Someday having a disability is going to be trendy, because your parents would have had to specifically choose an abnormal embryo. The more disabling your affliction the more you'll be prized. Down's Syndrome will be for poseurs.

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I can see that. You can have Down's Syndrome and still have normal intelligence, so it would be a way of making the child different, but not disabled. Hard core people would go for phocomelia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, conjoined twins, etc. People who want to make a more subtle statement would choose whatever makes whatever causes only half of the brain to develop.

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While I don't see many benefits to making a deaf child, I can certainly imagine other circumstances where where one might trade off a disability in one area for a benefit in another. For example, would you engineer your child to have a 20 point gain in IQ, if it meant a 5% increased risk in schizophrenia? How about a guaranteed 6'4"+ height at a cost of a 10% reduction in probable lifespan?

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Respeccing will cost you 5 gold.

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solarbird explains the benefits below: some deaf people want their children to be deaf so they grow up as part of the deaf subculture. Yeah, I don't understand it either.

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This could lead to scariness. Completely unsourced, but I remember reading a poll where if given the choice, what conditions or diseases would parents abort a child for. The clear winner was obesity. Apparently Huntington's and fragile x are ok, but we don't want no fat kids.

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And what of the poor and under-privileged deaf people who can't afford such medical intervention? Do they get to stick ice-picks in their hearing-enabled children's ears to make them more like mommy and daddy?

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Have you said this before somewhere else, or is it just a popular image? Because I've definitely seen "icepicks" mentioned before.

Mind you I think the idea of designer disabled babies is about the stupidest thing I've heard in my life.

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while an extreme image, your point is right on; why should we be able to select for traits pre-birth that we would not allow anyone to recreate post-birth? Doesn't have to be ice-picks; a nice clean surgery could destroy hearing. But who would condone that?

I personally think that any particular modification is equally moral, be it pre-birth or post birth. If it's abhorent post-birth, so it is pre-birth.

However, I'm an oddball and I don't particularly object to it in either case, in theory. It's a matter of context. If there is a society of all deaf people, then in that context it would be quite reasonable to create deaf children, be it genetically or surgically. In our society of mostly hearing people, the idea is not a good fit and unlikely to be made legal. I frequently disagree with such laws, but they do serve as a fairly good way for a society to define what is a good fit in its own context. We don't approve, we won't make it legal. It may still work out in some other context...

I also expect to see babies designed with artistic goals - blue skin, scales, whatever the parents think is pleasing. In the future, I mean. Some society somewhere will probably decide that is acceptable. In other societies, it may be done underground. Where the technology exists, it will be used, somewhere, somehow. Morality has little to do with it; we as a society can have a moral stance, but we as a species will do everything it is possible for us to do, though some things may only be done by a very few people in secret.

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Deaf people wanting deaf babies? Incredible! Next thing you know, Christians will want to screen for heterosexuality.

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We're all born hetero, just ask Christians. Homosexuality can be cured.

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I read a book some time ago (I think the title was The Gumshoe, the Witch and the Virtual Corpse) in which a gay gene had been discovered, and many parents aborted fetuses that were found to have it. Catholics did not do this, so after a couple of decades crucifixes and other Catholic images became the equivalent of pink triangles. (This wasn't the point of the book, but it figured in the plot. Not a bad read if you can find it.)

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Yo, speaking as a Christian, we aren't all homophobe assholes. The right-wing Christians claim they speak for all Christianity. They don't.

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when they're teenagers and their hearing peers are getting really into music. Though unfortunately a really public minority of deaf people want a society in which everyone's deaf, or maybe they just think deaf people are superior, I think this is more a right that they're demanding rather than something they'll really use. I hope.

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Seems like grounds for some type of assault charge against the parents.

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If statistics show that blonds really do have more fun, is it assault to not pick the blond child out of the available embryos?

Statistics do show that tall, handsome men make the most money . Is it assault to not choose the male child with the best chance of being both tall and handsome?

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Speaking as a severely deaf person who has never been part of (profoundly) deaf culture, I consider this to be entitlement run amok.

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somewhere in britain, a lawyer is conspiring to bring to term and be hired by the un-chosen. once born, they can sue their genetic parents for neglect.

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You know, there's some people who, through the situations by which they want to bring a kid into the world, basically openly declare themselves child abusers.

The sad thing is, they aren't even aware that's what they're doing.

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This reminds me of the vegan baby parents...

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hey, its the same argument used to allow circumcision. the parent/child relationship is the only one where society not only allows but recommends gross abuse - why should the unborn get off easy?

what i dont get is how people can breed without having first decided how they will reply the day their child turns to them and says they wish they were never born.

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I'm fairly sure being Deaf is not a disability.

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This nuts - Isn't it a bit academic, we can't really select for any genetic property such as deafness in a human embryo and assume it will work out, right? This is not proven technology is it?

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Genetics is complicated enough -- actual traits, even moreso.

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My sister-in-law is deaf, and my wife (who is only a year younger than her) was able to sign before she could speak. My wife maintains that Deaf culture is pretty screwed up, but she still believes that this legislation is wrong.

Personally, I think it's a slippery slope towards mandating certain genetic choices, which I find somewhat offensive. Also, I'd like to select my transhumanist qualities myself, not have them foisted upon me by someone else.

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