From the [UK] Guardian, a special issue on the culture of deafness.

Among the featured articles:

I wouldn’t have minded if my baby had been born deaf, but the embryology bill suggests I should –  Rebecca Atkinson says the embryology bill currently before the House of Commons curtails the rights of deaf parents. The bill would prohibit the implantation of an embryo known to have deafness when other hearing ones are present. An excerpt:

… This is not about tweaking the genes of a hearing embryo, a technical impossibility. It’s about laying two potential children in embryonic form side by side and affording more right to life to the hearing one by making it illegal to issue preference to the deaf one … this is not about creating a hearing child and then making it deaf. It’s about not being able to give life and therefore equality to an embryo that is already deaf.

…as a deaf person I can’t help but feel slightly affronted that the bill affords more right to life to you the hearing reader, than me the deaf writer, were we to be lying side by side in embryonic form in a petri dish. Indeed, it makes it illegal to choose me over you.

Heard the one about the deaf comedian? — A writer discovers there’s more to deaf humor than meets the eye.

Mixed messages –  British Sign Language, like any language, has its share of regional variations and idiosyncracies that can lead to mix-ups and embarrassment

The difficult decision that would change our son’s life — What happened when one-year-old Lachlan got a cochlear implant

Cochlear implants: A technology that’s changing deafness

Welcome to silence — Can a hearing person ever really know what it’s like to be deaf? By Sam Wollaston

Sign language youtube roundup

The paper’s editors explain in an introduction that the issue was prompted by a deafness awareness workshop, in which they learned that “not only was there a lot we didn’t know about deaf culture today, but also that things were changing; there was a new mood emerging – online and around the country.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 7:59 pm and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, assisted reproduction, cultural attitudes, deaf/hard of hearing, families, genetics, law, personal stories, quality of life. 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