiny humans, babies to carry when we say my desire to be a parent is more important than
00:37:59.980
the wellbeing and the rights of this child. Exactly. And I just want to say that it's not because some
00:38:08.360
people live. I mean, it's not because some children born via surrogacy live well, that we have to
00:38:19.740
legitimate surrogacy that, that it doesn't make it legitimate. At least. Um, I had this, uh, this
00:38:28.940
lady talked to me the other day. She was like, well, it's not because I mean, you, you cut your arm off
00:38:33.960
and you have a prosthetic arm and then you live. Okay. I mean, you live well with your prosthetic arm,
00:38:38.300
um, that it makes cutting arms. Okay. It's kind of like, um, it doesn't, it's,
00:38:45.340
I mean, I've talked to egg and sperm, um, donor conceived children as well, and they all feel
00:38:52.260
the same way. Like I do, um, adoptees feel the same way that I do. I unfortunately don't speak
00:38:59.360
to people that have been born via surrogacy. I have a hard time finding people that are born
00:39:04.560
by a surrogacy. Um, probably because we, people are too afraid to speak out. Like I said, uh, we have a
00:39:10.840
very big price tag on our heads and it's kind of like, if we go against where our parents, we are
00:39:16.380
alienated and that's what it costs me at least. I've been alienated. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. So your
00:39:26.680
parents, after you started talking about this, they won't talk to you anymore? No, no, no, no. We're,
00:39:32.760
we're on very, we're not on good terms. Unfortunately, I, I have nothing against them. I don't,
00:39:39.860
I don't blame them for using the system of surrogacy because it was just out there. Like I said,
00:39:45.020
uh, handed out on a silver platter and they just took it. But, um, they are, yeah, they're bothered
00:39:53.840
by the fact that I'm talking, that I'm saying out loud that this is, this is bad, but I feel like I
00:40:00.240
have every right to say it's bad. I mean, I have lived through with these traumas. It doesn't make
00:40:04.880
them bad parents. It just means that I lived traumas and traumatic, like I live with a trauma
00:40:11.380
of abandonment all my life because of the way I was born. It's just the way it is. Do you know
00:40:17.940
why they decided to seek out a surrogate? Yeah, I do. They, um, my parents, they, they had a very,
00:40:27.520
very successful business. They worked very long hours, whenever they, they worked very, um,
00:40:35.040
they worked a lot and they didn't start. I mean, they, they just kept working and I think they
00:40:40.400
prioritized their, um, business rather than building a family. So, um, when it was time for
00:40:48.920
them to build a family and that my father was like, okay to build a family, it was a little too late.
00:40:55.880
And, um, and my mother had had problems, health issues, so she couldn't conceive a child. And, uh,
00:41:04.340
and so they seeked out surrogacy. My mother was 48 when they started seeking out surrogacy.
00:41:11.120
Wow. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Um, and what do you say to people who say, well, you only feel that way
00:41:18.000
because you're the gestational carrier for you was also your biological mother. But in a lot of cases of
00:41:24.220
surrogacy that we see, it is the biological child of the couple that's renting the womb of the
00:41:31.720
surrogate. So it's the biological egg, it's the biological sperm. They are just implanting
00:41:37.560
this embryo into the surrogate. What do you say to that? Is that still a form of surrogacy that you
00:41:44.400
oppose? Of course, every surrogacy is a bad surrogacy to me. This child that's in the womb,
00:41:51.540
that's connecting with its mother because she will be the birth mother in every single case.
00:41:58.500
This baby is connecting with his mother for nine months. He's eating what she's eating. He's feeling
00:42:04.880
what she's feeling. He's just living every single day with her and he's hers and she's his. So
00:42:15.340
when he's going to come out of that womb, he's going to be looking for her. And if she's not
00:42:21.660
there, that trauma of abandonment will still be there. So in 100% of cases, you will cause the
00:42:28.780
trauma of abandonment. That's what it is. I mean, the baby is not going to be like, okay, she's not
00:42:34.780
my biological mother. Wait, hold on. Let me go and check if she's my mother. No, the newborn doesn't
00:42:40.660
care. He's going to search for the one that he listened to for nine months. That's what it is.
00:42:50.020
But I mean, even if it doesn't matter if they're biologically related or not. Yeah. Has no
00:42:56.000
difference. It's just crazy how we understand this when it comes to kittens and puppies and not babies.
00:43:01.740
Exactly. Like we have, we force people to keep kittens and puppies with their mothers for two
00:43:10.380
months or three months after they are born. But with surrogacy, we don't even leave little baby
00:43:16.860
humans with their mothers for two to three months after they're born. No, we just rip them away from
00:43:21.720
their mothers at birth. How is this even, how is this imaginable? I'm still, I'm still wrapping my
00:43:29.520
head around how people find this normal just to have children. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, I just feel
00:43:38.180
like it's not human at least. Yeah. We just had, um, you know, the conservative like commentator class,
00:43:48.420
uh, on Twitter was having a big debate about this because there is a conservative commentator. He and
00:43:54.500
his, uh, you know, male, male partner just, uh, you know, welcomed their baby via egg selling and
00:44:02.480
surrogacy. And you have all of these people who are applauding this. They're excited about it because
00:44:08.540
really most people have not thought about surrogacy. They haven't thought about reproductive technology.
00:44:14.220
They haven't thought about the ethics of the reproductive industry. They've not thought beyond
00:44:19.080
yay babies because it's really uncomfortable as you know, and unpopular to think beyond that and
00:44:25.700
especially to speak beyond that. And so people like me, and I'm sure people like you too, we're called
00:44:32.240
bigots. We're called hateful. We're called cruel when really it's the opposite. Like we have the common
00:44:39.160
sense, the logical and the humane position that children are not to be bought and that wombs are not
00:44:45.700
to be rented and that eggs are not to be sold. Like to me, like these are so obvious and like
00:44:51.440
fundamental positions. And yet, I mean, I'm, I'm routinely called radical and extreme and I'm sure
00:44:57.780
you are too. I am. I'm all the time, every day on TikTok, on social media. It's, but I, I don't,
00:45:06.260
I don't really care because I think we have to educate people to what surrogacy is. Uh, people have
00:45:14.940
no, no, no knowledge on what surrogacy really is. And that is what you are saying, buying children,
00:45:21.980
selling children, renting rooms. We're like human trafficking and everyone's like, yay,
00:45:26.720
human trafficking. It makes no sense to me either.
00:45:30.940
Surrogacy is just separating a child from its mother at birth, uh, whether or not they're
00:45:48.540
biological, biologically linked or not. It doesn't make a difference because the fetus will link with
00:45:55.580
its mother, um, at, from four or nine months. Uh, we deprive these children from knowing their
00:46:02.140
parentage. Um, so in all cases, they're going to lose the woman, their mother that built them at
00:46:08.560
that end that birthed them. Um, so that's going to harm all of these children and traumatize all of
00:46:14.820
these children. And surrogacy is also paying a woman to use her womb as an incubator for a certain
00:46:20.780
amount of time. And yeah, we're, we're, this is, this is ridiculous. How is this, how is this normal
00:46:27.980
for people? Um, and yeah, I keep saying this on, on Tik TOK, on my Tik TOK, um, in France, but, uh,
00:46:35.760
but I keep getting these messages like, Oh wait, what, what about homosexual parents? Well, no,
00:46:40.280
I'm against surrogacy for everyone, not just for homosexual parents or heterosexual parents.
00:46:45.220
I'm just against the whole entire ordeal for everyone, everyone. Yeah, me too. Um,
00:46:53.520
what are the surrogacy laws in France? Uh, it's, it's, we're not allowed, you're not allowed to
00:46:59.520
do surrogacy, but I mean, they always find ways to go around laws here in France. Yeah. There are ways
00:47:08.320
to go around the laws, but it's not allowed in Italy. They're going to penalize it actually.
00:47:14.420
Yeah. Which I love. Um, and you know, what's so funny, I find this also with a lot of different
00:47:21.540
policies in America that, um, you know, the progressives here who are pro surrogacy and
00:47:26.860
things like that, they will point to people like us, like, you know, conservatives like me and say,
00:47:32.200
Oh my gosh, you're so extreme. You're like the, the Taliban. That's so crazy. And they view America
00:47:37.920
as so insanely conservative when really, like, if you look at Europe, surrogacy and the reproductive
00:47:43.340
industry is a lot more regulated there. I mean, we're like the wild, wild West over here when it
00:47:48.900
comes to embryos on ice and reproductive technology. That's why so many people either go through like
00:47:55.060
the third world countries where these poor women are trying to make money as surrogates, which,
00:47:59.460
oh my gosh, yes, human trafficking, but also they go through America, I guess like your family did
00:48:04.580
because it is so liberal and so unregulated here. Like it's really, that's the, if you want to call
00:48:12.460
something extreme, America is extreme when it comes to this. Yeah, I do find so. And I've did some
00:48:19.520
research. Apparently you don't have, like, there's no regulations apart from New York. Apparently
00:48:25.260
anyone can open an agency here in the United States to like a surrogate agency. I think that that's what it,
00:48:33.940
I mean, I made some research about it and apparently, yeah, anyone can open a surrogate
00:48:37.540
agency in the United States, which I found crazy because they're dealing with humans. They're
00:48:44.720
trafficking humans and anyone can open, like I can open an agency if I want to in, I don't know,
00:48:49.180
in Florida, which is crazy, crazy to me. Crazy. Yep. Yep. It really is. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
00:48:56.220
Yeah. But I don't think you're, I don't think it's a political thing. You know, we're talking humans.
00:49:01.820
We're talking babies. We're talking women. We're talking, it's not, it, this shouldn't be a
00:49:06.580
political thing. It shouldn't be a conservative thing or a progressive thing. It just should be
00:49:10.740
normal. It just should be in people's minds that we don't buy children. Yeah. Dot. We do not use
00:49:19.440
women as incubators. Dot. Yeah. There's no political aspect to this, at least to me. Yeah. It shouldn't be.
00:49:29.420
I mean, as you probably know, in the United States, um, we're not only extremely political,
00:49:34.460
but like our differing political factions have very fundamental moral differences. So how we view
00:49:43.560
human beings is really different. Now that's not to say all Republicans think one way and all
00:49:47.840
Democrats think one way. I'm not saying that at all. Um, but you will find more on the progressive
00:49:52.960
side, kind of pushing this idea of the family diversity theory that no matter how a child is
00:49:58.900
conceived or created or raised, as long as they have someone in their life who loves them,
00:50:02.800
and that's totally fine. It's the nature versus nurture debate. Whereas we over here who believe
00:50:08.700
in natural law and believe that we're made in the image of God, we believe there is a purpose and
00:50:13.400
an intention behind how we are made, how we are created, how we're raised, that all of that is really
00:50:18.620
important. Um, and so there are some fundamental differences that do unfortunately manifest
00:50:24.560
themselves in, uh, political differences in the United States. So I agree with you. It shouldn't
00:50:30.480
be political, but because of where we are politically in the United States, it has become so.
00:50:36.100
But look at me. I just, let's take me as an example. I was born by surrogacy, whatever,
00:50:41.800
32 years ago. I now have like, I kind of lived 32 years. So I can give you my perspective of how I
00:50:49.980
lived my life. My parents loved me. They did what they could. Yeah. Um, they educated me. They offered
00:50:57.880
me an extremely good education, extreme. I mean, I had everything I wanted. I, I had, my parents had
00:51:05.660
money. I, uh, I, I mean, I lived a good life, um, financially speaking. However, there was not that
00:51:13.400
bond. And even though they loved me, that love was not enough. It wasn't enough because I still
00:51:20.500
developed, uh, tendencies to drugs, to alcohol. I had, I mean, I, I, it's, it's just how it is.
00:51:29.440
Yeah. So love doesn't suffice. Love isn't enough. That's, it's, um, you, I mean, it, it's ridiculous
00:51:38.740
to think that way. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I know that we have to let you go. There are so many other
00:51:44.400
questions that I, that I wanted to ask you. The, the, the last thing that I want to ask is I'm,
00:51:48.780
I'm just curious, do you have, like, do you consider yourself a Christian? Do you have a faith?
00:51:54.140
No, I don't actually. I have no faith. I have faith in humanity. That's what I, I, I always say.
00:52:01.480
I have faith in humanity. I think that we can abolish surrogacy worldwide. I will be fighting
00:52:07.740
this cause for as long as I am here on earth. So no, I don't have faith, but, um, but I mean,
00:52:13.400
I respect anyone who does. Yeah. And, um, and, but no, no, I'm not, I do not, uh, I'm not a
00:52:21.200
Christian. I'm, I'm just, I'm actually atheist. Atheist. Well, I just, I mean, um, and you can,
00:52:29.040
you can react to this how you will, cause I know we have to close out, but as I'm listening to your
00:52:34.160
story and the feelings of abandonment that a lot of people have had, but specifically people who have
00:52:39.260
been abandoned by parents, like, I just wanted you to know that I believe that you are made by a God
00:52:45.240
who cares for you and loves you and made your DNA with purpose and that you have incredible value,
00:52:54.080
not just because you're a human, but also because you have a soul that is going to live forever.
00:53:00.880
And I just, I, when I hear you talk, I'm like, gosh, she needs to know that there is a God who
00:53:06.280
created her and who loves her and who sent Jesus to die for her. And that is the only place I believe
00:53:13.780
that we find purpose and belonging ultimately. So I'm so thankful though, whether you believe in
00:53:20.700
him or not, I think that he is using you and using your courage and using your voice and using
00:53:27.320
your suffering for something really redemptive and good. And that's what God does. He takes
00:53:32.440
broken things and he redeems them for a greater purpose. And whether you believe that you're being
00:53:39.740
used by him, that's, that's what I see. So I just want to tell you that, but I also wanted to thank
00:53:44.360
you for being courageous because you didn't have to take this stand yet you are, and you're speaking
00:53:48.900
up for the most vulnerable. And so thank you so much. I will be absolutely cheering you on.
00:53:54.880
And thank you. And I just want to, I mean, I just want to finish with this sentence just for the
00:54:00.740
people that are listening to me. And I want to, I want this message to be clear and clear as possible.
00:54:09.440
There is no such thing as a good surrogacy. No surrogacy is good. There is no justification for
00:54:17.200
forcing a child to be born in order to be separated from its biological mother or non-biological mother.
00:54:23.940
And there is no justification for using a woman as an incubator. And that is my message that I want
00:54:31.220
to spread. And I hope it'll be listened to. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. We're going to share
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this far and wide. Yes. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye.