Olivia Maurel

Sure.

I actually like to say that I am a pure product of surrogacy.

I was planned, I was contracted, and I was delivered.

So I was born through surrogacy in 1991 in Louisville, Kentucky.

So 34 years ago now.

And actually, I grew up not knowing my origins, not knowing where I came from.

At the age of 17, I started making research on internet about the city where I was born in America.

and I fell on surrogacy agencies, and that's how I kind of found out that I was born of surrogacy.

And today, I speak as the spokesperson of the Casablanca Declaration that fights for the universal abolition of surrogacy, and they came and found me.

They came and found me, and now it's my work.

It started as a feeling.

I grew up

I knew something didn't fit, and even if I couldn't really explain it.

And I have to say, I wasn't separated by my mother by tragedy, like an adoption.

I was separated by her by design.

And once you see that clearly, you can't unsee it.

So I'm not just someone that's born through surrogacy.

I'm its outcome.

I'm its product.

I was created through a process where a woman's body was used and a child, that's me, was expected to be handed over at birth.