What does a mother tell her child when she has conceived
that child via donor sperm, that is, when she has deliberately decided to raise her
child alone and without a father?

Here is what one mother told Red (a women’s magazine), she
would say: “I want my son to know he doesn’t have a father. The moment he asks,
I’m going to say, ‘I wanted you so much, and I was lucky enough to find someone
to give me the other piece I needed to have you,

“When you grow up, you can go and meet him, but he’s not
your father, he’s not your family.”

But of course, that man is her child’s father. The man may
not have wanted to take on the actual responsibilities of fatherhood, and the
woman certainly didn’t want him taking them on. But he is, nonetheless, the
child’s father.

She says she will tell her son she wanted him so much she
went out and got “the other piece I needed to have you”.

But she will have to explain why she didn’t try equally hard
to ensure her child would have a father, as well as a mother.

In our society, choice and personal autonomy are all. We are
not allowed to criticise the choices people make unless they clearly do harm to
others. But deliberately depriving a child of a father is potentially harmful to their welfare as shown by many studies,
and is certainly an attack on a child’s right to have a father where possible.

We square this circle by pretending children don’t need
fathers (or mothers as the case may be), and that they don’t have a natural
right to a mother and father.

In addition, we condemn and shout down those who say otherwise.

Our ‘god’ is whatever thing we make sacrifices to. Choice is ‘God’
for many people today and we sacrifice children to it wholesale. The most
drastic example of that is, of course, abortion.