Would *you* want to create a deaf baby?

this is possibly the stupidest comparison i have ever seen in my entire life.

Designer baby = bad news (unless of course it's a Gucci baby).

Point of X-men: people of one race are fundamentally different from people of another race so you should treat them as if they aren't. Um...

This is where the people involved flatly disagree with you (everyone else) though, so there's no argument. I have to say I really don't have a problem with what they did. I haven't given it much thought though.

But that's not the point of X-Men! The point of X-Men is that even though they were born with odd powers/limbs/skin colors/digestive tracts/etc, the mutants are fundamentally the same as humans. They have the same feelings, emotions, desires, hopes, fears, cultural basis, etc. Grant Morrison has, I admit, changed this point somewhat, largely because no one after Claremont seemed capable of creating a decent story themed on this, but the core concept is that even though the biology of the mutants is off-kilter from the non-mutants, they're still human and should be treated as such.

I think X-Men is perfectly good as an allegory of pragmatic tolerance in general, just as an allegory specifically of racism it falls down for me.

To what extent can cultural identity be physically determined? Do cultural identities exist beyond the opposition or prejudice against them? Is successful allegory possible within a serial form? Who would win in a fight between Banshee and the Deaf Baby?

Tom: The interesting thing about this is that the whole mutant discrimination = racial discrimination works or falls apart depending both on how you identify "race" and how you identify "mutant". In 20 years of reading X-Men, it never occurred to me to think of the mutants as a different race, even when the writers had various characters come out and say mutants and humans were different races. And, even when I do think of mutants as being a different race from humans, the cultural similarities outwiegh the biological differences in my mind.

(i am not asking in ref to the issues raised on this thread, just ordinary unfettered cultural pervertalism)

In the real world black people have been hated/loved/feared/admired/imitated 'because' they supposedly possess simian features/inferior brains/enormous cocks/natural rhythm/incredible athleticism/etc. In the Marvel Universe mutants are hated because they can read your mind/blow things up/fly/lift buildings/etc. The key distinction is that all of the 'black' traits are also found in 'non-blacks' and with the same frequency, whereas very very few of the 'mutant' traits are found in 'non-mutants'. So that's where the allegory breaks down.

The delivery of the allegory then falls down in the fact that 99% of the mutants Marvel shows us *can* do these things and the ones who don't fit the stereotypes are more alluded to than shown. So the real world equivalent would be an anti-racist book or film populated almost entirely by ludicrous Mandingo stereotypes.

And the allegory works best when comparing the reactions to mutants to those to other Marvel superheroes (except Spider-man!)

Burning question: are they going to command the child to be homosexual as well?

they are also gambling on being able to persuade the child of this, which is quite another issue

Tom, your point on the difference between how people react to mutants as opposed to the rest of the Marvel Universe is an excellent one and should have been the jumping off point of most of the X-Men mythos of the past 12 years. Unfortunately, Marvel editorial decided that its books were too closely interwoven and put everyone in their own seperate-but-equal box to make writing the stories easier. I think that this accounts for about 80% of the story stagnation that occured in the X-books in the 90s; they had this great foundation for stories but no effective way to leverage it.

tracer hand is as otm as an atm.

most Deaf people say they are happy to have been born Deaf and it's good when they have Deaf children. It's society that has to change (errr...excuse that cliche sorry, it's late and this "issue" cuts so deep with me). Did anyone else see that documentary from about 2000 about the related families where some parents were Deaf and had Deaf kids and the hearing grandparents were upset when their next baby was born Deaf but the parents were pleased. They were investigating cochlear implants for their little girl. I am very much against cochlear implants for Deaf (as opposed to hairing-impaired or deaf later in life) people especially children, and babies! It's abusive. The people who condone and profit from that and things like speech therapy and so on are the ones people should be angry at (and do something about), not people who choose to have Deaf babies. come on, please please is there really this piss-poor level of awareness of the (continuing) history of abuse/discrimination against the Deaf amongst people on ILE, or are people just not posting?

Also - and I'm not asking this to be inflammatory, I don't know much about deafness issues - it's not just a question of verbal communications and language differences, is it? Most animals, including all the higher primates, receive a vast amount of non- verbal information aurally, generally to warn them of danger or alert them to opportunities. 'Society' has actually reduced this reliance on hearing non-verbal cues, but not eliminated it entirely I'd have thought.

To reduce the question to its most basic: assuming you could choose to create either a deaf baby or a hearing baby, what advantages (from the p.o.v. of the baby) would a deaf baby have, and what advantages would a hearing baby have? I can't currently think of any advantages to being deaf - this might be prejudice and if so I'd like you to help me break it down.

EH?

Which brings us back to two questions: i) whether deafness is such a trait, ii) if it is, whether that's what's happening here.

So, i) The parents say it isn't, you say it isn't. I say it isn't an extremely unhealthy trait (like say a hole in the heart) but I can't shake the idea that it is unhealthy simply because I can see no advantages to having a deaf child as opposed to a hearing one, whereas I can see advantages to having a hearing one. BUT these advantages/disadvantages are clearly not life-threatening which makes all the difference to me.

As for ii) I don't think that's happening in this particular case anyway (because both non-biological parents are hereditary deaf).

Fits Dawkins/Darwin pretty well. As for common sense - if it was that much common sense, why did it take until the late nineteenth century for evolution to come forward as an idea? And the mechanics are still debated now.

uncautious hearing humans - can avoid noisy predators but not silent ones. cautious deaf humans - can avoid silent predators but not camouflaged ones. humans with above average sight and hearing - can avoid all but the quietest or best-camouflaged ones

As it was evolution took a sideways step and the humans who learned to work together to avoid predators and build things to keep them out were the ones who survived hooray.

Fair enough, but this is very different from my interpretation of neo- darwinism.

Actually many evolutionary jumps make bugger all sense at all.

Tom, sorry your argument does not wash. Evolutionary jumps in the predator could mean that pretty much all of an entire human group (and hence even species) could be wiped out within a generation. Let's say instead that a predator develops a sonic based weapon which could disable their prey. Now the ability to hear is actually the thing the predator is counting on. There can be evolutionary advantage in being deaf. Fish do alright after all....

deafness may have been an evolutionary disadvantage we had to be wary of the nearby growl of the sabre-toothed tiger: not now — if deafness is today a CULTURAL disadvantage, then changing the culture is surely one of the options to be considered (as liz suggests)... i am a bit dubious about appointing yr baby the vanguard warrior in such a change (issue of abuse, again, from a difft angle) BUT that is by no means an unusual decision for parents to make in re non-mainstream beliefs, progressive or otherwise

signing is a gorgeous language — my sistah signs, and i wish i was better at languages, because then i would too

a board which sprang up from the loins of a music discussion group is (surely) "genetically" inclined (deformed, if you like) to consider hearing a cultural boon

*Except of course we did in the form of language.

Oh and what is the point of a loud growl / roar. It is to communicate fear to the victim. The roar of a lion is part of its weaponry.

I think everyone here has brought up great, and somewhat separate, arguments: genetic engineering, disabilty, culture, and childbearing. Where to start? I have to work so I'll sum up my thoughts quick like.

genetic engineering = bad, deaf from birth is not a disability me thinks (I also think those of us who are hearing cannot rightly call it so as it's only "disabled" from our POV)

culture - it's natural for parents to want their child to be of their culture. Nitsuh is right that culture is not genetic but one could also say these women are just trying to come as close to possible as their own natural child would be

childbearing - Tracer is completely right adoption is often the best choice. women who spend tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments and then birth litters are far more offensive than this couple.

I have had thoughts on these topics personally as of late. I was recently diagnosed as Manic Depressive which wasn't a huge surprise since it runs in my family. However I've spent most of adult life in denial that I possess the disorder as well. The realization of the heredity of this disorder and the knowledge of how it has affected my life has forced me to rethink my own ideas of parenting. If I ever do decide to become a parent it will be via adoption as I wouldn't feel justified in passing this disease on to another generation.

However I think there is a difference between deafness and bipolar disorder. Deafness is not a disease. It's like having a congential deformity and having to adapt to the world as a single-armed person or something. Bipolar disorder is a disease that can be very debilitating, possibly fatal, and requires a lifetime of treatment. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Fair enough about the lion, don't know enough to counter that though I'm sure massive roarcan be seen to be a predatory advantage in some situations - though its quite possible I am basing this on Jurassic Park or some such hokum.

If we are talking advantage/disadvantage for the child, is there any advantage in having a communications barrier with the parents that being able to hear will cause (if we are assuming that the Sate will send the child to a hearing school which I think is a pretty safe one)?I am not saying things will be better or worse than if the child could hear but I really don't think it would be significantly worse (or better).

A hearing child can feel alienated from hearing parents for any number of reasons. Similarly, even if a child is deaf he/she may not choose to share the same friends, pursuits, beliefs as the parents.

I think I wanted to make those points for a reason, though I'm not sure what they refer to now...

if they spend the first 4 or 5 years of their life (before they're old enough to go to school) with their parents in the deaf community, won't signing be their first language? very young children are adept at picking up languages - would the divide between sign and spoken languages be great for a small child? i don't know, but my guess is that they would be more likely to be at a disadvantage in communicating in a spoken language than the other way around

-I think this is the real issue. I also agree with the fact that signing would probably be thier first language and they would have to learn to speak properly as a second language, more than likely then they would not be at a disadvantage communicating with thier parents. I also think that, whether they would be at a disadvantage or not would be through no fault of thier own and thier parents should be able to deal with that rather than depriving them of one of thier natural senses and much joy that might come to thier lives as a result of having said sense. I can't even believe that it would be debated or justified at all.

Its a fascinating moral kettle of fish anyway which has been going on for centuries.

Liz, I think you're confusing my own unease regarding conscious choice to specifically have a certain kind of kid with blatant anti-deaf bigotry on my part. That's hardly the case, though as Tom noted, I could well be overlooking something in my attitudes and viewpoints, and your reading recommendation is noted.

I'm not deaf, was not born deaf, have no idea what it would be like not to hear *anything*. And as Mark wryly noted, this is a board that spun off from music discussion, so you can imagine how much being able to hear is important to me as I am. But it is perfectly clear to me that those who are deaf are people, not objects of pity or sterotypes. We certainly would not think anything less of a participant here who was deaf, for fairly obvious reasons -- not just the means of communication, but because we're all in this together.

But like Deadman said, there's something about the *conscious* choice to determine someone else's deafness that disturbs me greatly. Maybe I'm already old-fashioned, though -- maybe this *is* the future and I just have to learn to deal now that it has come to this point. Even so, something about this nags at my heart. I don't believe in god, but I'm strongly hesistant to put us in the place of a deity.

Yet now that I think about it -- is perhaps the greater question how we consider genetics of *all* kinds? It seems to me that the base division is whether genetic predetermination/manipulation is something to be pursued or not. By which I mean -- can it be argued (and I think it can) that genetically-altered food (or animals) and genetically-predisposed babies are part of the same situation? Or are we separating how we manipulate and tweak our own species from other life forms, animal or not?

Not very thoroughly explained or articulated, I realize.

As for deafness itself, the root of my thinking here is that while information is neutral, the ability to gather it is inherently good, and lacking a particular conduit of information inherently bad. Perhaps I am just stubborn but I do not see how this can be argued with.

"The couple have said they will let him decide when he is older if he wants to wear a hearing aid."

By then, who says that the child will _want_ to wear one? Self-consciousness begins in childhood. It matters what the other kids think of you. If, for example, at age 6 or 7, the child decides he wants to try wearing a hearing aid. Would he/she make that choice out of need...or peer pressure? By then, whould they even care about what sounds they might be "missing"?

It's a step down from cloning, IMHO: here, the parents choose to begin playing God. "Give him (or her) blue eyes, long hair, the IQ of a genius....and oh yes, please make him deaf, so he (she) can understand what it's like to have a disability." It's only an example, but the point (I hope) I'm making is: this takes the surprise out of childbirth and child-rearing. Sure, you may be able to prepare for all the "problems" you know your child will face, but where's the joy in self-discovery the kid should have?

(rant over...)

*ahem*

Despite the "disability" I was born with, some of my best moments were hearing the birds twitter outside my window, a shared laugh with a friend, my first ear-splitting rock concert....

But tis scary to think that child will never know what that's like because of the parents' selfishness.

Which is pretty much what the problem is: That at least from the article they seem to be using their children to prove a point.

(This post is most likely nonsense - please ignore it)

This is precisely what, I suspect, bothers many of us. It is disturbing to believe that parental love can be reduced to a matter of "political correctness." Ideally we are raised to believe that our parents will always love us unconditionally. Unfortunately, this couple proves that some parents have only their own interests in mind.

[I didn't kill the thread. And somebody agrees wiv me.]

THE DEAF BABY IS RAISING TOO MANY INTERESTING QUESTIONS

When I skimmed through this just now that was the line that leapt out.

i think i prefer nu-ILX where this question would be answered with a flood of goatse jpegs