but of course they do...
Posted on 12/23/2007 1:20:17 PM PST by FreedomCalls
DEAF parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so they can pick a deaf child over one that has all its senses intact, according to the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID).
Jackie Ballard, a former Liberal Democrat MP, says that although the vast majority of deaf parents would want a child who has normal hearing, a small minority of couples would prefer to create a child who is effectively disabled, to fit in better with the family lifestyle.
Ballard’s stance is likely to be welcomed by other deaf organisations, including the British Deaf Association (BDA), which is campaigning to amend government legislation to allow the creation of babies with disabilities.
A clause in the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is passing through the House of Lords, would make it illegal for parents undergoing embryo screening to choose an embryo with an abnormality if healthy embryos exist.
In America a deaf couple deliberately created a baby with hearing difficulties by choosing a sperm donor with generations of deafness in his family.
This would be impossible under the bill in its present form in the UK. Disability charities say this makes the proposed legislation discriminatory, because it gives parents the right to create “designer babies” free from genetic conditions while banning couples from deliberately creating a baby with a disability.
The prospect of selecting “deaf embryos” is likely to be seized on by campaigners against genetic screening who will argue that this is an inevitable outcome of allowing “designer babies”.
Doctors are opposed to creating deaf babies. Professor Gedis Grudzinskas, medical director of the Bridge Centre, a clinic in London that screens embyros, said: “This would be an abuse of medical technology. Deafness is not the normal state, it is a disability. To deliberately create a deaf embryo would be contrary to the ethos of our society.”
Ballard, who previously ran into controversy as director-general of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) where she pushed through extensive job cuts, said in an interview with The Sunday Times: “Most parents would choose to have a hearing embryo, but for those few parents who do not, we think they should be allowed to exercise that choice and we would support them in that decision.
“There are a number of deaf forums where there are discussions about this. There are a small minority of activists who say that there is a cultural identity in being born deaf and that we should not destroy that cultural identity by preventing children from being born deaf.”
Ballard added: “We would like to retain, as far as possible, parental choice, but it has to be in conjunction with a clinician so that people know exactly what they are choosing.”
Next month a coalition of disability organisations will launch a campaign to amend the bill to make it possible for parents to choose the embryos that carry a genetic abnormality.
Francis Murphy, chairman of the BDA, said: “If choice of embryos for implantation is to be given to citizens in general, and if hearing and other people are allowed to choose embryos that will be ‘like them’, sharing the same characteristics, language and culture, then we believe that deaf people should have the same right.”
Murphy added that the BDA believes it is very unlikely that it would become common for deaf parents to deliberately create deaf children.
To create a “designer baby” using preimplantation genetic diagnosis, couples need to go through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) even if they could conceive naturally. The embryos created are then genetically screened and normally only the healthy ones are implanted in the mother’s womb.
This weekend the RNID played down Ballard’s comments by pointing out that the charity does not advocate deliberately creating deaf babies.
A spokesman said: “While the RNID believes in the individual’s right to choose, we would not actively encourage the selection of deaf embryos over hearing ones for implantation when both are available.”
Ping
Would deaf parents have aborted Beethoven?
Praises be, oh Offendi! I will take six with a club-foot; four with a hairlip, and three Thalidomide Specials.
I was afraid the begging business was going to die out with me, and that my street corner spaces would have to sold at auction; they has been in the family for 16 generations.
Why not just teach the child to sign and have it’s hearing intact too?
Dumb idiots.
That is exactly what it is. Children that can hear would have no problems learning sign language if they had to.
“I SAID, GET OFF THE TRACKS! THERE’S A TRAIN BEHI...”
Oh, well; I tried.
“Hello, 911? I’d like to report...”
You never see blind people bragging about their culture; when was the last time you heard canes clapping?
Ping
but of course they do...
Can ya read that oh selfish ones?
However, I can understand why the deaf couple in question would want to have their children to be deaf. In a world where deaf people are routinely discriminated against and where we are treated as second class citizens, I really cannot blame them for wanting to have a deaf child they feel they could "connect" with.
If our society was a bit more open-minded and treated deafness as a "culutral difference" rather than the stringent medical terminology that we are disabled, then things would be different and the deaf couple may feel more comfortable in having a "normal" hearing child.
I don’t believe my ears.
Pro-Life/Moral Absolutes/?!?!?!?! ping.
Building a new caste system.
It's a brave, new world.
A strange case of "reverse" eugenics? Who knows?
Imho, there are parallel universes.
5.56mm
Utter lunacy! Not to mention cruel. They should be told to take their idiotic idea and “stick it where the sun don’t shine”!
I wish we all had to learn basic sign language. I use my hands a lot when I talk, but they never say anything. I am also not surprised by any of this. Without a basic respect for human life, no one, no one, is safe. We are without value.
You get deafness removed from the list of afflictions that Social Security pays disability for, get it removed from any protections the Americans with Disabilities Act provides, or any other tax-supported government intervention -- then we can talk. Until then it is not just "a cultural difference", it is a disability.
as crazy as it sounds...it’s not an anomaly. Here in the Wash DC area we have a large deaf community, thanks in part to Gallaudet. Deafness is treated more like another “race” than a hindrance or handicap. Families in the deaf society are even revered more highly depending on how many generations “deaf” they are. I can’t begin to understand this...
I agree that deafness should not be used as a disabled condition to collect Social Security. The problem is that the federal government gives too many handouts, and deaf people are not the only group.
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