"Life is a zoo in a jungle." - Peter De Vries

***

Couple who want deaf child angry at IVF ban

"A deaf father who wishes to have a deaf child has spoken of his anger that a clause in new fertility legislation will make it illegal to use embryos with a genetic abnormality in IVF treatment, when ones without the same defect are available.

Tomato Lichy, an artist and designer, and his deaf partner Paula Garfield, a theatre director, argue that to prefer a hearing embryo over a deaf one is tantamount to discrimination and suggests they do not have the same right to life.

The couple have one child, Molly, 3, and say they want the chance to have another, a desire that has brought them into conflict with Parliament.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill permits the selection of a hearing child through IVF, but embryos with deafness genes will be discarded, provided at least one other is found to be "perfect".

Because Miss Garfield is in her 40s, the couple may have to opt for IVF and are angry that their chance to have a deaf child may be eradicated.

Mr Lichy said: "Being deaf is not about being disabled, or medically incomplete - it's about being part of a linguistic minority. We're proud, not of the medical aspect of deafness, but of the language we use and the community we live in.""


Someone: glorious, isn't it

Me: yes indeed
but is anyone supporting them

Someone: I wouldn't be surprised if associations for the deaf support them

some people promote Down's syndrome as neurodiversity
its warped

there's a lot of that crap floating around
its disturbing

Me: suddenly "subsidising AIDS treatment/prevention is cultural imperialism, because the liberal state should not privilege any conceptions of the good life by subsidising then, and that they should let AIDS patients die of AIDS because, hey, claiming that having AIDS is a bad thing is presumptuously ethnocentric" doesn't sound quite so ridiculous anymore

Someone: it sounds very possible for a post modern kind of liberal though

Me: nah
they'd have to work "white men are evil" into it somehow

Someone: doesn't the ethnocentric part fit the bill?
The Man made the cure

Me: ah
so by making a cure for AIDS white men are being racist
because AIDS is an african disease and curing AIDS is like saying Africa is a bad place

Someone: indeed

although if they didn't make a cure, White Man would be selfish
heeheehee

***

Do I want my sight back?

"Rebecca Atkinson is going blind. An experimental therapy could offer her the chance to see again - but would she take it?

There are issues of identity and culture at stake too. "As the blind-from-birth son of blind parents, I am, in part of my soul, defined by my blindness," he explains. "It directly equates to ethnic or racial origin. If you give a black person the choice to be white there may well be significant advantages in such a deal: more access to better jobs; freedom from the shackles of ignorant prejudice; in short, a step closer to equality. But I'd bet most would turn the offer down flat...

There came a point when impending blindness was no longer my alien but my friend. I had had my time as a sighted person. I had seen the world through my eyes. Now it was time to touch it and smell it and hear it."