Around 50 members of the “No Maternity Traffic” movement demonstrated on Brussels’ Place Royale on Sunday morning. This demonstration took place in front of the BIP during a conference called “Men Having Babies”, which was trying to encourage surrogacy. The demonstrators claim to defend children’s rights. The conference was organised by around 20 private clinics and American intervention services. The aim was to give homosexual couples an overview of the commercial surrogacy possibilities in the US. Around 200 people from all over Europe came to learn about the legal situation in the EU member states.
For “No Maternity Traffic”, surrogacy is a sort of human trafficking. The movement, which stems from the International Union for the abolition of surrogacy, thinks it is unacceptable that American companies can advertise in Belgium as Belgium is currently working on legal ways to prevent commercial surrogacy. “The last time we were able to make contracts involving humans was during the Slave Trade”, says Yves Savary, one of the demonstrators. The demonstrators are against all forms of surrogacy, which it considers “unethical”. “A child that is taken from its mother at birth can show signs of serious psychological damage”, another demonstrator said.
The demonstration was authorised by the police and Brussels.
(Source: Belga)
