Surrogacy: ‘extreme babysitters’

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.

This is a classic example of the muddled morality of our present age. In the midst of calls for women’s rights and the rights of the child, there is also acceptance of women and children being commodities in a trade for the benefit of the wealthy. You may have seen heartbreaking videos online of newborn babies, crying for their mothers, being presented to gay or transsexual men who recline on a maternity bed pretending to have been involved in some way in childbirth. Alan White of Surrogacy UK describes surrogates as ‘extreme babysitters’, while surrogates speak of themselves as just ‘the microwave’ or ‘the oven’ for the baby (The Critic, 3 February 2024).

It is clear that the process of reproduction is simply seen in biological and mechanical terms. But God’s creation design is that the child is conceived in an act of love between husband and wife who are committed to one another and to the child for its future upbringing. In the words of Oliver O’Donovan, we are ‘begotten not made’. A pregnant mother is so much more than a ‘microwave’, with the emotional bond growing between mother and child as the pregnancy progresses. Separation at birth is traumatic for the child, and some surrogate mothers speak of coercion and regret.

For the child, one of the essential elements of being brought up by their biological parents is a sense of their identity. We know that sometimes fostering and adoption are necessary, but adopted children may want to discover their biological parents, and can find an extraordinary resonance of gifts and personality if they meet. In the case of surrogacy, children are being brought up by those responsible for deliberately breaking their bond with their genetic parents and/or their birth mother.

We can be grateful for the Casablanca Declaration, and the voice of Miriam Cates in the UK alongside some Christian agencies who are calling for an end to surrogacy. When God’s design for procreation is separated from the context of loving relationship there is heartbreak and exploitation, and children are treated as commodities. We are called to love our neighbours and to speak up, not least on behalf of the smallest and most vulnerable.