Most news is just entertainment with a gloss of social conscience. For purveyors of daily or rolling news, the instant drama of earthquakes, plane crashes and the abduction of pretty blonde children can't be scheduled or relied upon. All too often, old news or humdrum truisms have to be prodded and squeezed into controversy that can be passed off as news.

The worst offender has to be the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2, a.k.a. Daily Mail FM. On slow news days, the show will polarise the most banal observations into issues worthy of heated studio punditry and breathless hands-free tirades from truckers. The show's nadir was surely the punishment meted out to the Oxfam spokesman who, presumably having drawn the short straw, was wheeled on to whisper that although his charity was grateful for all saleable donations, they'd be equally grateful for less useless tat such as headless dolls, single shoes and well scrubbed-in underpants suitable only for landfill. Naturally, some ranting loony from Civitas, Gravitas or Bigotras was tasked to excoriate the hapless hemp-wearer for his effrontery and ingratitude. I didn't take notes, but it was something to do with workers, voters, taxpayers and charity beginning at home, although it wasn't clear whose home.

Yesterday however, the show finally drew me in and had me howling and snorting at the radio. A deaf couple were reprising the view, given earlier that day to John Humphreys, that deaf parents should be allowed to screen embryos to ensure conception of a deaf baby. Apparently, there is within the deaf community a small but vocal lobby in favour of allowing parents to choose offspring better suited to deaf family life.

The articulate and intelligent couple were steadfast in their view that deafness was not a disability, but a different ability. If during an IVF procedure they were offered four embryos, they would cast aside the three with entirely normal genotypes in favour of the deaf one. Through their very fluent hearing translator, they refused to concede that deafness was in any way a physical impediment or abnormality. Far from maiming their offspring, they would be endowing them with their own rich language and culture.

If my wife and I were paraplegics with strong ties to a support group and perhaps a Paralympics medal or two, would that entitle us to cripple our child to make it better suited to our cultural and home life? It might be the case that our disability had made us exceed ourselves and find pride and meaning in adversity. We might be in better mental and aerobic shape than the average able-bodied couch potato. It wouldn't entitle us to choose that ordeal for any other living soul.

Nor could we dispute that we were disabled. The overused term 'political correctness' is often just an excuse for unthinking moral relativism. Were I paraplegic, I would be disabled. I have a back injury with long-term effects which renders me somewhat disabled, though sadly not to a degree which would score me a parking permit. Disabled does not imply unequal, invalid or incapable, but it might come to be seen as a blanket term for all of them if it is made a dark incantation that dare not be uttered in the presence of the otherwise enabled.

If a disabled person has exceeded their disability, all glory to them. It doesn't then follow that they should be allowed to inflict it on any other person just because they've tailored new cultural prejudices from ill-fitting cloth. It seems certain lobbying charities have gone beyond the worthy bid for equality of opportunity to find themselves defying reality. The fact that someone has a disability, regardless of the nomenclature used, doesn’t mean lunatic views should be indulged. To do so would be demeaning to all concerned.

This debate isn't likely to go away. Genetic science may soon enable us to both screen out faulty genes and screen in advantageous ones. If an ambitious couple are one day allowed to engineer the super-athlete they always dreamed of hot-housing, shouldn't disabled parents be afforded the same opportunity to indulge their idea of cultural worth? If idiots with numerous healthy kids are allowed fertility treatment just to correct a gender imbalance, shouldn't deaf people be allowed to indulge an equally fatuous ideal? I’m sure Jeremy Vine will cover it.

Disjointed rant ends.