Is it wrong to select a deaf embryo?
(sz) 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.
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. more…
From: »BBC News«