The deaf baby cult: Joseph Farah on lesbians who hoped for kids with disability

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Thursday, April 11, 2002 | Joseph Farah

[JohnHuang2]

I remember reading a novel many years ago called "The World According to Garp" by John Irving.

It was at once a hilarious and tragic story of feminism gone stark, raving mad.

For instance, in response to the rape of a young girl, whose attackers cut out her tongue so she could not identify them, a group of sympathic but misguided militant women cut out their own tongues to identify with their young heroine.

I was reminded of this once unbelievable fictional story upon reading last week of the deaf lesbian couple who deliberately bred deaf children who could share their disability.

The two women found a deaf sperm donor to increase the likelihood their first daughter, now 5, would inherit deafness. They were so pleased with the result, they used the technique again to produce a deaf son.

Sharon Duchesneau, the mother, and Candace McCullough, her lesbian lover, say deafness is "an identity not a medical affliction that needs to be fixed."

Before their son was born, the women explained that, "A hearing baby would be a blessing; a deaf baby would be a special blessing."

They believe deafness is a "cultural identity" not a handicap. They want their children to share the same experiences, including learning sign language and going to special schools for the deaf.

What can one say about such decisions?

Let me begin by suggesting that they illustrate the extremes of self-indulgent, amoral craziness to which our society and culture have plummeted in recent years.

This is what happens when you begin throwing out the old rules and making up new ones as you go along.

The horrors to come are not even imaginable if we continue on this road.

Take, for instance, those advocating marital and familial rights for homosexuals and lesbians like this couple. They tell us there is nothing wrong with such unions. They tell us they are as good or better than heterosexual marriages. They tell us it is discrimination not to recognize these facts. They tell us the only arguments against such relationships are the archaic rules and traditions of the Bible.

Let's pretend they're right for a moment. Would you like to consider the logical next stage of human evolution?

If there's nothing wrong with homosexuality – if it's just as good or better than heterosexuality – then surely there is nothing wrong with three-way marriages or four-way marriages, right? Could there be anything wrong with polygamy?

How about sex with children? I mean, why not? Isn't it just a hang-up we have against it? Where is it written that this is wrong? You may think so, but others don't. If there is no immutable law on the subject, then who is to say?

And how about marriages between species? You say there is no one pushing this cause yet? Just wait.

You think I'm kidding? You think I'm not serious? There are people who enjoy all of these abominations. If we reject one taboo, how can we not reject all of them?

Every time I make this argument, some homosexual activists say no one is yet organizing a political movement around such causes. Is that the determining issue between right and wrong?

The same groups pushing the envelope on unconventional relationships are right now promoting all kinds of self-mutilation in the name of sexual liberation – from sex-change operations to breast-removal surgery. And guess who is paying the bill for many of these procedures right now? That's right. The taxpayer.

And, let's face it, if all those things are just all right, then who is to say that Ms. Duchesneau and Ms. McCullough are wrong to breed deaf children because they want children to share their misfortune?

Nobody.

That's the problem with taking even one step down the slippery slope of moral relativism. There is no way back.

Over and over again in the Bible, we see what happens when the people "do what is right in their own eyes," forgetting the only rules that really mean anything – those given to us by God.

We can forget all that. We can disregard it. We can chalk it all up to legend, myth and superstition. But we do so at our own risk.

It's time for everyone to choose what kind of world they would like to live in. The choice is simple: The world of designer handicapped babies and anything-goes, aberrant sexual behavior? Or the world of marriage, order and accountability to God.

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[L.N. Smithee]

No "rock-solid" principle, like gravity, if that's what you're looking for. Only an informed developmental understanding that children cannot give "informed consent" the way adults can. Is that so hard to see?

No, it's not hard at all for me to see. But as has been detailed in several different ways on this thread and many others, there are sneaky ways to try to influence society by saying in a quasi-scholarly voice, "Everything you know is wrong" -- thus the Rind study, and the Kinsey Report before that.

I remember when I read in a 1991 newspaper about the discrimination suit against Hawaii after they refused to issue a marriage license to gay and lesbian couples, I was telling my parents that this was a big deal. Their response was that a move to make same-sex marriage legal just wouldn't be taken seriously. I asked why it wouldn't, if trends continued. My mother said, "I just don't believe it will happen."

Maybe it won't ever happen, but one thing's for sure -- no one's scoffing at the concept anymore.

[Askel5]

"If there's grass on the field, it's game time."

Well, that's a new one for me.

[bvw]

The aborigines of Van Damien's Land are a stark testimony to the validity of cultural slippery slopes. Once able to hunt, weave, cook, build huts, make boats and fish at sea they degenerated to naked animals living in the open unable to hunt, eating only shellfish and fruits they could gather by hand.

[L.N. Smithee]

I don't know about "magical effects" but what kind of message are we sending our teens if we say, "You can fully 'consent' to commit murder and we will treat you as such, but when it comes to sex...why, you're just a 'baby'!" Double standard.

Boy, did you twist yourself into a curly fry with that one. The only "standard" that matters is that neither murder nor sex are for kids.

Quit changing your argument. You said an age of consent over 15 "encourages teens not to take responsibility for their own actions." That statement remains unsupported.

This absurd high age of legal consent is a modern invention.

You mean like space flight, the microprocessor, and the internet?

Talk about millenia of traditions, for most of human culture it's usually been, "If there's grass on the field, it's game time." Getting hitched at 13 and whatnot.

There are plenty of traditions from past millenia that should remain back there. Besides, your "getting hitched at 13" anecdotal evidence doesn't jibe with the reality of American society.

Read it and weep.

Median Age at First Marriage

Year	Males	Females
1890	26.1	22.0
1900	25.9	21.9
1910	25.1	21.6
1920	24.6	21.2
1930	24.3	21.3
1940	24.3	21.5
1950	22.8	20.3
1960	22.8	20.3
1970	23.2	20.8
1980	24.7	22.0
1990	26.1	23.9
1993	26.5	24.5
1994	26.7	24.5
1995	26.9	24.5
1996	27.1	24.8
1997	26.8	25.0
1998	26.7	25.0
1999	26.9	25.1
2000	26.8	25.1

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census; Web: www.census.gov.

[L.N. Smithee]

Well, that's a new one for me.

Who's checking for "grass?"

[okiedust]

"Because once a person reaches the age of 15 or so, they're pretty much fully capable of adult reasoning?"

No. They are not, nor are they capable of sustaining themselves on an adult level either physically or mentally, but you are young still and young folks need to think that way or they'd never leave home. That belief will sustain you through your self-defining years and hopefully all will go well with you. By the way, I don't need to "Check" when driving normally starts since I have taught my three adult children to drive. Normal 15 year olds are very capable of rational thought married to irrational behaviour. That is why the age of responsibility is so problematical. Sometimes it takes a while to work this stuff out. Adults are important transitional figures for young people, and violating the child even if the child "consents" is not about what is good for the child but about what is good for the adult. It tends to get in the way of the growing up process. But you already know that. You are probably just jerking chains. And no, you are not crazy, just sorting things out.

regards

[Dimensio]

This is the fatal flaw in the Social Contract: It can be rewritten at will by the changeable preferences of humans. You don't really have any "unalienable rights" unless there's an authority beyond mankind, that says so. "Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...", remember that?

Yes, I do. "Endowed by their Creator" is an unsupported assertion until evidence for this Creator is given (along with a sufficient definition -- presumably the evidence will support the definition as well). Yes, the "Social Contract" can be rewritten and no one has "unalienable rights" unless defined through some other authority that has control over such matters but the consequences of not having a higher authority, good or bad, do not affect reality. .

I'm not arguing that the Social Contract is the best method, but I've not seen evidence that anything beyond it exists. My assertion is simply that it is how societies govern themselves and that's how humans have functioned for thousands of years.

[Dimensio]

Your 'Candidean' assessment of the foundation of the rights to property, the exclusivity of marriage relations, etc. is based, it seems to me, on the belief that humankind will always do the rational and prudent thing.

I think I misstated something. I never intended to imply that humans are ever rational and prudent. I've typically seen humans as very often quite selfish (not completely self-centered, but small-focused) and short-sighted. Humans tend to behave themselves in societies partly because they ultimately benefit from doing so. (there are other motivations -- for example, most people probably never commit murder not just because of legal restrictions but also because they've never wanted to do it).

[headsonpikes]

Well, sometimes humans are rational and prudent.

Just not reliably. ;^)

[okiedust]

You are welcome, to be sure. Challenge(you need no encouragement there) listen, and learn.

regards

[Rytwyng]

Yes, the "Social Contract" can be rewritten and no one has "unalienable rights" unless defined through some other authority that has control over such matters but the consequences of not having a higher authority, good or bad, do not affect reality.

I beg to differ. I think that Mother Teresa and Osama bin Laden are two pretty good counterexamples of that. What sort of governments - Social Contracts - would these 2 create, if fate somehow assigned them that office? Mother Teresa, it is safe to say, believed that people had some sort of unalienable rights and dignities, based on her belief in a higher authority, and would write them in stone into the Social Contract. Osama has his own, much more destructive, concept of what higher authority requires of him, and could be expeceted to write a very Taliban-ish social contract based on the presumed wishes of that "higher" authority.

I know that this is reductio ad absurdum, but, it makes the point. The concept of higher authority, real or imagined, good or bad, DOES affect many people's behavior, and thereby affects reality.

[Dimensio]

I know that this is reductio ad absurdum, but, it makes the point. The concept of higher authority, real or imagined, good or bad, DOES affect many people's behavior, and thereby affects reality.

I should have been more specific. I was referring specifically to the consequences of there not actually being a higher authority regardless of what anyone (or everyone) believes. I readily admit that a person's belief in a "higher authority" may well influence their entire life.

People throughout history may have believed in a higher power and incorporated that belief into their own social contracts, but that doesn't mean that their beliefs regarding that higher authority were accurate, even if it can be demonstrated that such a belief is "better" than lacking it.