signcrash said:
All the people who are complaining about this know nothing about deafness. I am a sign language student and have had direct experience with Deaf individuals and people in the Deaf community. Some, indeed many, Deaf people do see a cultural itentity in being born Deaf. They do not see their deafness as a handicap but as a human difference much like a persons sexual orientation or whether a person has hanging or attached earlobes. They are trying to promote that concept in the general public. I am disappointed, I would have thought the SG community was more enlightened.
I am a sign language student, as well, and have spent a lot of time around the Deaf. I have many friends who are Deaf, and I adore them all.
However, I don't see choosing deaf babies as something that is okay. What happens next? We get to choose our babies gender, hair color, skin color? I'm totally against. it. I think medical research and genetic studies should be used with good ethics to help the human race and prevent suffering and disability.
What happens next? Are the few parents with Downs Syndrome going to be choosing kids with it? I love my deaf friends, but even they say this is absolutely absurd.
What happens when the kid finds out his parents chose for him to have a disability? I'd be pretty freaking pissed, if I were him/her. I understand the Deaf community, and I understand that having a child who could hear would relate the child more to them, but lets face it, being Deaf is abnormal. This is a hearing world, and life is easier when you can hear and communicate easily with the rest of the world.
brett54
Australia
November 2004
DEC 30, 2007 08:01 PM