Wanting a deaf child - sould it be allowed or banned?

[innonimatu]

An old news piece, but I don't recall seeing it discussed here. What do people think of this:

This couple want a deaf child. Should we try to stop them?

From embryo selection to abortion, fertility treatment to stem cell research, medical advances have created a furious ethical debate. Now MPs must decide how far science should be allowed to go. Robin McKie and Gaby Hinsliff repor

* The Observer, Sunday 9 March 2008

Like any other three-year-old child, Molly has brought joy to her parents. Bright-eyed and cheerful, Molly is also deaf - and that is an issue which vexes her parents, though not for the obvious reasons. Paula Garfield, a theatre director, and her partner, Tomato Lichy, an artist and designer, are also deaf and had hoped to have a child who could not hear.

'We celebrated when we found out about Molly's deafness,' says Lichy. 'Being deaf is not about being disabled, or medically incomplete - it's about being part of a linguistic minority. We're proud, not of the medical aspect of deafness, but of the language we use and the community we live in.'

Now the couple are hoping to have a second child, one they also wish to be deaf - and that desire has brought them into a sharp confrontation with Parliament. The government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) bill, scheduled to go through the Commons this spring, will block any attempt by couples like Garfield and Lichy to use modern medical techniques to ensure their children are deaf. The bill is a jumbo-sized piece of legislation intended to pull together all aspects of reproductive science in Britain and pave the way for UK scientists to lead the field in embryology. But in trying to do so, the civil servants drafting the bill have provoked a great deal of unrest.

As technical abilities grow and allow these things...
- should parents be allowed to select any traits they wish fro their children?
- can they be prevented from doing it?
- should states regulate what can and cannot be chosen - banning some choices, allowing others?

 

[Yeekim]

These people make me literally sick. How about having a their second child blind as well as deaf?
Maybe they could do with a little FAS while they are at it?

 

[Perfection]

How the heck can you be a deaf theater director

 

[West 36]

With to-days theatre, I don't see how you couldn't

 

[TheAlamo]

Deliberately inflicting disabilities on a person is reprehensible, and should be illegal. What they are trying to do is child abuse.

 

[GenMarshall]

What the?! This idea should be banned outrighted!!!

 

[Karalysia]

Child abuse. Yes it should be illegal. And the child should have the option of suing the parents once its older.

 

[nonconformist]

Ban it. I'm not theortetically opposed to certain genetc predetermination, but in the cases of rectifying congenital, pre-diagnosed disorders.
This is essentially the opposite; inflicting a congential disability to an unborn child, who will suffer an inherently different quality of life to their peers, andf though a deaf person doesn't necesarily have a lower quality of life (though I would say, personally, that they *would*, based on our dependence on auditory stimuli), to take the opportunity for their child to lead a "normal" life is reprihensible. If they really wanted to and weren't lazy arses they could just, you know, have an in-house rule saying all communication within the household must be though deaf-speak?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Child abuse.

And if it isn't, then I don't know what the hell is.

 

[GoodGame]

On the fence about this one since the parents are deaf. Seems like society has better things to do than say what genes a person can have.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

How the heck can you be a deaf theater director

If the plays are performed in sign language or pantomime...

This is a sickening thing. It's one issue if the kid is born deaf through nobody's fault. It's quite another to deliberately take away one of the fundamental senses that convey information to the brain. If my parents had made such a reprehensible choice for me, I don't see how I could restrain myself from taking revenge, once I found out.

As for the "linguistic" excuse... oh, please. Like hearing people can't learn and do sign language?

 

[innonimatu]

I believe that everyone would pretty much agree that deliberately favoring the odds of having a physical limitation, such as deafness, should be forbidden. But do note that those parents might not want to act to deliberately select an embryo which would produce a deaf child, but simply be protesting against the exclusion, by law, of any such embryo (therefore eliminating the natural cache that they might have a deaf child).

Should the screening for and rejection of embryos deemed somehow defective be enforced by law? That raises the problem of choosing what is and what is not a defect. Any physical limitations should be excluded? Only "serious" limitations, and if so, how?

And what about the screening for positive traits? Should it be regulated, or freely allowed?

 

[Martacus]

It doesn't surprise me that these people would want to do something. I have known enough deaf people to know thy have their own subculture, of which quite a few are proud. They've got their own language, their own schools, often look down on those deaf people who voluntarily get cochlear (sp?) implants, etc. If they saw Christ heal somebody's deafness, their reaction would be, "why would he want to do that?" So as I said, it comes as no surprise that they would want to ensure their next child can be part of their culture as well.

I'm against the sort of genetic meddling in question on princple anyways, even to remove or "correct" adverse genetic conditions. You make do with the lot you're given.

EDIT: In addition, there's the whole ethical question of "what counts as a disease?" that innonimatu raised.

 

[Tee Kay]

Deliberately inflicting disabilities on a person is reprehensible, and should be illegal. What they are trying to do is child abuse.

The problem is, you'd have a "normal" child being brought up by deaf parents. That itself raised some complicated issues.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Should the screening for and rejection of embryos deemed somehow defective be enforced by law? That raises the problem of choosing what is and what is not a defect. Any physical limitations should be excluded? Only "serious" limitations, and if so, how?

We already do this. It's called pre-natal screening. This isn't something new. Hell, we can even do pre-conception screening.

 

[innonimatu]

We already do this. It's called pre-natal screening. This isn't something new. Hell, we can even do pre-conception screening.

Yes, but that was optional, wasn't it?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

True. Anyway, I wouldn't force parents to abort pregnancies for children with genetic disease. I would encourage them to, though.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

As technical abilities grow and allow these things...
- should parents be allowed to select any traits they wish fro their children?
- can they be prevented from doing it?
- should states regulate what can and cannot be chosen - banning some choices, allowing others?

I think parents should only be allowed to prevent harmful traits like disabilities or predispositions to certain deseases, nothing more and nothing less.
If parents deliberately want disabilities for their children it's child abuse and preventing this is a state's duty.

 

[Kraznaya]

Designer babies should be illegal in all forms.

 

[mangxema]

The problem is, you'd have a "normal" child being brought up by deaf parents. That itself raised some complicated issues.

True... however, I'm sure there's a deaf kid somewhere that needs a home. Or failing that, they could set up some sort of camp for deaf children or something.