Whats wrong with planning a childs sex?

[Raistlin]

So, nik0tine - I guess we shouldn't give toddlers a football, because that's choosing something for them. Or we might not want to force kids to go to school, because that is too. And we definitely can't pierce the ears of a five-year-old girl, because that's changing her physically!

[Madame Adequate]

Not that it matters, because this argument still doesn't hold. You're going to let parents do this over the chance that the child may wish that he or she was a different gender? I mean c'mon now.. There is no way a parent can know what gender their child will want to be. Should they take blind guesses? If you pick it randomly, it's no different than letting it happen naturally.

Right. It's the same thing whether it happens through parental choice, or nature. Either way the child has no say whatsoever in the matter.

[Raistlin]

Again, comes back to the "it's not natural!" argument, which is pure arbitrary nonsense.

[Shlup]

I guess it depends on where you draw the line. Force your child to own a football or force your child to own a vagina. Hmm... Thin line there, eh?

[Raistlin]

But where can you draw the line, and why? There's no logical reason why you can't choose a child's sex if you can choose what a baby/toddler/young kid watches on TV. "But it's not natural!" Well, neither is going to the hospital when you're hurt. Neither is most of the food you eat. If you worried about what's not natural, you should go live in Amish country.

[Shlup]

That's fine. I was just sayin' is all.

[Raistlin]

I know you were, Shluppers. That reply was mostly for the other people.

[Shlup]

I draw the line at taking health suppliments to promote proper development, and maybe taking my temperature or douching with baking soda or some other BS method to encourage a certain gender. Medically forcing gender just seems less fun. Dunno why, but meh.

And there is my reason! Taa daa!

[Raistlin]

I hope you realize that "dunno why, but meh" is not a logical reason.

[Shlup]

Thanks to that whole "not being a robot" thing, I don't need to know or have a logical reason for every little thing. I can just do what feels appropriate for me.

[Raistlin]

Thanks to the whole "not being a mindless animal" thing, I don't understand how to act solely based on feelings and urgings. I do what my rational mind tells me.

[Shlup]

A person doesn't have to either be a robot or an animal. They can be a person.

[Raistlin]

What seperates a person from an animal? Cognition - the use of the rational mind. A robot, actually, does nothing than what it's programmed to do, which is a characteristic more appropriate to an animal than a person who uses logic.

[Shlup]

You don't think you just agreed with me, but I say you did.

[Raistlin]

No. You associate "consistent" with "non-human" and think "I'm only human!" is an appropriate excuse for inconsistency. I don't.