Columnist: ‘Choosing a deaf baby is criminal’
March 11th, 2008David Finkelstein, writing in the [UK] Times, heard the BBC interview with deaf activist Tomato Lichy, who believes that deaf people should be able to use IVF to select an embryo with genes for deafness. Lichy maintains that deafness is not a disability. Partial transcript here.
And listening to him I thought - this man is immensely articulate, immensely courageous and immensely, terribly, wrong.
… It is precisely because deafness is, of course it is, a disability, that equality of treatment is difficult to guarantee and has to be fought for so hard.
I said Mr Lichy was courageous. It is courageous to refuse to lie down and be a victim. I can only admire that. But it is one thing to be strong, almost heroic, about his own misfortune, quite another to want it imposed upon a child.
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on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 6:31 pm and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, deaf/hard of hearing, disabilities, discrimination, international, law.
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