I listen to Radio 5 on my way to and from work, which means I get Nicky Campbell's call-in in the morning. Normally, of course, the opinions of people (all people) annoy me, but I remind myself that we live in a pluracracy and it's good to hear debate about important issues and most importantly, by the time I get to work, I've written a blog-post-rant in my head and I'm just sorting out the formatting and capitalisation of important words. Then, I sit down at my desk and remember that I have Paid Employment, so it will have to wait.

Not going to happen this morning, however. I don't know why the issue of choosing a baby's sex is getting some attention this particular week, but it is and that was the topic of the call-in. The point I entered the discussion was with a woman, who had lost a daughter (possibly miscarried) and wanted to have one through a gender selection procedure, and two men, who clearly felt she (and everyone else) shouldn't have that option.

Mentioning the caller's respective genders was intentional, and is probably the reason why I got angry enough to ignore Paid Employment for a few minutes more. The tone of the exchanges sounded (once refined through my brainfilter) very much like: "Okay, WOMEN, we MEN can no longer dictate to you whether you have a child or not. You have taken that power away from us. As a result, we are looking for new and increasingly petty ways to tell you how you may and may not use your body, specifically in the womenparts region."

Nicky Campbell did a decent job directing the debate, particularly when he drew the discussion to a close when it became a lot more aggressive. One caller actually suggested, behind a wall of faux disclaimers, that it was "sick" to attempt to use science in this way to deal with the loss as a kind of therapy. Others made the point that it was just a natural thing, that people didn't always get what they want, that having children was reward in itself, regardless of their sex, and that not all children develop into the gender stereotypes that anyone who wanted one or the other might expect (if you want a boy for the typical reasons, he might not be interested in playing football).

All of which may be fine for the people making those points (some of whom were female). However, it doesn't mean that the lady calling in, or anyone else who felt in a similar position, should be expect to similarly console themselves with it. Gender selection seems to me like a victimless scientific advance. In that I can't think of someone that gets hurt by it. It uses science. And it's an advance (also: a stepforward; an improvement and a conquering of obstacles). As a result, it should be a choice. If you're not fussed either way, or not comfortable with the idea, no-one will force you pick an X or a Y chromosone from a catalogue. If you are, well, now you can.

Final point. One of the later callers (try to guess what parallel he made by the end of this paragraph), who couldn't be cut off soon enough, made me conclude this: Godwin's law and its resulting rules needs to apply to non-Internet discussion as well.

And penalties for violating it should be harsh, just like the Nazis were.