I'm not sure what to make of this.

[Grumpmeister]

Granted there is the spectre of eugenics involved here but I cant agree with their fight to have a deaf child through IVF. I can understand and appreciate that there is a wealth of culture within the deaf community but surely any parent, if given the chance would want their child to be as healthy as possible.

New fertility legislation will make it illegal to use embryos with a known genetic abnormality in IVF treatment when ones without the same defect are available.
 
Some deaf activists contend they do not have a disability

For a long time, the debate about the genetic testing of embryos has focused on whether we should stop people creating the "perfect" person: blonde, blue-eyed, with athletic prowess and a high IQ.

The Nazi spectre of eugenics has frequently been invoked.

Now a deaf couple have turned this on its head: far from wanting a flawless child they actively want a baby which suffers the same hearing difficulties as they themselves.

The couple have become icons in a deaf movement which sees this impairment not as a disability but as the key to a rich culture which has its own language, history and traditions: a world deaf parents would naturally want to share with any offspring.

Moreover, they argue that to prefer a hearing embryo over a deaf one is tantamount to discrimination.

But to others - both those who can hear and those who cannot - deliberately bringing a child with a disability into the world when one without could be born verges on the morally repugnant.

Slippery slope?

Tomato Lichy and his partner already have one deaf child, for which they are profoundly grateful.

But they may eventually like another - and IVF, given the mother's age, may be the only option.

Yet if the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill goes through as it stands, their chances of having a deaf child would be virtually nil.

It would be highly unlikely that among the embryos they created there would not be one without one of the deaf genes.

Being forced to pick this embryo over the others, Mr Lichy contends, suggests that his life as a deaf person is not one worth living.

"The core issue is that the government is saying deaf people are not equal to hearing people," he told the BBC via an interpreter.

"Despite the fact that over time we have seen more and more rights for disabled people they are now seeking to establish a legal principle that deaf people are inferior - and there may be more laws once this gap opens."

What message does it send to their deaf daughter, he asks, whom later they will have to tell: "We had a deaf embryo but the government said we were not allowed to have it".

Rich world

One of the beliefs he holds most dear is that deafness is any event not a disability.

From his perspective, the inability to hear is an integral part of his identity, and it is those who are able to hear who are at a disadvantage in a world of deaf plays, deaf poetry, and deaf jokes.

But his argument that he is not disabled is not one accepted by some of those who campaign on behalf of those who cannot hear.

The Royal National Institute for Deaf People does not support the choice of deaf embryos over those who would not be born with hearing problems.

"No-one should be forced into having genetic testing if they don't want it. But if they do, we would want the embryos without the gene to be implanted," says its chief executive Jackie Ballard.

"Deafness is a disability and we have spent a long time campaigning to improve the lives of people who live with it. But it is certainly not a slight to the deaf to say it is better to bring a child who will face the least difficulty into the world, when there is a choice to be made."

Storm in a teacup?

Only a tiny minority of deaf or hard-of-hearing people in the UK see themselves as part of a community with a distinct identity in the way that Mr Lichy sees himself.

Moreover, the current, increasingly febrile debate is about an action which has never taken place in the UK and is based on a couple who have yet even to seek IVF treatment.

A study carried out at the Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge found the vast majority of deaf people polled wanted a hearing child.

In addition, IVF births - which are those at issue - make up just 1% of all deliveries in this country.

Combined with the tiny proportion of these parents who would be both deaf and desire a child who could not hear, we may not even be looking at a case a decade, experts say.

Regardless of how rare it would be - or the protestations of a vocal minority - the government is thought unlikely to change its mind on this particular clause.

If they do opt for IVF, Mr Lichy and his partner may end up with what they see as a "disabled" child: one that can hear.

[Snoopy]

Whether you believe in God or not it is not our place to play God/Mother Nature or whatever. These "Scientists" will not be happy until they control the world and that ncludes who and how we may and may not reproduce. Shoot the lot I say.

[Uncle Mort]

Why is not our place to play 'God' ?

These scientists are not out to control who may or may not breed but just to enable healthier people to be born without genetic defects.

Medical research has given us many benefits without which life would be 'nasty, brutish and short' and I would imagine that neither of us would be alive today if we just had to rely on God or Mother Nature.

[Snoopy]

But the point is that they are proposing here, unless I have completely misread the article, to deliberately use genetic engineering to produce a defective child (that is one that is not fully capable but with an inbuilt disability). That surely cannot be right. Take a healthy baby and deliberately deafen it and you would rightly have the full force of the law invoked against you. I do not see their proposition as being any different to the deliberate maiming of a child.

Genetics to improve health I can just about accept, with many reservations and a lot of heart searching BUT to want to produce a defective child that will have to struggle against that defect for all of its life is NOT giving the child the best possible start. It is pandering to the prejudices of the parents who will be long dead whilst the child continues having to cope with the results of its parents selfish actions. Sorry Uncle but in this case, as it is described in the article, there is no way this should be allowed.

[Uncle Mort]

It's the parents that want a deaf child whereas IVF and the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill not only would enable a non deaf (healthy) child to be born but would insist on it. The parent's argument is that deafness is not a disability to be screened out.

[Snoopy]

OK so I assume we all agree that the proposition the parents have put forward is wrong.

But if these scientists will keep inventing ways of subverting nature then sooner or later one of them is going to do just such a thing. That is what bothers me about the whole thing. Just because they got a white coat doesn't make them anymore able or suitable to be the final arbiter than I am. BUT we all know of some who think they can be "in the name of science" ~ which some of them firmly believe should be completely unfettered.

Anyway lets not argue ..... fortunately it's unlikely to be allowed at this time.

[Uncle Mort]

Just because someone (not necessarily or even likely to be scientists) could subvert scientific research shouldn't mean that the research should be not be done in the first place.

I just don't subscribe to the belief that 'there are some things man is not meant to know'

[Snoopy]

Just because someone (not necessarily or even likely to be scientists) could subvert scientific research shouldn't mean that the research should be not be done in the first place.

I just don't subscribe to the belief that 'there are some things man is not meant to know'

True enough but equally I can't take the idea that man actually knows very much ~ man only thinks he knows.

Tell you what ..... why don't we gang up and kick the silly bugger that started this thread?

[Uncle Mort]

Good idea, you get under his feet and trip him up and I put the boot in. 

[Snoopy]

  Sorted!

[Just One More]

Scrap, scrap, scrap!

[Bar Wench]

Why do I get the feeling that I am going to have to get the hose out.

[Barman]

Why do I get the feeling that I am going to have to get the hose out.

[Darwins Selection]

Why do I get the feeling that I am going to have to get the hose out.

Mmmm! Stockings 

[Bar Wench]

What?