Not deaf enough for Gallaudet?
"There's a kind of perfect deaf person," said Fernandes, who described that as someone who is born deaf to deaf parents, who learns ASL at home, attends deaf schools, marries a deaf person and has deaf children. "People like that will remain the core of the university."
Let's see...perfection is to deliberately breed children missing one of their senses? What are these people, auditory Skoptzy? If deaf is a positive value in itself, then blind must be a positive value as well, right? And blind and deaf must be even better. And perfection would be people whose brains had been disconnected from any sensory input at all, like the future Skoptzy I read about in a science fiction novel once (can't remember which one or whose, Heinlein maybe, or Harlan Ellison -- it was 35 years ago) who were crazed moaning vegetables.
Yeah, yeah, I know about Deaf Pride, but I don't get it. If you are born deaf (or gay, or white, or black), what's to be proud of? You didn't do anything to get that way. By the same logic, you have nothing to be ashamed of either. And people who have blown their hearing through their own actions generally feel regret if not shame that they did such a stupid thing.
If almost all of us were clairvoyant, the few that weren't would probably develop some religious rationale for why they were better, some claim that psychism was of the Devil. This is basically irrational and religious too. There's nothing wrong with deaf people creating their own culture. But don't try to convince the rest of us that being less than all you can be is superior to being all you can be - or worse, that less is more for your children. Ot worse yet, that you have a right to breed deaf children AND we have an obligation to fund their special education. Your children are your property (not quite, but any other paradigm leads to worse results than that one), but runoff from your property onto mine is a legitimate concern.
Comments
Posted by: Wendy
Posted on: May 11, 2006 09:44 AM
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...
there's something inherently sick about that.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: May 11, 2006 09:53 AM
That's my gut reaction too. But I think there's more. If a deaf person falls in love with another deaf person, and in the natural course of things produces deaf children, that's one thing. But deliberately choosing for deaf genes is another. There was that case several years back of the Gallaudet lesbians looking for a deaf AI donor, and that got much the same reaction.
But how far does one go with "be all you can be"? If genetic engineering gave us a chance to give humans abilities they do not now possess, would we be wrong for not choosing that for our children? Is there anything necessarily sacred about the "factory spec" list of human abilities?
Posted by: Rob V
Posted on: May 19, 2006 05:08 AM
Jeffrey:
At first, I was appalled at your intitial posting but your follow-up comment mollified me to a certain degree.
It's important to distinguish, among those who have a hearing loss, those who are big "D" Deaf and little "d" deaf. The Deaf choose to see themselves as a part of a distinct cultural group; the deaf do not.
Yes, the blind, paralyzed, mentally challenged, etc., have their social groups and associations. However, no other disability provides for a setting that includes a linguistic component as well.
The Deaf value their commmon bonds, especially in sign language. Some, as the lesbians you mentioned, may make an effort to go out of their way to propogate their deafness simply because it is comforting to them to know that their children will be like them...and not DIFFERENT.
Don't most parents wish for that?
You are correct in that the advancing developments in genetics will bring hard questions with no clear answers.
Would a parent abort a fetus if the genetic markers indicated mental retardation, physical deformity, autism, blindness, or deafness?
I think it comes down to whether the parent is familiar with the "defect" that is possible and is comfortable in knowing if they can or cannot handle it.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: May 19, 2006 08:33 AM
Rob:
Thanks for commenting...and for giving me a chance to clarify. I don't deliberately set out to appall...to challenge, maybe.
Your point about cap-D Deaf wanting a child who isn't "different" carries a fair bit of weight. As an individualist, I am cool with people having the kind of child they want. I won't go so far as to say I approve, but I recognize their right to do so, as long as they are bearing the costs of their choices (and that applies to 5-sense people and their babies too!). Once the child is born, it has human rights as a sentient being that modify the quasi-ownership rights of the parents. But pre-birth, if you are going to posit a societal right to say what kind of child will be born, you are also positing the right to say if a child WILL be born, or if it will live. And "societal" here is a euphemism for "government", as society is not an individual and has no rights (neither does government, but it does have powers...and 65 years ago we saw where such powers could lead).
I don't yet have a problem with genetic engineering of humans (though I reserve the right to change my mind about that). But I don't see how one can allow voluntary eugenics and not allow voluntary dysgenics.
Posted by: David
Posted on: January 23, 2008 04:31 PM
"Yeah, yeah, I know about Deaf Pride, but I don't get it. If you are born deaf (or gay, or white, or black), what's to be proud of? You didn't do anything to get that way. By the same logic, you have nothing to be ashamed of either. And people who have blown their hearing through their own actions generally feel regret if not shame that they did such a stupid thing."
I don't get it either. All this pride and wanting to feel "special". When will people in the west figure it out that true happiness comes from wanting others to be free from suffering, not from being personally recognized for your own uniqueness.