"It's my life," she says, "I'll decide what my priorities are. I want a child to love and raise and I can have one now. I can afford it. Then, if I find a man to join me in my life, that will be great; and if not, I don't lose out on motherhood."

Relationships in our society are not stable. Marriage is a fragile institution at best. For some, the dad who was your husband is often long gone - or you may wish he were. The deadbeat dad is another blight on the family. Some women, particularly those with financial security, seem determined to bypass dependence on finding or keeping a relationship in order to make a family -albeit a single parent one.

Artificial insemination talks to women's autonomy and independence. But it also reflects a deep disappointment and distrust.

The issue of the fatherless family is distressing. The implication that fathers are useless - or a nuisance at worst - does not alter the fact that they are the balance to the mother role and a source of male energy that provides stability and strength.

In spite of the failure of many men in their role as father, however badly played, the role remains one of tremendous importance in numerous ways, not least of which involves sexual and gender identity.

The balance of a mother and a father as a model of the love between man and woman may be only an ideal in our times, experienced by the fortunate; but that ideal has defined the basic unit of society. We are witnessing the changing forms and structure of the family and its gathering variations.

Questions arise about the consciousness of the unborn child, conceived sans human connection. Will these children be different from the start, at a core level?

One has to wonder whether the choice of artificial insemination, over adoption, resides in an anger toward men and fathers, attempting to render them irrelevant, passé, a vestige of an earlier time.

What does this say about how men and women in our time feel about each other? Is this an ultimate feminist solution to a sexist society?

Elaine Z Mosher PhD

Cases in Point: Archive