Women who decide to have children without a partner don't fit into rom-com cliches.

(Apr 30, 2010)--I was sitting in a darkened movie theater waiting for Jennifer Lopez's new movie, The Back-up Plan, to start, when I got an e-mail on my BlackBerry. Subject line: "Breakthrough Egg Freezing Technology Offers Women a New 'Backup Plan.' " The press release was touting a technology that "flash freezes" a woman's eggs until she's ready to conceive. It was a classic moment of life imitating art.

The two seem to be inextricably linked these days. The insemination of single women is an ever-growing reality in the world of reproductive medicine: births to unmarried women shot up 26 percent in just five years, between 2002 and 2007. So it's not surprising that single motherhood is part of the current Hollywood zeitgeist. Turkey basters and morning sickness—what could be better entertainment? The J. Lo movie, which features an unknown sperm donor, had its debut last week; in The Switch, scheduled to be released in August, Jennifer Aniston plays our heroine, an unmarried 40-year-old woman, whose donor is a guy named Roland. (Or is it her best friend, Wally?).

The Back-up Plan opens with Lopez, playing the single, pet-store-owning Zoe, with her legs high in the air immediately following her insemination. Moments later, she meets Mr. Right, a cheese-making hunk named Stan, when they happen to jump into the same cab at the same time. Aside from the usual rom-com high jinks, though, the most ridiculous portrayal is the "Single Mothers and Proud" support group that Zoe joins, with its pudgy tent-dress-wearing leader and hippie, man-hating, tattoo-laden gal pals. They look like they haven't showered in weeks. "We do what we have to when we don't have a penis partner," Mama Tent says to the group...Read more

Source: NEWSWEEK