The new trend:

As Christy Everson was nearing age 40, she made a decision: She wanted to have a child, even though she was single and it meant doing it all alone. Her daughter, conceived via a sperm donor, is now 2 1/2 years old, and Everson hopes to have a second child.

“Was it worthwhile? Well, I’m thinking of doing it again, aren’t I?” she says.

Everson and women like her are part of a shift in American society. An Associated Press-WE tv poll of people under 50 found that more than 2 in 5 unmarried women without children – or 42 percent – would consider having a child on their own without a partner, including more than a third, or 37 percent, who would consider adopting solo.

Adopting solo, I can understand. It’s a brave undertaking, and a selfless one, it seems to me. But choosing to conceive a child without a father present except as a sperm donor? This is morally irresponsible. The AP story says:

But Chen feels that a single mom can do just as good a job of raising a child as two parents can. Overall, the poll found decidedly mixed results on that question: Thirty percent of respondents said yes, 27 percent said no, and 43 percent said “it depends.”

No she can’t. Nor can a single father raise a child “just as good” as two parents can. One parent is better than no parents, but as one-half of a team raising three children, I can say without the slightest doubt that if my children were deprived of either their mother or their father, it would be a huge loss to them.

Why on earth would a woman choose to become pregnant intending to raise the child without a father? It’s perverse. Doesn’t the child have a right to a father? Or are children now consumer goods we may create to satisfy our desires?