'Designer' deaf baby

I left myself wide open to that one didn't I?

we had a clinical demonstration with a surgeon who did these.. i agree with your ethical point. but apparently the 'success' rate declines rapidly with age.. so if they're going to work, it's important that they're carried out young. (can't remember exactly why, but can look it up..)

but he did highlight the 'Deaf culture' movement etc.

In my lecture today we were presented with the following situation:

Ms X and Ms Y are both deaf, they do not view deafness as a disability, just a different culture, they wish to have a baby and would like to choose semen from a deaf donor to highten their chances of having a deaf child.

Should this be allowed?

In my view this is on a different scale to the designer babies we often hear about, The choice to have a deaf baby is chosing a negative characteristic which would disable the child and leave them at a natural disadvantage i.e. They would be unable to hear danger so would be more likely to be involved in an accident. I view this as an extremely poor choice on the part of Ms X and Ms Y who seem afraid of the hearing world and wish to inflict their disability on what would otherwise probably be a normal baby.

Any comments?

Did you consider that your lecturer was expecting the students to expand on this scenaio?

Take the fact that the parents did not consider deafness to be a disability - we have already reached the stage where a baby was aborted just before term because it had a hair lip. The Jepson case (remember the femal priest who was born with a hare lip and challenged the legality of the abortion on the grounds that the child was not severly disabled) highlighted society's attitude to perceived disabilities.

We need to examine our feelings toward what we consider a disability. Is it wrong to want to 'engineer the birth of a child who shares the same condition as the parent, yet right to destroy the life of a child who also shares the same condition as other people who are living fulfilling lives?

The Jepson case in particular was disturbing as it aimed to define a cleft palate as a severe disability worthy of a late abortion. Personally i think the engineering of a child that will be particularly disadvantaged in life due to their diability is wrong yet wanting to abort because the foetus has spina bifida or downs is a judgement call on the parents. The childs life will only be fulfilling of the parents are fully able to help that child to the best of their abilities.

Does one's fulfilment rest purely on the actions of one's parents? What about the self?

When your a child your fulfilment is directly linked to your parents.

Does one's fulfilment rest purely on the actions of one's parents? What about the self?

Really? I wonder if, as you progress through your psychology course, you will see that your assumption is maybe incorrect.

Yup - it's a double edged sword, you're giving your child the best chance of a "normal" life (whatever that is) but at the same tiime taking a decision to withdraw them from Deaf culture and the Deaf community pretty much permanently.

Deaf people (with a capital D) don't see their lack of hearing as a disability or a disadvantage.

Should the fact the child is not deaf completely remove he/she (it from now on) from the deaf community? It will have to learn sign and so why would it not be able to be involved in the community?

The mistaken assumption here is that a hearing child of deaf children would be linguistically separated from the parents.

I don't believe that the people involved in these cases are concerned that their child wont communicate with them as well if they're hearing. I believe that they want their child to experience and share the benefits and richness of life that they've experienced as Deaf people.

Personally I see this more as an issue of discrimination due to sexuality/fertility - a congenitally deaf fertile heterosexual couple wouldn't need to use a sperm donor and so wouldn't have to make public any wishes with regard to the hearing ability of their child. Because this couple are unable to have children naturally then their aspirations for their child suddenly become public property to be judged by outsiders.

Have a read - http://www.deaflinx.com/label.html there are pretty significant (and self constructed in come cases) barriers between deaf people and Deaf people.

deaf children with cochlear implants tend to be* members of otherwise hearing families and so tend to grow up using the implant to hear (and lipreading where the implant isn't as effective) and communicating verbally rather than through sign language.

*BIG generalisation, however there's a larger incentive to get your deaf baby peaking and hearing if noone in your family currently understands/uses sign language, families where sign language is already used are more likely to consider both sides of the arguement before consenting to implant surgery.