Designer Babies, pt. 2
19/4/02 16:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienLast week, I wrote a post about two deaf lesbian women who basically did everything within their power to make sure that the son that they were going to have would be deaf.
I said that I found this disgusting.
In an effort to find out why I was so upset about this (I basically stewed about it all through the 11 o'clock class I had), I went out and did my research. Here are all of the articles I've been able to find on the past couple weeks on this topic.
The original Fox News story I came across
CyberCast News Article - slightly religious slant
BBC News Online Article
Related Articles from the BBC on the Deaf Designer Baby and on Designer Babies in general
An article from an Austrailian news website
A really interesting interview from the point of view of another deaf mother in the Guardian.
Another article from the Washington Post.
Why does this trouble me? They're well-educated, mature, and seemingly make a loving couple. They had the right to choose their sperm donor.
But. The thing I can't fathom, I don't think, is the fact that they chose something for their child that the child had no say in. And it's more intrinsic than hair color, or even, perhaps, sex - regular males and females can all see, hear.
Certainly, deaf culture is a wonderful thing - from what I've seen of sign language I think it's beatifully expressive, and I'd love to learn it myself. But they've made the choice to block out their child from knowing anything about the dominant culture, simply because they think the deaf culture is somehow "better" than the hearing culture, which neither of them have ever really known.
Sure, they both had massive doses of humiliating therapy in their childhood from well meaning teachers, parents, faculty. But anyone who's ever had to go through that kind of thing gets that. It's one decision to think, "okay, I don't like this culture. I hereby withdraw from it and am going to find another one." It's another thing to make that decision for someone else.
And, honestly, what's so bad about hearing? They're knocking something they've never tried for someone else.
This is not all of the reason why these articles, and the offhand way in which they're treating their child like a cultural experiment upsets me. I don't know if I can even articulate that to myself, all of it. I hope to be able to post more on this sometime...but it's going to be hard, and it's going to get personal. And I don't think I'm going to like writing about it.
But that's why I have to write about it: I haven't seen anyone else doing it.
I said that I found this disgusting.
In an effort to find out why I was so upset about this (I basically stewed about it all through the 11 o'clock class I had), I went out and did my research. Here are all of the articles I've been able to find on the past couple weeks on this topic.
The original Fox News story I came across
CyberCast News Article - slightly religious slant
BBC News Online Article
Related Articles from the BBC on the Deaf Designer Baby and on Designer Babies in general
An article from an Austrailian news website
A really interesting interview from the point of view of another deaf mother in the Guardian.
Another article from the Washington Post.
Why does this trouble me? They're well-educated, mature, and seemingly make a loving couple. They had the right to choose their sperm donor.
But. The thing I can't fathom, I don't think, is the fact that they chose something for their child that the child had no say in. And it's more intrinsic than hair color, or even, perhaps, sex - regular males and females can all see, hear.
Certainly, deaf culture is a wonderful thing - from what I've seen of sign language I think it's beatifully expressive, and I'd love to learn it myself. But they've made the choice to block out their child from knowing anything about the dominant culture, simply because they think the deaf culture is somehow "better" than the hearing culture, which neither of them have ever really known.
Sure, they both had massive doses of humiliating therapy in their childhood from well meaning teachers, parents, faculty. But anyone who's ever had to go through that kind of thing gets that. It's one decision to think, "okay, I don't like this culture. I hereby withdraw from it and am going to find another one." It's another thing to make that decision for someone else.
And, honestly, what's so bad about hearing? They're knocking something they've never tried for someone else.
This is not all of the reason why these articles, and the offhand way in which they're treating their child like a cultural experiment upsets me. I don't know if I can even articulate that to myself, all of it. I hope to be able to post more on this sometime...but it's going to be hard, and it's going to get personal. And I don't think I'm going to like writing about it.
But that's why I have to write about it: I haven't seen anyone else doing it.
