Giving up on love...just seeking sperm

I found this post on Craigslist today...and it made me profoundly sad. I know an increasing number of women who are considering this option. How could a man knowingly create a child and never know them, never love them, never provide?

"Giving up on love, at least for now, just seeking sperm.

One day I will meet my "other half" but I'm not going to get married or pair up with a man just to have a family. I want to be with someone I fall madly in love with and can imagine spending my life with. My biological clock is ticking and I really want to have a child. I am looking for an attractive, professional man, no history of mental illness and in excellent health. I seek purely a sperm donor relationship. It does not matter to me if you are married or single. You do not need to be in the child's life in any way, shape or form. I don't want a cent from you and I would be willing to sign something to that affect.

I could go to a sperm bank but then I wouldn't meet the child's "biological father" and I would like to be able to tell my son or daughter a fair share about who helped create him or her so that he or she will have some sense of where they come from. I am single, have no boyfriend and am not seeing anyone. I have made no connections in terms of potential relationships and don't casual date. In short, it just hasn't happened for me. I have a lot of male friends but have yet to make a romantic connection. I am attractive, normal, educated, successful and under 40.

Hopefully, one day, i will meet a great man who wants children who i will fall in love with and he will think my child is awesome and i will tell him how wonderful a man you are for giving me this beautiful child that I can nurture, love and care for. write me and tell me about yourself. and thanks for considering helping me make my dream come true.

I finished reading her post and thought: Has it come to this?

And what will this child of the future think of men when she learns that her mother had to create a child anonymously...that no man wanted to have the responsibility...that no man loved her mother enough to care. Can unloved mothers create lovable children? I know that bearing a child is an awesome responsibility, not to be taken lightly, but I wonder....what will these children of the next generation think of these ghost fathers?

In the past, we were raised by tribes and perhaps in the future we will return to them, intentional tribes where we raise children together, where men have an increasingly diminished role. They've opted out of the family -- choosing instead to have fleeting sexual encounters, to skydive, scuba, mountain bike and ski. Alone, alone, alone.

Someday, as these men enter their senior years, with nobody to care for them, too old and crippled to windsurf, sitting on their stock portfolios and retirement funds, without heirs, with nobody to share the holidays with, nobody to carry their name... will they regret the children that they never created?