Jewish sperm can't jump

Is it wrong that the allegedly progressive artificial-insemination movement strikes me as a massive step backwards for humanity? Yes, reproductive options are lovely, and sure, it's good when women can do whatever they want without requiring a man's assistance. But the NYT Magazine article about the trend suggests that the thought process behind the oh-so-enlightened decisions these single women make is often rather creepy. "Karyn" says:

"I pulled up the Web site of the only sperm bank that I know of that has adult photos. There happened to be one Jewish person. I pulled up the photo, and I looked at my friend, and I looked at his picture, and I said, 'Oh, my God.' I can't say love at first sight, because, you know. But he was the one."

Hmm. If the mother's Jewish, so's the child, right? And, even for those not keen on halachic law, how exactly would a non-Jewish sperm force a child to, say, attend the occasional mass against its mother's will? I fail to see how a sperm's "Judaism" could possibly be of any significance. The German "Daniela," meanwhile, as a different idea:

"I believe in multiculturalism," she said. "I would probably choose somebody with a darker skin color so I don't have to slather sunblock on my kid all the time. I want it to be a healthy mix. You know how mixed dogs are always the nicest and the friendliest and the healthiest? If you get a clear race, they have all the problems. Mutts are always the friendly ones, the intelligent ones, the ones who don't bark and have a good character. I want a mutt." Her African-American friends questioned this strategy, suggesting that her child's life would be harder if he or she was perceived as nonwhite, but Daniela said: "If that's what I believe, I have to go by that. And it might help the world also if more people are doing it that way."

Yes, why not classify people like dogs? Ah, Germany... But things are hardly much better on this side of the Atlantic:

Q., a 43-year-old health-care manager who attended a yeshiva from kindergarten through high school (she asked that I use only one of her initials), first sought out a Jewish donor. "Everybody either had glasses, they're balding or their grandmother was diabetic and had heart disease — typical Jewish population," she told me. Her solution: a 6-foot-2 Catholic, German stock on both sides, with curly blond hair and blue eyes. "He really was the typical Aryan perfect human being," she said, laughing. "He was a bodybuilder. He played the guitar and the drums, and he sang. He was captain of the rugby team in college. When I had the in vitro process done, the embryologist said: 'This is some of the best sperm I've ever seen. It just about jumped out of the test tubes."' Q.'s golden-curled, blue-eyed daughter has just turned 2.

Oh, how cute! Let's make beautiful children by cancelling out all those hideous Jewish genes by inserting some "Aryan" into the mix! Because of course "typical Jewish population" is something unappealing, while "the typical Aryan perfect human being," that's practically redundant! Do "Aryan" sperm "jump" better than Semitic? Seems hard to picture, and I can't imagine there's any evidence to back this up, but wouldn't you just imagine they do?

While some do take racial characteristics into account when choosing a mate, in conception resulting from sexual attraction, race is easily overrided by an infinite number of other factors. That's what happens when you're dealing with a person, not sperm. But moreover, the rhetoric these women use would be considered incredibly offensive if they were discussing actual men they might have relationships with rather than sperm donors. I can't help but think that these women, classification-obsessed as they are, ought to put this energy into breeding show dogs, not making human babies.