A teacher has become one of the first single fathers by choice in the UK after a change in the law to end the restriction of surrogacy services to couples only. Surrogacy is banned in many countries on the grounds that it commodifies children, can exploit poor women, splits motherhood between a gestational mother and a biological mother, and can lead to a children being deliberately deprived of a mother in their upbringing.

David Watkins, 42, was the first man to become a solo parent through Surrogacy UK, the country’s biggest not-for-profit surrogacy organisation, since the rules were reformed in 2019.