It seems it is the latter.

Selecting embryos to ‘bind’ a person to a certain culture, like a genie bound to its lamp, is taking parental control too far.

The principle responsibility of any parent is to provide their child with the best possible chances in life. Limiting a child’s options by ensuring it’s deaf runs counter to that. A hearing child has more options in life than a deaf child; that might not be fair but it’s true, just as a short-sighted person has less choices in life than a normal sighted person.

I see no difference between deliberately selecting for an embryo that will be deaf or selecting for an embryo that will be short-sighted, paraplegic, or blind, or missing a limb, or mentally impaired. Those are all limiting the choices of the child and a violation of a parents duty of care.

This law protects the rights and the future choices/options of the potential child.

Any parent that, given a choice, deliberately selects for a disability (even short-sightedness) has failed in their first duty to their child, even before it’s officially conceived.

When there is a reasonable possibility of matching those wishes, then that is what we should do. Of course if there are other complications with the IVF (perhaps the one hearing embryo has other disabilities or defects that may be considered “worse” than deafness) then someone has to decide which is the right embryo, and since the parents will be the ones who have to raise the child it is only fair that they get their say.

But all other things being equal, it should not be possible for a disabled embryo, disabled in any sense or limb or severe mental impairment to be chosen over a healthy embryo. It would be a disservice to the embryo that eventually, hopefully, turns into an adult, and a disservice to the other embryos that are discarded.

[NB, saying "this would never happen" is not a valid argument. The law exists in part to deal with unlikely outcomes, close down loopholes, etc.]

Can we have another poll? Should hearing couples be allowed to select deaf babies? Would the results be any different? Why?

I don’t know a single deaf person (and I know hundreds) who would want to make an embryo or person deaf. There’s a huge difference between giving something *already* deaf an equal chance, and engineering.

@T – sure my ears don’t work, but I certainly don’t define myself by them; and it doesn’t make a difference. Hearing people are so wrapped up in their subjectiveness as to what is hearing, they cannot see past this. If your hearing was taken away from you tomorrow, yes you would suffer. Even I don’t deny this. However, here no-one is taking hearing away from anyone.

No-one made me deaf, but if I was the subject of IVF I would not have been given the chance to live. Non existence is preferable to deafness; what exactly would the legislators be protecting me from? Deafness -vs- non-existence?

Of course deafness is a disability. If I can’t hear someone talking to me, shouting a warning, announicng that the train will be at a different platform etc etc it is disabling.

Of course deafness is a medical condition –
I wear hearing aids – its not society that has caused my hearing loss – its genetic.

I can understand entirely why a deaf parent might want a deaf child, just as a hearing parentb would wnat a hearing child – but actually, I don’t think either has any “right” to what they want.

I guess it is easy to jump to a conclusion based on reading half a sentence, though perhaps it was my fault for sticking my nose in a subject obviously close to your heart.

In future I’ll remember to take all possible misinterpretations into consideration and spell everything out one syllable at a time:-

I think it is equally important to see potential integrational difficulties from both the individual and the social side, rather than emphasising just one side over the other.

Unacceptable social behaviour (such as racial or sexual orientation phobias) is a social/institutional problem, not an infrastructural problem and can’t be dealt with in the same way (contrast with accessibility legislation for those with mobility problems requiring ramps, wider doorways etc).

With the highest level of inclusivity choices should be able to be exercised equally. Then, whether deaf-embryo selection is permissible depends upon a legal perception of whether deafness is by comparison advantageous or not. In this I don’t think deafness can be treated similarly to skin colour or gender etc.

The issue at stake is, however, not whether non-hearing states should be normalised or not, but how to balance provision for the freedom of the child while maintaining maximum choice for the parents.

My instinct is to say that no baby is concieved in sin and none should be treated as though they are, so I think it is ridiculous to allow the subjective prejudice of a parent to impose on an innocent.

I don’t suppose any deaf parents would be shunned by deaf society for exercising a choice to have a hearing child and I’d be absolutely outraged if it were the case.

No, it’s not crazy. It’s not crazy, even if it affects only one person. Sure it would be crazy to debate the issue all day every day for the sake of one person. But it is not crazy to spend a little time in consideration of a single clause which might only affect a tiny number of people.

My view on why this has happened, government policy has been written on the back of media hysteria. Media hysteria is something like all deaf people want to make the world deaf, or some equally absurd conclusion.

I don’t think there has been any more media hysteria than is normal. But Mr Lichy does seem to want to make at least one person deaf. (That is to say he wants to make one person deaf from scratch, not that he wants to make an undeaf person deaf.) And I, for one, think that is profoundly misguided and wrong.

This is the UK, and what the government should have done, was consult with (a) the deaf community and (b) professionals within this area (genetic counsellors etc). This is what normally happens when legislation goes to parliament, no?

Leaving aside the requirements of due process, I see no principled reason why the deaf community should be singled out for consultation on this issue. I say this because it is the interests of the child yet to be born, not the deaf community, which must be paramount. So all of us should be consulted, and that is in effect what is happening though the parliamentary process.

For this tiny tiny number, we’ve got parliament / DoH legislating on it, and almost disproportionate legislation / use of resources. Crazy? Yes. And the disparate impact has much further reaching implications.

My view on why this has happened, government policy has been written on the back of media hysteria. Media hysteria is something like all deaf people want to make the world deaf, or some equally absurd conclusion.

This is the UK, and what the government should have done, was consult with (a) the deaf community and (b) professionals within this area (genetic counsellors etc). This is what normally happens when legislation goes to parliament, no?

Furthermore, it is the government’s legal duty, as per the Single Equality Duty to consult with disabled people. Instead of a proper govt consultation happening, it decided to read the newspapers and write policy on the back of something you might read in the Sun, Daily Mail etc.

@Jock – I agree. On a personal level, I do not agree with selection. I would not undertake it, its against my moral convictions. However, I do not agree with hearing embryos must always be preferred stance (its eugenics).

Secondly, deaf people aren’t allowed to be donors? If I needed IVF I would not be allowed to ask a deaf friend, a friend who needs to wear glasses etc … to assist with reproduction? Government telling me who’s permitted to have assisted reproduction?

In all seriousness, this clause has much bigger implications than for a few perceived mad deaf people; and I seriously wish the media would get it.

What I do not support is the right of anyone, deaf, hearing, blond, brunette, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, gay or straight, muscular or tubby to go into some genetic mix-and-match put in their required parameters and demand their choice of genetic traits they want to see in their idea of a perfect child.

Its a false argument. I could say the same, hearing people get distracted by hearing (radio, mobile phone) they are not visually in tune as they should be. Thus hearingness kills.

@Oranjepan – limiting or eradicting the impact of a condition? Why not get rid of Black people too, to alleviate them from racism? Get rid of gay people, so they don’t experience homophobia? Etc. This is subjective, and who has the right to decide. Its kind of a strange choice, given the alternative is non existence, a deaf embryo would not exist in any other form (a hearing embryo is an entirely different entity. What are we protecting the deaf embryo from exactly? Existence?

If two couples walk into an IVF clinic, one wanting a deaf child, the other wanting a hearing child, do they both have a right to get what they want?

The reason I ask is that the above situation will accelerate the demise of deaf culture, since most people will choose to not have deaf kids. Consequently, I expect deaf culture enthusiasts to support a situation where deaf embryos are selected ‘to preserve our culture’ whilst hearing embryos aren’t because ‘it’s not a disability’.

you fail to distinguish between deafness being a direct and indirect cause of death.

On the point of society or reality being the cause of the disability, well that entirely depends on what society does or can do to reduce, limit and eradicate the impact of the condition. Do we do enough, can we ever do enough?