Yet there is little doubt that the definition of a family has been expanded to include a limitless number of configurations. Perhaps nowhere in the making of families, though, is the absence of promise-keeping more evident than in the expanding business of sperm banks. All you need are sperm banks to keep the species going. Most men are rotten lovers, women say, so there's not much loss in replacing sex with science. There was a time when men wanted sex without pregnancy.
Today increasing numbers of women want pregnancy without sex.
The conception of a child can now be by syringe, needle and laboratory dishes and, because of technology, it is even possible for one child to have five parents. Begin with the egg of a female donor - parent number one. Add the sperm of a male donor - parent number two. Join them together in a petri dish. After birth, place the child with an adopting couple - parents four and five.