Couples could win right to select deaf baby

[stephanie]

wt?

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:00am BST 13/04/2008



Deaf couples could be allowed to use embryo-screening technology and choose to have a deaf child, after a climb-down by the Government in the face of campaigning.

Your view: Should we tamper with embryos?
Under the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, using embryo-screening deliberately to create a child with a serious medical condition - which officials had said includes being deaf - would be illegal.


Now, however, the Department of Health has agreed to cut from the Bill any reference to deafness as a serious medical condition.

The move could pave the way for the Bill to be amended, when it passes through the Commons later this year, permitting a challenge over whether deafness should be classed as a serious medical condition for the purposes of the bill and allowing parents to pick an embryo, using IVF treatment, that will develop into a deaf child.

SNIP:
They argue that the proposed legislation is discriminatory because it gives parents the right to create "designer babies" free from inherited genetic conditions while banning disabled couples from deliberately creating a baby who shares their disability. Doctors, however, strongly oppose any plans to allow the creation of deaf babies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/13/nembryo113.xml

[My Winter Storm]

I am of two minds about this.
I don't consider deafness as a serious medical condition - it disadvantages you, but you can live with it without any ill effects.
I don't like the idea of couples creating the 'perfect' child, nor do I like the idea of couples deliberately creating a child with a defect, whether both parents happen to suffer from the same defect.

However, if parents are able to create a child without any physical defects, why shouldn't a couple be permitted to create a child with a relatively minor defect?

[krisy]

I strongly disagree with this. One of the reasons is because we just found out about 6 months ago that our 7 year old daughter is 50 percent deaf in one ear and 65 in the other. Finding out was very hard because we had to have a catscan done,which was clear thanfully. We also had to have genetic testing done,and found that is where her hearing loss came from. They told me initially that she could go completely deaf and I cried because I kept thinking about her not be able to hear my voice,or Christmas music,and obviously having trouble communicating.

We have an enormous number of trips to Childrens hospital for hearing tests,hearing aid fittings,speech pathology and ENT visits. To WANT your child to suffer form such an important sense and deny them them normal communication with others is just warped in my opinion. All so that a person's ego can be satisfied knowing their child is deaf just like them.

It is also playing with God and they have no business doing it.

My daughter thankfully is doing very well with her hearing aids. There is only a 5 percent chance she will go completely deaf. I just cannot understand why someone would want this?!!! The Dept of Health needs to rethink their decision just to keep any warpos from denying their child one of our most important senses.

[Missileman]

Any parent who would deliberately handicap a child shouldn't be allowed to have them.

[Abbey Marie]

I am of two minds about this.
I don't consider deafness as a serious medical condition - it disadvantages you, but you can live with it without any ill effects.
I don't like the idea of couples creating the 'perfect' child, nor do I like the idea of couples deliberately creating a child with a defect, whether both parents happen to suffer from the same defect.

However, if parents are able to create a child without any physical defects, why shouldn't a couple be permitted to create a child with a relatively minor defect?

Ah, because any sane person with a choice would choose to be born without any birth defects. Does this child have no rights in your mind? To hear music, their own mother's voice, a rainstorm? To be hired at a good job that requires hearing? To go to regular college classes?

How pathetic that we would allow people to deliberately harness another human with a rather serious defect, just because misery loves company. Yet if a doctor messed up during delivery with the same result, he would be sued into near-bankruptcy.

[5stringJeff]

How pathetic that we would allow people to deliberately harness another human with a rather serious defect, just because misery loves company. Yet if a doctor messed up during delivery with the same result, he would be sued into near-bankruptcy.

Exactly. Now, if they knew from testing the embryo's DNA that the baby would likely be deaf, and the parents deliberately chose that embryo, that's one thing. But to specifically create a child with deafness just to do it is no different than creating a child with blond hair, blue eyes, high IQ, etc.

[My Winter Storm]

Ah, because any sane person with a choice would choose to be born without any birth defects. Does this child have no rights in your mind? To hear music, their own mother's voice, a rainstorm? To be hired at a good job that requires hearing? To go to regular college classes?


I did say I was in two minds. I don't consider deafness to be as bad as other defects, in fact, it's minor compared to the many other defects a child could suffer from.

[Abbey Marie]

I did say I was in two minds. I don't consider deafness to be as bad as other defects, in fact, it's minor compared to the many other defects a child could suffer from.


What you consider minor, another might consider very serious.

Btw, I mentioned this in another thread, but is there a reason you are changing the default font in all of your posts to one that is harder to read?

[DragonStryk72]

I did say I was in two minds. I don't consider deafness to be as bad as other defects, in fact, it's minor compared to the many other defects a child could suffer from.


And were you to find out, when you have grown up, that your parents, before you were born, decided that you would be better off deaf, how many minds would you be of then?

This isn't a matter of curing down syndrome, or decreasing the risk of cancer, things that improve a child's chance at life, this is simply sick and wrong. It is turning a completely healthy embryo into a handicapped one. It is the same as destroying your child's ears on purpose.

[My Winter Storm]

What you consider minor, another might consider very serious.

Btw, I mentioned this in another thread, but is there a reason you are changing the default font in all of your posts to one that is harder to read?

I like this font better, Tahoma gets boring after awhile.

[krisy]

I did say I was in two minds. I don't consider deafness to be as bad as other defects, in fact, it's minor compared to the many other defects a child could suffer from.


Your thinking is wrong on this. They want to DELIBERATELY handicap their child!! How dare they?!!!

I'm hoping you just don't understand the full ramifications of not being able to hear. Children that are born deaf can have permanent disablities in learning and speech for life. How can any parent wish their child into a lonely world of silence on purpose?!!

This is soooo wrong.

[Hagbard Celine]

Wow, any kid like this would hate its parents.