Hollywood is endorsing fatherlessness again. In Jennifer Aniston's new movie, The Switch, fathers are painted as dispensable objects. In the actress's view, women can go it alone. Apparently - cliché alert - times "have changed" says Aniston. A supposedly independent woman can now pick up some takeaway sperm supplies at a respectable joint, pay a good-looking contact, or blackmail a friend.  We've evolved.

So I guess society must move on from the reality that fatherlessness isn't good for children or taxpayers. Perhaps we need to make peace with our fatherless-friendly jails and fatherless-centric crime waves too.

For a Hollywood star, sheltered by bodyguards in a mansion, though, the moving on bit appears a little too easy. The fact is that times have changed - but not in the way Jennifer Aniston thinks. We don't all believe that fathers are dispensable creatures.

From Kay S. Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute (so it must be good):

Aniston herself is guilty of trivializing men's role in children' lives when she says that women "don't have to settle with a man just to have a child."

Notice the belittling words "settle" and "just." The very term "choice mothers" frames artificial insemination as a matter of women's reproductive rights; only the woman's decision-making carries moral weight, fathers be damned. Similarly, advocates often cite the benefits of freedom from "donor interference" that comes with single motherhood.

Up until now, no one has bothered to find out what children might think about the laissez-faire approach to fathers. But a first-of-its kind report from the Commission on Parenthood's Future, "My Daddy's Name is Donor," compares a large sample of donor-conceived young adults with a group who grew up with their biological parents.

The report adds up to a troubling picture of adult entitlement and child confusion. While choice mothers have their way, their kids are more likely to suffer malaise about their identity, as well as to abuse drugs and alcohol and to have run-ins with the police.