Infertility Network reported on an article recently on Ynet regarding a statement by Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz, a posek in the Religious Zionism movement. R' Rabinowitz stated that, "A woman who decides to have a baby out of wedlock by means of a Sperm Donation is unbelievably cruel."

I disagree, but I see where he's coming from. Judaism espouses a "traditional" family, ie, a mother, a father and children. It's all over the Torah: "a man shall cleave to his wife," G-d said to Adam and Eve, "be fruitful and multiply." Etc., etc. I would assume (oye, never ever assume) that the Rabbi is implying that this is cruel to the child to deprive him or her of a father and cruel to the potential fathers out there.

R' Rabinowitz added "Whoever plans on having a baby like this by choice, just in order to fulfill her needs as a mother, has exceed all evil and cruelty."

I can argue that one all day. Why does anyone have a child? To fulfill some need, of course. Wether that need is to satisfy a mitzvah, a personal desire, the desire of your husband, all of the above, another option altogether. Why do I want children? Not for some altruistic reason, that's for sure (okay, maybe a little bit altruistic reasons). At what point does fulfilling a need become selfish or evil and cruel? If you satisfy your need for crack, that's all sorts of selfish, but evil and cruel?

Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, president of Tzohar claims that sperm donation encourages birth without marriage, and "grants legitimacy to late spinsterhood." As if most women are single in their later years by choice! Yes, I know many are. But in my (albeit limited) experience, women who choose to remain single also do not want children. My women friends who have had children as single mothers, chose to do so because they were afraid they'd never meet the right man, and never be able to have children if they waited any longer. That ol' biological clock becomes a very real thing.

But the quote that really got me, also from R' Ariel, "There is no such thing as a single-parent family... A family consists of a father, mother, and children."

Tell that to every single mother whose husband left her. Every single mother struggling to raise her children after her husband was killed in an accident, in a war, in a senseless act of violence. Tell that to the single mother fighting to keep it together after her husband has died after a long illness. No single-parent families, my ass. And yes, it works the other way, too: There are countless single fathers who raise beautiful children day after day. However, my impression is it's easier for a single father to find another woman. I know far more single mothers trying to find a date, never mind a husband, than I do single fathers.

If Rabbis could give birth, I think they'd come up with a whole different perspective. Yes, statistically, children do better in two-parent homes that consist of a woman and a man. But that doesn't mean that a child from a single mother will not perform well. It doesn't mean children from a same-sex partnership will suffer. Circumstances are everything. And if a religious woman is not married by her late thirties, and is afraid she won't be able to have children, and understands how being single and having children will affect her life, and understands why she wants this child, then she is not cruel, not evil, not promoting spinsterhood. She is creating a beautiful human being who will be loved and wanted and cherished.

And isn't that fulfilling a hell of a need.