When Tom Daley tearfully announced the end of his diving career after the Paris Olympics, he said that he was looking forward to spending more time with his family.
It is not only accepted, but celebrated in the media that he has children with his ‘husband’ through surrogacy, and this is unquestioned and unchallenged. He is not the only one, joining high-profile names like Elton John and David Furnish, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
The global surrogacy market is currently worth around $18 billion, and this is predicted to rise to $129 billion by 2032 (Daily Telegraph, 13 August 2024). The ‘buyer’ can shop around to select the optimum genetics and sex of the desired infant; egg donors might be described as beautiful, sporty, or artistic. There might be agreements or ‘guarantees’ with the surrogate mother regarding a healthy delivery; a ‘defective’ child would be aborted. In the USA surrogacy is commercialised. In the UK, payments are restricted to ‘expenses’, although this is not defined.
Is your ethical judgment actually based on taste?
In his recent magisterial and book, The Rise Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman …