posted
Simon: Your example is really completely different. You are stating a possible future where people are enhanced. A situation where you'd have to chose to have the enhancement. Presumably by that point, the enhancements would be standard, and a parent would have to chose not to have them. But even then, this is different, as hearing is a standard sense, one that most people are born with.
These parents are not just ignoring medical advances. They are not saying "We don't want our child to ever use antibiotics". They are deliberatly, from birth, ensuring that the child is born with a disability. They say that when the child is old enough he can choose whether or not to have a hearing aid. Fine. So why didn't they have a "normal" baby and then let it deceide whether, at age 18, it wants to smash its ears in with a hammer?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I suppose my point is that "standard" is really just arbitrary. I think hearing is a good thing. You think its a good thing. But obviously not everyone does.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I have lost my hearing while serving as a mortarman in the Army, a good majority of it anyway, which wasn't all that good from having tubes as a child. Now I have to really concentrate on what the other people are saying.... I remember when I didn't have to put that much effort in to hearing what someone was saying, it was nice, compared to now.
So, knowing what I have lost, and having a good idea of what this kid faces, I can not understand why someone that is deaf would want to deny their offspring something they either never had or lost....
Maybe they are just snubbing Darwin.....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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quote:I fail to see how being deaf harms ones ability to communicate. ASL is a real language, you know.
Yes, and let's see how far you'll get in McD trying to order a burger with using only ASL.
Better yet, let's see how far you'll get in ALMOST ANY PLACE with ASL as your only form of communication.
-------------------- "George Washington said, 'I cannot tell a lie.' Richard Nixon said, 'I cannot tell the truth.' Bill Clinton said, 'I cannot tell the difference.'"
-- comedian TOM SMOTHERS, from his latest stage act with brother DICK SMOTHERS.
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Would you try to prevent two people with poor eyesight to have a child? (prolly not on this board!) What about two congenitally blind people? Where would you draw the line? What about two criminals? What about two mentally retarded people? Two drug users? Two little people? Two fat people?
Ultimately, I think the only question is whether these people are going to be able to raise their child, and whether they are going to be able to provide the special needs their child may require. There's no way to make a correct blanket descision about this. It has to be case by case. If they truly understand the issues their child will face, and are prepared to meet those needs, then who has the right to prevent them from excercise their right to reproduce? Really, who better to raise a deaf child than two women well experienced in this and immersed in hearing-impaired culture? Would I ever do it? Never. Do I think we have the right to tell people who they can reproduce with? Not even close. That smacks of a certain teutonic policy which went ended some time in the early 1940s.
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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It is the seeking out for the expressed purpose of....
If it just happens that, well, then that is that....
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
These parents will eventually come to regret their decision.
Why?
Because eventually, the kid's going to find out he/she was engineered with a defunct, and (quite rightfully) resent his/her folks for it. I know I would.
The idea that people make a statement by purposely impairing their own children (i.e.: abusing to promote self-interest, whatever that might be)... makes me sick.
[ April 12, 2002, 16:14: Message edited by: Cartman ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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Unless, of course, they spend many impressionable years convincing the kid that it's a good thing. After all, they've already convinced themselves.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I don't think this is right; like it or not being able to hear is vital to communicate. the vast majority of people in the world cannot sign or read braille. Also many warning signals (e.g. car horns) are aural. Is it legal for deaf people to drive?
This is akin to maiming a child; if someone purposely destroyed a childs hearing after they had been born no one would agree with it. How is this different?
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I disagree. People don't need hearing to communication. People live entire lifetimes communicating using a language that you simply don't understand.
If you can hear and go to China (assuming of course you are english speaking primarily), and you talk to a chinese person... they can hear you - but they do not understand you .. How is this different?
Deaf and mute people simply speak a different language. I bet you if you knew sign language - you wouldn't have such a strong opinion!
To suggest that deaf people are less than us hearing people, I think, is unfair. Ask most deaf people - and they can tell you that they can do as many things as you or me. It's just they do it differently. Sure -- they are limited in some ways.. but their other sense are twice ours are. I bet ya their powers of observation are far better than mine...
Just because someone is deaf doesn't mean they are invalids!
It's not like they are freaks. And it's not like they're wishing bad things on the kid.. they are obviously fullfilled in their life - and they are both deaf.
I dunno... I don't think we should feel sorry for deaf poeple. Hell -- Beethoven was deaf -- look what he accomplished!!
[ April 12, 2002, 12:03: Message edited by: Alshrim ]
Registered: Nov 1999
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Beethoven was deaf -- look what he accomplished!!
And think what he might have accomplished if he hadn't been.
These people have the LEGAL right to have kids any way they please. However, I also have the legal right to treat everyone I meet like dirt. That doesn't mean that I should.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote: If you can hear and go to China (assuming of course you are english speaking primarily), and you talk to a chinese person... they can hear you - but they do not understand you .. How is this different?
Deaf and mute people simply speak a different language. I bet you if you knew sign language - you wouldn't have such a strong opinion!
The difference of course, is that we *choose* not to learn German, Cantonese, ASL, or what not....but we have that choice.
These parents are making that choice for their child right off the bat. Even if they want to learn Chinese, German, etc....they can't, no matter what.
My question is, why didn't they simply adopt a deaf child instead of cruelly breeding for it?
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posted
Erm... Luwig van Beethoven went deaf. Do you honestly believe he would have had any concept of what music even is, much less been able to compose it, if he'd never had hearing at all?
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quote:Would you try to prevent two people with poor eyesight to have a child? (prolly not on this board!) What about two congenitally blind people? Where would you draw the line? What about two criminals? What about two mentally retarded people? Two drug users? Two little people? Two fat people?
There is a difference here, the parent choose to geneticlly impaired the child.
quote: If you can hear and go to China (assuming of course you are english speaking primarily), and you talk to a chinese person...they can hear you - but they do not understand you .. How is this different?
Again, there's a different, like I said before, the accepted form of communication is decided by the vast majority of the population in a area, hence in China, people speak Chinese, in North American, people speak English. However, I have yet to seen a country or region to have its main form of communication in sign language or anything similar. Plus, normal people have the option of learning a new "spoken" language with relatively short time, can we say the same for deaf people?
quote: Beethoven was deaf -- look what he accomplished!!
Man, what the hell were you thinking! He wasn't deaf to begin with! You think Beethoven could've been as great as he was in his time if he was born deaf?
-------------------- "George Washington said, 'I cannot tell a lie.' Richard Nixon said, 'I cannot tell the truth.' Bill Clinton said, 'I cannot tell the difference.'"
-- comedian TOM SMOTHERS, from his latest stage act with brother DICK SMOTHERS.
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