The number of parentless children waiting for adoption has soared in recent years thanks in large part to couples turning to IVF, surrogacy and egg freezing, a new study has suggested.
The study, conducted by children’s charity Coram and Adoption England, found that the gap between the number of children in need of adoption and the number of approved adopters has increased 52 per cent in the last five years.
The situation is projected to worsen, with the gap expected to reach 87 per cent by 2030. At present, England alone has 1,600 children waiting for an approved adopter.
Carol Homden, the Chief Executive of Coram, said that couples with fertility problems were increasingly undergoing more rounds of IVF before even considering adoption.
“We need to make sure adoption is considered a viable option for forming your family, as surrogacy is very legally complex and uncertain, while IVF, even now, does not always work, and places many emotional and physical demands”.
Economic as well as cultural factors are also at play in the system.
Alastair Sutcliffe, a professor of general paediatrics at University College London, argued that fertility clinics do little to promote adoption, as to do so would clash with their financial incentives.
Professor Sutcliffe also claimed that if even a small portion of couples struggling with fertility considered adoption then “Britain’s adoption crisis would quickly be solved”, he said according to The Christian Institute.
The use of IVF has long raised ethical concerns among Christians. Typically the process involves fertilising a number of eggs in lab conditions. While this can result in the creation of a viable embryo that goes on to become a human life, the process often results in the destruction of fertilised eggs which are not utilised.
While the Catholic Church opposes the process on the grounds that the destroyed embryos represent human life, Protestant denominations tend to take different views. While some echo the views of Rome, others see the process as a legitimate use of medical science to help couples become parents.
The process has grown in use in Britain in recent decades. In 2004, 10,200 babies were born as a result of IVF, a figure which had more than doubled to 21,400 in 2024.
The process is by no means guaranteed to work though. While 21,400 babies were born via the process in 2024, the number of women undergoing IVF that year was 53,000, suggesting a less than 50 per cent success rate.
