Why Worry about Deaf Babies?

American Thinker ^ | April 19, 2008 | Paul Shlichta

[neverdem]

England is currently deciding whether or not to legalize the use of embryo selection to produce deaf babies to accommodate deaf couples who want their children to share their soundless world. When Thomas Lifson reported this in AT, he expressed shock that such things could be permitted. I was shocked too---until I realized that this, and much worse, is the logical consequence of our legalization of abortion.

Rightly or wrongly, our legal system regards death as the greatest possible injury that one person can inflict on another. Any injury that is not likely to cause death, however degrading or disfiguring to the victim, is considered a lesser crime and carries a lighter penalty. Therefore, if any class of human beings can be legally killed, it logically follows that they can also be injured or mutilated, however horribly, without penalty to the perpetrator*. This was once the case with African slaves and is now the case with unborn babies.

By upholding Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court has declared any abuse to fetuses or embryos to be, in the parlance of English common law, Outlawed, i.e. beyond the power of legal intervention. The legalization of abortion, at the discretion of the 'mother' carrying the fetus, logically entails her right to do anything she likes with it, such as selling it---or having it manipulated or mutilated it in any way she sees fit. And if there is any logical consistency to the law, Justice Roberts and his colleagues must ignore such practices as being beyond their jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, there are markets for such mutilation. Consider the enthusiasm with which the medical community has urged the use of embryos and fetal body parts for research and organ replacements. We can hardly expect this enthusiasm to remain content with in vitro experiments. They will soon clamor for the performance of in vivo experiments, in which things are done to the fetus while it is still in the uterus of the 'mother'. There are certainly women who would allow such experiments, if the price was right or if they were desperate enough, and even more certainly there are medical researchers who would eagerly undertake such experiments. Indeed, the results might include major breakthroughs in our understanding of fetal development but the moral price for such knowledge seems rather high.

The next logical step would be the extension of such experiments to facilitate the growth of organ replacements for wealthy patients in need of them. As has been discussed elsewhere, the market for such organs is so urgent and the prices so high that such commercialization seems inevitable.

One fascinating possibility is the growth of "customized" organ replacements, wherein the patient provides the egg or sperm for the fetus so that the desired body part has a high degree of genetic compatibility to the patient. If there is any problem of matching a fetal organ to an adult patient, it might be solved by extracting the fetus from its host, well before natural birth, discarding any unneeded parts (such as the brain), and then maturing the "self-sustaining organ replacement" in vitro until the organ is ready for transplant. These processes sound extremely difficult but I have great confidence in the ingenuity of modern medical research.  

We might be able to deny the use of federal funding for such experiments but, as long as abortion is legal, we cannot logically prohibit privately funded experiments. I'm sure that Dr Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's Angel of Death, would rub his hands with glee at the experiments he could now legally perform. Poor man, he was just ahead of his time.

All of the possibilities described above are inevitable consequences of the reasoning used to justify Roe vs. Wade. So we needn't worry to much about a few deaf babies; if our country remains under the shadow of abortion, much worse is yet to come.

* The sole exception, punishment of criminals by the state, is explicitly restricted from including "cruel and unusual punishment" by the eighth amendment to the Constitution. It is significant that the framers of the Bill of Rights felt that such special protection was needed.

[pnh102]

What the heck is wrong with these people? Anyone who would willingly want to inflict a disability unto a child should at a minimum be forcibly sterilized and then banned from ever adopting a child.

[Right Wing Assault]

Of course paraplegics should be allowed to have paralyzed kids, too. Seems the right thing to do. I can think of a number of birth defects we give newborns to have so they match their parents. Blindness is particularly appealing, too. /s

[Right Wing Assault]

If we took out half of their kid’s brain and all of its heart and soul, the kid would match the parents very well.

[HereInTheHeartland]

“England is currently deciding whether or not to legalize the use of embryo selection to produce deaf babies to accommodate deaf couples who want their children to share their soundless world.”

Sick, sick people....

[sinanju]

Part of this is about the “Culture of Death” but the main issue here should be pandering to the militant deafies. I’ve learned a lot about the “Deaf Culturists” since the recent contretemps at Galludet.

The deafies are feeling threatened as cochlear implants get better and better.

[Paridel]

Some years ago I spent some time learning sign language. I was shocked at how deaf people saw themselves and their deaf culture. A lot of them were upset about new developments in hearing technology (e.g., cochlear implants) because they felt that eventually scientific progress would cure deafness and bring about the end of 'deaf culture'.

This position statement from the National Association of the Deaf is very telling:

Many within the medical profession continue to view deafness essentially as a disability and an abnormality and believe that deaf and hard of hearing individuals need to be "fixed" by cochlear implants. This pathological view must be challenged and corrected by greater exposure to and interaction with well-adjusted and successful deaf and hard of hearing individuals.

The media often describe deafness in a negative light, portraying deaf and hard of hearing children and adults as handicapped and second-class citizens in need of being "fixed" with cochlear implants. There is little or no portrayal of successful, well adjusted deaf and hard of hearing children and adults without implants.

I can fully understand that if you are not used to hearing the sudden ability to do so may not be very beneficial, as you may not have the ability to deal with the new sensory input. There are many deaf individuals who have adjusted well to their disability. But it is a disability, and it shouldn't be wrong to call it such.

But some of the deaf people I have talked to believe if would be immoral if we could suddenly prevent all new cases of deafness, because that would kill the 'deaf culture'. Somehow this culture's rights trump those of individuals.

-paridel

[SampleMan]

What incredible barbarity. Shall babies also be blinded and have limbs removed to mirror their parents?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Just when you think you've seen it all. God have mercy on them and their insanity.

It may be a new world, but there's nothing brave about it.

[Quix]

MUCH AGREE.

OUTRAGEOUS.

[Bushwacker777]

In China, it was once fashionable to bind the feet of young girls so they would have club-shaped deformed feet. I guess that if they’d possessed modern genetic expertise they could have made Chinese women naturally have these feet.

You know, in Muslim African nations where they remove the clitoris of teenage girls maybe they could use this technology to have women born without that troublesome organ!

[1000 silverlings]

Well England is in total decline and is practically full of Moslem immigrants whose birthrate will swallow them up in 20 years or less.

[HarleyD]

What an excellent example of the depravity of mankind. As Barry McGuire said it, “Don’t you believe we’re on the eve of destruction.”

[Quix]

AGREED.

[neverdem]

Of course paraplegics should be allowed to have paralyzed kids, too.

They should be allowed to join the military too. So should the deaf, blind or mute. This is what happens when society has lost common sense.

[Right Wing Assault]

"Culture of Death"

One would imagine the children might want to continue the final step and kill these moron parents when they were old enough and had a chance.

[buck jarret]

What if these designer deaf babies turn out to be like chihuahuas. A big fad, and then it’s over and no one wants them. Because chihuahuas are actually annoying little things that do not really make much sense as animals from a utilitarian standpoint.

[neverdem]

???

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Madness. liberalism is a mental ilness.

[Sherman Logan]

This was once the case with African slaves and is now the case with unborn babies.

Actually, not true. Murder of slaves, even by the owner, was illegal in all American states. I believe there were quite a number of convictions and even a hanging or two over the years.

In practice, of course, it was remarkably difficult to get a conviction, and it is likely the guys who got hanged were unpopular in the neighborhood for other reasons.