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The number of single men becoming fathers through surrogacy has tripled in recent years, prompting growing concern about the direction of modern family creation and the rights of children.
Official figures show that 170 men in England made sole applications for parental orders between 2019 and 2025, following a change in the law allowing single people to pursue surrogacy arrangements. Applications have risen steadily, reaching 36 in 2025, compared with 29 in 2019.
While the overall numbers remain relatively small, they reflect a broader trend towards individuals choosing to have children alone through assisted reproduction, including IVF and surrogacy.
Supporters describe this as an expansion of personal freedom. However, we argue that the shift places adult desires above the needs of children.
At the centre of the concern is the deliberate removal of a child from their mother at birth. Surrogacy arrangements, by their nature, involve a child being carried by one woman and then handed over to another individual or couple, often with no intention of the child being raised by their birth mother.
Helen Gibson, founder of Surrogacy Concern, warned that the trend is “alarming.” She pointed out that babies form a bond with their mother during pregnancy, regardless of whether the egg used is her own. Removing that relationship immediately after birth, she argued, goes against established understanding of early child development.
There are also wider ethical questions. Surrogacy, particularly when combined with IVF, often involves the creation of multiple embryos, many of which are not brought to birth. Critics argue that this raises serious concerns about how early human life is treated, as embryos may be discarded, frozen indefinitely, or selected based on desired characteristics.
In the case of single men pursuing surrogacy, the child is intentionally brought into a situation where they will be raised without a mother. For critics, this is not simply a matter of personal choice, but a question of whether children have a right to know and be raised by both their mother and father wherever possible.
Addressing this news, Peter Kearney, SPUC’s Communications Manager said: “We fight for the life of every child. We do that because they have inherent dignity from the moment of conception. The dignity of the child affords them certain rights, one being to know their mother and father if at all possible. Not only does surrogacy involve IVF, a bigger killer of babies than elective abortion, but it then intentionally deprives a child from the mother they bond to in-utero. SPUC is proud to stand for the life and rights of all children against the whims of adults who don’t give them the consideration they deserve.”
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