CURRENT CONTROVERSY

Are attempts to have impaired children justifiable?

K W Anstey

Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Department of Philosophy, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia 3010; k.anstey@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

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Couples should not be allowed to select either for or against deafness

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Keywords: Artifical insemination; disability; selection; deaf; culture; parents

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Recently, a US couple deliberately attempted to ensure the birth of a deaf child via artificial insemination.¹ In opposing this action, I wish to focus on one argument they employ to support it, namely that in trying to have a deaf child, the women see themselves as no different from parents trying to have a girl. Girls can be discriminated against the same as deaf people and "black people have harder lives", one of them argues. They compare themselves to a minority group.²

In using this argument to justify their attempt to secure the birth of a deaf child, they make four claims:

1. It is not wrong to deliberately try to have a child who is expected to experience harm when the harms the child will experience are socially imposed.
   
2. As a group experiencing socially imposed harms, the deaf are to be understood as a minority group.
   
3. Women and people . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Obasi, C. (2008). Seeing the Deaf in "Deafness". J Deaf Stud Deaf Educ 13: 455-465 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Dunmade, A., Segun-Busari, S, Olajide, T., Ologe, F. (2007). Profound Bilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss in Nigerian Children: Any Shift in Etiology?. J Deaf Stud Deaf Educ 12: 112-118 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Bauman, H-D. L. (2005). Designing Deaf Babies and the Question of Disability. J Deaf Stud Deaf Educ 10: 311-315 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Hayry, M (2004). There is a difference between selecting a deaf embryo and deafening a hearing child. J. Med. Ethics 30: 510-512 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Hayry, M (2004). A rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome. J. Med. Ethics 30: 377-378 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Robertson, J. A. (2003). Extending preimplantation genetic diagnosis: the ethical debate: Ethical issues in new uses of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Hum Reprod 18: 465-471 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• (2003). Choosing deafness. Arch. Dis. Child. 88: 24-24 [Full Text]