Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston has been berated over remarks she made whilst promoting her latest movie Switch, where she plays a woman in her 40s who decides to have a baby using a sperm donor.
Watch Fox News host Bill O’Reilly slam Jennifer Aniston’s comments
She has been blasted by media commentators, including popular Fox News presenter Bill O’Reilly, for undermining the values of traditional families.
During a press conference for her new movie Miss Aniston said: “The point of the movie is, what is it that defines family? It isn’t necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children, and a dog named Spot”.
Family
“Love is love, and family is what is around you and who is in your immediate sphere.”
She added: “It is saying it is not the traditional sort of stereotype of what we have been taught as a society of what family is.”
She said that “times have changed, and that is also what is amazing, is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days, when you can’t have children because you have waited too long.”
Destructive
“Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child.”
Bill O’Reilly of Fox News later hit out at Miss Aniston’s comments saying: “She’s throwing a message out to 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds that hey, you don’t need a guy, you don’t need a dad”.
He added: “That’s destructive to our society.”
Slammed
A US columnist, Kathryn Jean Lopez, writing on National Review Online, also slammed the actress’ comments.
She said: “Aniston is right to say that ‘there are children that don’t have homes that have a home and can be loved. And that’s extremely important.’ There are, absolutely, occasions where a child needs love, doesn’t have it, and someone is able to provide it in an unconventional way.
“These exceptions, however, are not reasons to toss out everything we know to be true about moms and dads and the need for them. And this, also, isn’t what we’re talking about in we-women-can-have-babies-however-we-like comedies.”