From CNN (video) , BBC, Reuters:

Advocates for deaf people maintain that the Human Fertilization and Embryology bill, currently under debate in Parliament, is discriminatory because it would prohibit deaf couples from using in vitro fertilization to deliberately select embryos with genetic deafness.

Artist Tomato Lichy (left) and his partner, theater director Paula Garfield, are both deaf, as is their daughter Molly. They say they want another child, and would like to use IVF to assure the child would share the family’s deafness. Lichy and Garfield reject the idea that deafness is a disability, and say disability is imposed upon them by society.

“If a law is passed and says that an embryo that is hearing has to be got rid of, how would you feel? That would be offensive,” says Garfield. “What if deaf people decided to get rid of all hearing babies? It’s the same the other way round.”

“Some people could see this as quite eugenic,” says a genetic counselor, “because it’s saying that you’d have to make a legal choice between deaf and hearing, and hearing is the preferred state and deaf isn’t.”

The bill before parliament says parents having IVF who choose to screen their embryos won’t be allowed to choose one with genetic deafness.

Notes the BBC report:

The current, increasingly febrile debate is about an action which has never taken place in the UK and is based on a couple who have yet even to seek IVF treatment.

Earlier post: Heated reaction to deaf couple’s plea for deaf child

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, assisted reproduction, deaf/hard of hearing, disabilities, discrimination, international, law, prenatal diagnosis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post