# Moral implications of deliberately trying to cause disability to a planned baby? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 3, 2005, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892 "2005-12-03T11:10:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/121 "2005-12-05T16:24:55Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > This is like saying, "Askia and his wife wanted an African-American sperm donor for their child… African American ancestry is not a _functional impairment_. > [@](#): > > Is being deaf such an abomination no deaf child should ever be born again? No, and I never said anything of the sort. I said that I was disgusted by the parents in this particular case because they deliberately sought to increase the probability of impairment _even with all else remaining equal_. If there is an **option** , with all other factors remaining **equal** , then to _select_ impairment is abhorrent, IMO. The case rests on the necessary involvement of a donor: if the two people involved could have had children together, then their desire that their offspring be the result of their relationship trumps the possible impairment in the child. But in this case, there was **no** relationship with one parent. He was selected _specifically_ to increase the probability of functional impairment. Now, if they’d argued that they liked his _personality_ or _intelligence_ or something, and considered that they outweighed this impairment, I could perhaps have bought it. But they liked his functional impairment **and only that**. Again, I wish him or her all the best in considering cochlear implant technology in future. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/122 "2005-12-05T16:34:41Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > This is like saying, “ **Askia** and his wife wanted an African-American sperm donor for their child. But they refused the sperm offered them at the first bank because they did not have African-American genes. Finally they found sperm donors that maximized the chances of them having a child with African-American traits. Why couldn’t they accept the original sperm offered and given the resultant child a sunlamp?” _Race is not a defect_, nor is deafness an enthnicity. > [@Askia](#): > > Is being deaf such an abomination no deaf child should ever be born again? Are people here protesting the actions of this couple because you feel that deafness is such an aberration that should not exist all? Do you feel deaf culture should not evolve, and that those deaf parents should not have the right to have children who are deaf like them? Abomination", no. Defect, yes. It’s a tragedy deafness exists, and the world will be better without it. The parents do _not_ have the moral right to cripple their children, and cultures are expendable. > [@Askia](#): > > Do you think, ideally, all children MUST be born with five functioning senses, two arms, two legs, ten fingers, ten toes – no more, no less? Or that “more” is okay, but less than a hypothetical mimimum is unsavory? Of course. More capability is better. All children should have at least the normal human level of ability; no child should be stupid or deaf or ugly or legless or dyslexic. > [@Askia](#): > > **FinnAgain.** As long as you insist on coaching the terminology in language that cannot define deafness as anything other than a disability, “correct” terminology will remain elusive. Deafness _is_ a disability. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/123 "2005-12-05T16:54:37Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > **FinnAgain.** As long as you insist on coaching the terminology in language that cannot define deafness as anything other than a disability, “correct” terminology will remain elusive. Will you answer my question about the ADA? If it’s not a disability, do you support removing all protection under the ADA? In addition, do you deny that the human ear has evolved to do a function, and if it cannot then it is a defect? Are you attempting to gainsay all of medical evaluation, or merely when it comes to this specific birth defect? You can tell me what you view as being “not a defect”, but I’d like you to define what is. Is anything, do you agree that there are such things as birth defects? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/124 "2005-12-05T17:19:41Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > I’ve never seen another Doper cited as an authority 😉 > But no, we’re still not. Deaf children would be permitted to exist just fine, and I wouldn’t advise aborting a pregnancy of that sort either. The question is only in terms of selecting a donor. Now that’s just wildly inconsistent. You wouldn’t advise aborting someone that’s deaf, just in allowing them to come to exist in the first place? And why would you allow the deaf to exist if we can prevent them? Is the only difference for you that we wink wink wash our hands of responsibility for deafness by refusing to pay attention to the factors that cause it and the possibility of preventing them? Either deaf people coming to exist is bad and should be prevented, or it’s fine we shouldn’t get all worked up about it. You can’t have it both ways. > [@](#): > > Naw. But there certainly is a genetic basis for saying that something is a dog and not a human. Again, you’re just using difference as an excuse for “essence.” Yes, humans and dogs are different: very different. That’s precisely why dogs are a useful metric in guaging how you feel about deaf people: because they extend the capacity continuum out far enough to get some perspective. > [@](#): > > And there is certainly a medical basis for saying if something is healthy or not. Again, this is essentialism. Yes, health/sickness is a useful shorthand idea in most respect that we are all happy to use because for the most part it works pretty well with what we want and need as human beings. But when we start to believe our own devices too seriously, then we are just using them as excuses from having to make actual arguments dealing with real things when we come across a case where there is a dispute over value. > [@](#): > > Can we agree that there is a non-platonic gentic-based difference between a human and a dog? There are non-platonic differences between EVERYTHING. That’s what makes Platonic essences so philosophically vaccous. > [@](#): > > If not I’m afraid we’re coming from two very different woldviews with no real possibility of even getting our terms to mean the same thing. I mostly think you just don’t want to deal with the example or the implications of your own statements. This is the classic problem of the essentialist worldview, and the constant problem in dealing with fundamentalism: the insitence, that, no, this is just different fom this, and that’s that, no argument needed. > [@](#): > > I said that they shouldn’t _try to have a deaf baby._ And while I do believe that parents should attempt to minimize birth defects (in most circumstances) by doing things like not drinking I do not believe that it is necessary to take ‘extraordinary measures’, I would not say that a hetero deaf couple is under any obligation to use a sperm donor, for instance. There is a difference. Why? That’s the exact same situation! You are apparently one who believes that there is some mystical protection that comes from watching (or participating in!) a supposed “bad thing” go its course despite ample ability to prevent it as opposed to actually choosing the same outcome wilfully. Sorry, don’t see it. > [@](#): > > No standards, nothing objective, no such thing as a birth defect even though it’s medically recognized. Seems rather postmodern to me. I didn’t say there was no such thing as a birth defect: I said that it required some prior value system of what human life should be like. You obviously hold one, but don’t want to admit to it. It’s certainly harder to argue against such hidden assumptions, but that doesn’t relaly make your position any more powerful. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe that a metric which judges by all bodily systems working is a judgement call. Now you’re just lying about what I’ve been saying. I’ve never said that all bodily systems are “working.” But claiming that a deaf person is not working as a human is supposed to and a hearing person is demands some sort of justification as to where you are getting your “supposed to.” Is it a religious belief of God’s intended form? Or what? > [@](#): > > I can ‘admit’ that it be seen that way. But we can also look at the results of the human genome project to set a baseline which doesn’t require any religion or value judgement. That’s pure nonsense. People deviate from the standard genome in all sorts of ways. But that’s not even the point. The fact that there are a large collection of X doesn’t mean that some slightly different X is less worthy of existence. Unless you believe that the genome, perhaps, was designed with a particular sort of ideal human form in mind? Is that what you believe? > [@](#): > > Aren’t you though? You’re saying that the ‘value judgement’ that ears which do not work for their evolved function Ah, so now evolution has a purpose and intentions does it? > [@](#): > > are not a defect is equal to the value judgement that ears which do not work for their evolved function are a defect. No, I’m saying that if you really wish to make the case that lacking a particular capacity is a bar to intended creation, then you are going to have to justify it and stop hiding behind objective descriptions of the world, which tell us nothing about what should or should not exist. > [@](#): > > My point is that while in the potential child is in abstractionland, the parents had a choice. They chose, deliberately, to create a child with damaged hearing. So did the heterosexual couple that you seem perfectly fine with. > [@](#): > > What is your view on other instances of that sort. If parents chose a donor who would maximize the chance of congenital heart problems in the child, would that be okay? In my opinion: no. It would cause a life of suffering. > [@](#): > > After all, the child couldn’t have been born any other way, and who is going to make the value judgement that having a heart which works is less of a defect than having a heart which does not. Right? But, unlike you, I am willing to make a value judgement. A life characterized by physical pain and suffering is a bad thing to inflict on someone. Your problem is that you’ve thus far failed to demonstrate that lacking hearing leads someone to a life of suffering. The deaf parents seem to be making a pretty strong case that it will, in fact, be a life superior to yours and mine in many respects. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/125 "2005-12-05T17:30:45Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > This is such an alien viewpoint to me that I can’t even begin to understand it. Senses are good things. Intelligence is a good thing. Sanity is a good thing. Able-bodiedness is a good thing. More sensory information means a clearer picture of the world. That doesn’t mean deaf people are bad or shouldn’t exist. It doesn’t mean I advocate pogroms to wipe out the deaf or anyone I find “unsavory.” Saying that hearing is better than deafness is not a value judgement, it is a fact. It’s a value judgement. If you think it’s the right one, then heavens to betsy, defend it. But don’t go trying to cheat your way into victory by trying to tell people that physical descriptions of possibility turn is into ought. > [@](#): > > I’m nearsighted, legally blind without my contacts actually, but I don’t go around trumpeting how being nearsighted is just as good as being 20/20 and how anyone who would dare call it a problem is being short-sighted (no pun intended). Isn’t this inevitably a value judgement, however certain it might seem? Yes, objectively, you have a harder time getting around. I’d say that it’d be pretty hard to make a case that this is, all other things equal, a trait anyone could find to be of value. And yet, deaf people, for some reason, DO think this. To argue against them, however, you are going to have to explain why their VALUES are wrong, not keep citing the fact that deaf people can’t hear as if it proved anything. Deaf people are of the opinion that their lives are somehow richer from being deaf than would have been available to them otherwise. > [@](#): > > I just don’t understand how you can think deaf people are not impaired in some way, that they aren’t disabled. This is extreme cultural relativism. The cry of cultural relatavism more and more becoming a version of the Monty Python “run away, run away!” It’s one thing to lambaste the idea that all cultures are equally good. It’s quite another to use that as an excuse why you needn’t be bothered at all with the much harder work of actually making a sincere case about WHY one is preferable to another. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/126 "2005-12-05T17:56:19Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > To argue against them, however, you are going to have to explain why their VALUES are wrong, not keep citing the fact that deaf people can’t hear as if it proved anything. Well I’m not sure what deaf “values” are, but here’s why hearing is better than deafness: —The ability to share a language with the dominant culture of your country. —The ability to enjoy art specifically made for the sense of hearing (music). —The ability to find a mate or friends outside of your insular community. (Yes, some deaf people marry hearing people, but from what I hear it’s way more common that they marry their own, due to the language and communication barrier. This is not true of most other disabilities such as blindness.) —The ability to communicate easily with people outside of the deaf community, i.e. the world at large. —Safety issues, such as hearing a car behind you or hearing your kid scream after getting hurt. How many deaf people have died as a result of their “difference”? —Being able to get a better job. Many deaf people are on SSI, and even if they do work they don’t usually have as good a job as hearing people. Many of these deaf people are probably bored or understimulated in their jobs since they are below their skill level, but are unable to get better jobs because they can’t be accomodated in them. There are many lines of work (cops, pilots, secretaries), that are totally cut off to deaf people, which limits their potential. What if this kid wanted to be a police officer when he grows up? He can’t be. These women have limited his potential to be whatever he wants to be. What are the advantages given by deafness? —Being able to hear quiet in a loud room (when you can just as easily do this by wearing earplugs). —Heightened other senses (which is not true, deaf people may pay more attention to their other senses, but they are not objectively more clear-sighted than hearing people, that’s a fact). —Ability to take part in “deaf culture” (something that hearing people can certainly do, unlike the reverse). Is that not what you mean by “values”? What are “deaf values”? I think the whole deaf identity thing is born out of the shared language aspect of deafness. Because deafness is such an isolating thing, they feel the need to overcompensate. And that’s fine, we all need our coping mechanisms, but it’s when you start thinking that your insular community is all that’s important that’s where the problems start. Every other disabled community sees the importance of mainstreaming themselves into able-bodied society. What is the deaf people’s hang-up (and it is a disability, otherwise it would not be covered under the ADA)? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/127 "2005-12-05T18:08:24Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > Well I’m not sure what deaf “values” are, I suppose you’d have to ask a deaf person, instead of assuming what they find valuable about their condition. A list of things you can do with hearing is not a description of value. > [@](#): > > Is that not what you mean by “values”? What are “deaf values”? I think the whole deaf identity thing is born out of the shared language aspect of deafness. Because deafness is such an isolating thing, they feel the need to overcompensate. And that’s fine, we all need our coping mechanisms, but it’s when you start thinking that your insular community is all that’s important that’s where the problems start. Well, I guess the problem has started then. They see their insular community as something inherently very valuable: a thing worth continuing in its own right. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/128 "2005-12-05T18:11:31Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Now that’s just wildly inconsistent. You wouldn’t advise aborting someone that’s deaf, just in allowing them to come to exist in the first place? It’s only “wildly inconsistent” if you’re putting words in my mouth that I’ve never even close to said. I have never, not once, not one single time, said that deaf people should not be allowed to ‘come to exist’. I said that one should not deliberately try to cause a child to be deaf via selection at a sperm bank. If the only way you can debate this is to assign argument to me which I never made… > [@Apos](#): > > And why would you allow the deaf to exist if we can prevent them? That’s your issue, not mine. I’ve not mentioned that and it’s not in the scope of my OP. > [@Apos](#): > > Is the only difference for you that we wink wink wash our hands of responsibility for deafness by refusing to pay attention to the factors that cause it and the possibility of preventing them? I have been quite clear in what the difference is, and that difference lies in _trying to make a child deaf._ Full stop. > [@Apos](#): > > Either deaf people coming to exist is bad and should be prevented, or it’s fine we shouldn’t get all worked up about it. You can’t have it both ways. I’m not obligated to conduct my argument according to a fallacy of false dichotomy that you use. > [@Apos](#): > > Again, you’re just using difference as an excuse for “essence.” Yes, humans and dogs are different: very different. That’s precisely why dogs are a useful metric in guaging how you feel about deaf people: because they extend the capacity continuum out far enough to get some perspective. Like I said, a postmodern world. Dogs are not useful for discussing human-genetics because dogs are not humans. If you need to resort to another species in order to make your point… > [@Apos](#): > > I mostly think you just don’t want to deal with the example or the implications of your own statements. Not at all. You keep drawing unfounded conclusions from my statements and trying to put words in my mouth in order to ‘score points’. My resisting a false presentation of my position is hardly beyond the pale. > [@Apos](#): > > Why? That’s the exact same situation! Using an exclamation point doesn’t make your statements true, you know. They are not exactly the same sitautions, as evinced by the fact that they are different situations. > [@Apos](#): > > You are apparently one who believes that there is some mystical protection that comes from watching (or participating in!) a supposed “bad thing” go its course despite ample ability to prevent it as opposed to actually choosing the same outcome wilfully. Oh yeah, spot on. Mystical. Could it be, instead, as I have said many times, that there is a difference between trying to cause a child to be born deaf, and simply trying to have a child? But I suppose when faced with my words or the desire to view me as having an ‘essentialist’ ‘mystical’ outlook, one path becomes clear. > [@Apos](#): > > I didn’t say there was no such thing as a birth defect: I said that it required some prior value system of what human life should be like. That’s a contradiction. If it requires a prior value system then there’s no such thing as a birth defect in any objective sense. I’m not asking if we can apply the sounds that make up the words “birth defect” to anything willy nilly, I’m asking if there really is such a thing. If your answer is that it requires a prior value system to determine, then it can’t be an objective term, which means there is no such thing, only various different things that we slap that label onto. > [@Apos](#): > > You obviously hold one, but don’t want to admit to it. Yeah, I’m sneaky that way. I have repeatedly said that we’re coming from different paradigms. If you want to assume that I’m really coming from your paradigm and just pretending to come from another, I’m not sure what honest discussion we can have. > [@Apos](#): > > It’s certainly harder to argue against such hidden assumptions, but that doesn’t relaly make your position any more powerful. It’s not hidden. It was “on display” in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, “Beware of the Leopard.” > [@Apos](#): > > Now you’re just lying about what I’ve been saying. Since I never actually said or implied that you said that, I find it hard to believe that I’m lying when I, um… did’t say it. > [@FinnAgain](#): > > > [@Apos](#): > > > > All I’m asking is that judgement calls be admitted as what they are: judgement calls. > > I don’t believe that a metric which judges by all bodily systems working is a judgement call. > [@Apos](#): > > But claiming that a deaf person is not working as a human is supposed to and a hearing person is demands some sort of justification as to where you are getting your “supposed to.” I have not said that a deaf person is not working “as a human is supposed to”, merely that their hearing does not work as human hearing is, objectively, supposed to work. Do you deny that evolution has shaped our genetic code, and that it codes for an ear which has certain mechanics and allows sound to be interpreted by the brain? > [@Apos](#): > > Is it a religious belief of God’s intended form? Or what? Odd question to ask an atheist. > [@Apos](#): > > That’s pure nonsense. People deviate from the standard genome in all sorts of ways. So it’s “pure nonsense” but people deviate from that baseline all the time? You do realize one sentence is a contradiction of the other, yes? > [@Apos](#): > > But that’s not even the point. The fact that there are a large collection of X doesn’t mean that some slightly different X is less worthy of existence. Good thing that’s a strawman, eh? Dodged a bullet on that one I reckon. > [@Apos](#): > > Unless you believe that the genome, perhaps, was designed with a particular sort of ideal human form in mind? Is that what you believe? Yes yes, by pixies and elves in a workshop on the north pole while they’re not busy helping Santa. > [@Apos](#): > > Ah, so now evolution has a purpose and intentions does it? Nope. Selection pressures. Or have the wings of birds not evolved based on selection pressures for a specific purpose? Or how about the beaks of galapagos finches? > [@Apos](#): > > No, I’m saying that if you really wish to make the case that lacking a particular capacity is a bar to intended creation, then you are going to have to justify it and stop hiding behind objective descriptions of the world, which tell us nothing about what should or should not exist. Yeah… I’m hiding behind those _objective descriptions_. Hiding. In a cowardly manner, behind those _objective descriptions_. And again, you are the one attempting to place words in my mouth about what should and should not exist. I am only arguing about what should or should not be _encouraged_. That you refuse to see a difference because it allows you more colorful strawmen isn’t my fault. > [@Apos](#): > > So did the heterosexual couple that you seem perfectly fine with. I’m sorry, I said I was fine with a heterosexual couple who went to a sperm bank and deliberately selected a donor to maximize the chance of a birth defect? I was pretty sure I gave that as an explicit example of an analagous moral wrong. Again, the hetero couple did not choose to create a child with hearing loss, they chose to create a child. Their intent was to procreate, not to ensure that their child had hearing loss. The other couples intent was to create a child with hearing loss. You can claim that the two couples’ intentions are the same, but that’s patently false. > [@Apos](#): > > In my opinion: no. It would cause a life of suffering. But but but… amoebae don’t feel pain with a central nervous system, and thus the human isn’t really suffering, it’s only your religious essentialism which sees sensation as suffering. Yes, amoebas and humans are different, very different. That’s precisely why amoebas are a useful metric in guaging how you feel about people with heart disease: because they extend the sensation continuum out far enough to get some perspective. > [@Apos](#): > > But, unlike you, I am willing to make a value judgement. A life characterized by physical pain and suffering is a bad thing to inflict on someone. Yes, I am unwilling to make a value judgement, which is why my OP didn’t clearly state that this was a moral wrong. In any case, what is this ‘pain and suffering’? Those require essentialist religious doctrines and what non-pain and non-suffering are which are based on previous value judgements which people differ on anyways. Why don’t you want people who might be in more pain than you are to exist? Do you want them all culled from the herd? > [@Apos](#): > > The deaf parents seem to be making a pretty strong case that it will, in fact, be a life superior to yours and mine in many respects. A strong case in what manner? In what specific respects will it be superior? Please use specifcs, and ideally ones which haven’t already been debunked such as restricting a child to a small community for the rest of their lives being a plus. And isn’t being “superior” some more of that religious essentialism you don’t like? ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/129 "2005-12-05T18:18:15Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > They see their insular community as something inherently very valuable: a thing worth continuing in its own right. And it would continue, at least until the last deaf person dies out (which IMO would be a good thing, cochlear implants being perfected and so cheap anyone could have them). Here’s the thing: hearing people can go into the deaf community (esp if they have deaf parents), but deaf people can’t come out. The barrier goes one way. By valuing the “deaf community” so much these women have prevented their son (remember, he can hear!) from passing the barrier between their community and other non-deaf communities; they have kept a tight leash on him that will never be broken. It’s even worse than the Amish. The only thing keeping Amish from leaving is shame; in this case it’s logistics. And I feel it’s wrong to confine someone to an insular community. > [@](#): > > I suppose you’d have to ask a deaf person, instead of assuming what they find valuable about their condition. Why haven’t any deaf people shown up? Are there any on this board? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/130 "2005-12-05T19:22:17Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s even worse than the Amish. The only thing keeping Amish from leaving is shame; in this case it’s logistics. And I feel it’s wrong to confine someone to an insular community. And here, I think, is a decent direction of an argument (aside from just “its objectively bad” which I don’t think holds any water). The problem I see, however, is that parents who want to have children who are like themselves and can experience life in a way they relate to, are going to argue that, yes, while a hearing child could have heard, their child is not a hearing (or fully hearing child). That’s not who they are to begin with. They weren’t damaged. They were born just as they themselves were born. And since they have led meaningful, fulfilling lives, why is it wrong to want a child who will lead a similar life? If it was okay to bring them into existence, why not this child as well? There are deeper problems, but since those involve likely future situations, we’ll leave those till later. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/131 "2005-12-05T23:15:54Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > It’s only “wildly inconsistent” if you’re putting words in my mouth that I’ve never even close to said. I have never, not once, not one single time, said that deaf people should not be allowed to ‘come to exist’. I said that one should not deliberately try to cause a child to be deaf via selection at a sperm bank. I don’t see the difference at all. If deliberately causing the existence of a deaf child is wrong, then allowing the existence of deaf children is wrong as well. What’s your way around that? > [@](#): > > I’m not obligated to conduct my argument according to a fallacy of false dichotomy that you use. Good grief: how can you possibly say that being deaf is being defective and we should not attempt to have kids that are deaf and ALSO that it doesn’t matter if kids are born deaf? > [@](#): > > Like I said, a postmodern world. Dogs are not useful for discussing human-genetics because dogs are not humans. If you need to resort to another species in order to make your point… You’re just dodging the implication unargued. The reality is, we live in a world where there are beings of all sorts of different capacities. It is only mere happenstance of extinction (and likely a denial of the reality of evolution: how’s that for postmodernism?) that allows you to maintain the illusion that human beings are somehow radically different from all other life and hence that our moral statements about capacity apply only to ourselves. > [@](#): > > Using an exclamation point doesn’t make your statements true, you know. They are not exactly the same sitautions, as evinced by the fact that they are different situations. They have the same exact outcome, the same genetic players and the same choices! I’d say they’re the same in every relevant way. And if the badness of being deaf is so trivial that mere heterosexual desire to reproduce via fucking overrides any concern for concieving a deaf child, then frankly, it’s a little hard to see where you find the time or muster the energy to oppose the gay couple’s actions. > [@](#): > > Could it be, instead, as I have said many times, that there is a difference between trying to cause a child to be born deaf, and simply trying to have a child? Let me finish your unfinished sentance there: “…that will be born deaf if you do it that way as opposed to the many other options.” > [@](#): > > That’s a contradiction. If it requires a prior value system then there’s no such thing as a birth defect in any objective sense. You can have it two ways. Either birth defect is a strictly medical term (in which case the “BUT ITS A BIRTH DEFECT” cry has no moral force) or its being used as a term of judgement, in which case you have give a much fuller and better account for why its wrong. > [@](#): > > I’m not asking if we can apply the sounds that make up the words “birth defect” to anything willy nilly, I’m asking if there really is such a thing. If your answer is that it requires a prior value system to determine, then it can’t be an objective term, which means there is no such thing, only various different things that we slap that label onto. This really isn’t so hard. There are objective facts. There are value judgements. You can’t argue from one into the other simply by the use of a word that contains both meanings intertwined. > [@](#): > > I have not said that a deaf person is not working “as a human is supposed to”, merely that their hearing does not work as human hearing is, objectively, supposed to work. That’s sheer nonsense. “supposed to work” is not an objective concept. It’s a value judgement. > [@](#): > > Do you deny that evolution has shaped our genetic code, and that it codes for an ear which has certain mechanics and allows sound to be interpreted by the brain? Evolution is blind. It has no purpose. If supersonic space waves that explode working eardrums and cause cerebral hemoraging tommorow kill off every non-deaf person on the planet, evolution will not bat an eye. It will not complain that “hey, I designed ears to do so and so, they are supposed to be good!” There are indeed mechanics that allow sound to be interpreted in the brain. But this no more an inherent value than the fact that our brains are set up to desire selfish domination over others. > [@](#): > > Odd question to ask an atheist. You’re the one imbuing objective reality with transcendent and inherent “intentions.” > [@](#): > > So it’s “pure nonsense” but people deviate from that baseline all the time? You do realize one sentence is a contradiction of the other, yes? It’s pure nonsense to claim that genetic similarity is a guide to a moral “should” for the human race. There is no contradiction in pointing that out. > [@](#): > > Or have the wings of birds not evolved based on selection pressures for a specific purpose? Or how about the beaks of galapagos finches? Again, this is imbuing evolution with a mystical sense of intention that you then give some sort of moral weight. > [@](#): > > And again, you are the one attempting to place words in my mouth about what should and should not exist. I am only arguing about what should or should not be _encouraged_. Encouraged to WHAT. Well: … to exist. (helpful sentence finishing service, tm) > [@](#): > > Again, the hetero couple did not choose to create a child with hearing loss, they chose to create a child. …with hearing loss! (helpful sentence finishing service, tm) > [@](#): > > Their intent was to procreate, not to ensure that their child had hearing loss. But they has just as much knowledge as the gay couple that if they had a child in this way, that it would have hearing loss. It ridiculous to claim that one couple is morally worthy than the other. > [@](#): > > The other couples intent was to create a child with hearing loss. You can claim that the two couples’ intentions are the same, but that’s patently false. They may well give different statement about what outcomes they focus on as favorable. But BOTH couples are consciously selecting the same package and the same outcomes. One is just playing up one aspect more than the other in the press release. They are BOTH creating a deaf child, ON PURPOSE. > [@](#): > > But but but… amoebae don’t feel pain with a central nervous system, and thus the human isn’t really suffering, Illogical. > [@](#): > > it’s only your religious essentialism which sees sensation as suffering. No essentialism required. > [@](#): > > Yes, amoebas and humans are different, very different. That’s precisely why amoebas are a useful metric in guaging how you feel about people with heart disease: because they extend the sensation continuum out far enough to get some perspective. They aren’t on the sensation continuum, so its a moot point. They lack that capacity. However, if you were arguing that it’s wrong to create beings that don’t have sensation (say, a brainless human clone), then an amoeba actually would be a interesting counter-example. If neither the brain-less human nor an amoeba have sensation, and creating living beings without it is wrong… then it must be wrong to create amoebas, by the same logic. > [@](#): > > In any case, what is this ‘pain and suffering’? Those require essentialist religious doctrines and what non-pain and non-suffering are which are based on previous value judgements which people differ on anyways. Why don’t you want people who might be in more pain than you are to exist? Do you want them all culled from the herd? > > A strong case in what manner? In what specific respects will it be superior? Please use specifcs, and ideally ones which haven’t already been debunked such as restricting a child to a small community for the rest of their lives being a plus. And isn’t being “superior” some more of that religious essentialism you don’t like? You apparently don’t know what essentialism is, so I’m not sure the above paragraphs are an execise in anything other than the demonstration of non-comprehension. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892/132 "2005-12-06T00:37:50Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > I don’t see the difference at all. If deliberately causing the existence of a deaf child is wrong, then allowing the existence of deaf children is wrong as well. What’s your way around that? Your not seeing a difference doesn’t change the fact that there is a differece. Intent matters. Everybody dies, but intentionally causing death is wrong. I could be driving my car and if I accidentally hit someone and cripple them for life that isn’t as much of a moral wrong as if I deliberately run them down and cripple them for life. Just as some painfully simple examples. > [@Apos](#): > > Good grief: how can you possibly say that being deaf is being defective and we should not attempt to have kids that are deaf and ALSO that it doesn’t matter if kids are born deaf? Again you put words into my mouth in order to have fun dancing with a strawman. Being deaf is not “defective”, it is a birth defect. I also never said it “didn’t matter”, but that parents aren’t obligated to take extraordinary means to prevent it. > [@Apos](#): > > You’re just dodging the implication unargued. No, I’m “dodging” your strawmen and trying to point out that I don’t share your paradigm. But I do find it amusing, as if I bring ameobas into the mix, then it becomes illogical. But dogs? Dogs are logical. > [@Apos](#): > > They have the same exact outcome, So does shooting someone in the head and not keeping them on a respirator. You can deliberately ignore that one couple _tried_ to produce a deaf baby, but I don’t think many others will be convinced by your ignoring it. > [@Apos](#): > > the same genetic players and the same choices! Again, exclamation points do not make your claims true. One couple has the option of attempting to create a child which would share their genetic material and accept the risks, the other intentionally maximizes the risks. > [@Apos](#): > > And if the badness of being deaf is so trivial that mere heterosexual desire to reproduce via fucking overrides any concern for concieving a deaf child, then frankly, it’s a little hard to see where you find the time or muster the energy to oppose the gay couple’s actions. And just why is it relevant that they’re gay or hetero? I’ve already given an example in which a hetero couple decides to use a sperm bank, why not stick with that one? Nor have I said that being deaf is trivial. I have focused on intent, just as you have ignored it. As I pointed out several times, we’re coming from different paradigms. But you like exclamation points. > [@Apos](#): > > Let me finish your unfinished sentance there: “…that will be born deaf if you do it that way as opposed to the many other options.” You are simply wrong. Deaf parents often have hearing children. The point was the deliberate intent of maximizing the chance in one situation. > [@Apos](#): > > You can have it two ways. Either birth defect is a strictly medical term (in which case the “BUT ITS A BIRTH DEFECT” cry has no moral force) Fallacy of false dichotomy. Sure it does. “Brain death” is a strictly medical term, but deliberately causing it has a moral dimension. > [@Apos](#): > > This really isn’t so hard. There are objective facts. There are value judgements. You can’t argue from one into the other simply by the use of a word that contains both meanings intertwined. Oh no? Odd, that… > [@Apos](#): > > That’s sheer nonsense. “supposed to work” is not an objective concept. It’s a value judgement. Mmm hmm. Sheer nonsenese. Pure nonsense. Nonsensical nonsense with a twist of lime. The physical and electrochemical actions of various parts of human anatomy are hardly a value judgement. > [@Apos](#): > > Evolution is blind. It has no purpose. If supersonic space waves that explode working eardrums and cause cerebral hemoraging tommorow kill off every non-deaf person on the planet, evolution will not bat an eye. It will not complain that “hey, I designed ears to do so and so, they are supposed to be good!” You contradict yourself. If that were to occur, the selection pressures would change, and the relative evolutionary fitness of those without working ears would be raised. You confuse the fact that evolution is not directed with the mistaken impression that it is blind. Selection pressures do indeed create a situation in which different allelic combinations are favored. In this situation, having a sense of hearing has been selected for over quite some time. > [@Apos](#): > > There are indeed mechanics that allow sound to be interpreted in the brain. But this no more an inherent value than the fact that our brains are set up to desire selfish domination over others. Being able to be aware of the world around one is, indeed, an inherent value as it directly affects the relative fitness of an organism. > [@Apos](#): > > You’re the one imbuing objective reality with transcendent and inherent “intentions.” Sure I am. Mmm hmmmm. I’m not correctly pointing out that certain traits have been selected for over millenia of selection pressures. Nopers. Not at all. It must be transcendent magick stuff again. > [@Apos](#): > > It’s pure nonsense to claim that genetic similarity is a guide to a moral “should” for the human race. There is no contradiction in pointing that out. Yet another strawman, I am shocked, just shocked. Well… not that shocked. The ‘should’ is that one should not intentionally cause damage to a human being. A baseline can be set by genitics. But deviation in and of itself is not immoral. As I’ve been saying, intent matters. > [@Apos](#): > > Again, this is imbuing evolution with a mystical sense of intention that you then give some sort of moral weight. Just because you see pixies and elves behind selection pressures doesn’t mean I am obligated to accept your view. Evolution is indeed directed by selection pressures. Or do you deny that the galapagos finches have had their beaks shaped to fill their niches by selection pressures? (Or maybe it was spooks and monsters who did it to them?) > [@Apos](#): > > Encouraged to WHAT. Well: … to exist. (helpful sentence finishing service, tm) Yet _another_ strawman. Aren’t you getting tired of this? Maybe you’d like to just make up things I say because you obviously don’t need me to actually be in the thread. What is this ‘helpful’ claim? You’re putting words in my mouth which I simply never spoke, that’s not helpful. Encouraged to cause a birth defect. If you still want a kid, go ahead, and a kid will exist. > [@Apos](#): > > …with hearing loss! (helpful sentence finishing service, tm) Again, the helpful strawman service. And putting words in my mouth while ignoring the dynamic of intention and simply being flat out wrong about genetics. Deaf parents can have hearing children, and their _intent_ is to have a child, not a deaf child. They did not, as you claim, choose to have a child with hearing loss, they chose to have a child. If a deaf couple got together with the deliberate intention of having offspring who had the greatest chance of being deaf, you’d have a leg to stand on. As the situation stands, you do not. > [@Apos](#): > > But they has just as much knowledge as the gay couple that if they had a child in this way, that it would have hearing loss. It ridiculous to claim that one couple is morally worthy than the other. One couple’s intent was to have a child that was the flesh of their flesh. The other was an attempt to have a child that had a disability. I’m not quite sure how many different ways there are to phrase that. Again, another painfully simple analogy. I go out in a car that I know doesn’t handle well in the snow and I take a chance or I go out and deliberately try to run someone over. > [@Apos](#): > > They may well give different statement about what outcomes they focus on as favorable. But BOTH couples are consciously selecting the same package and the same outcomes. Ah, but you’ve already gone on record as saying that purposefully selecting for congenital heart problems wouldn’t be right. So I can assume that if you follow your own logic you would say that parents with congential hearts problems ought not to be allowed to breed? > [@Apos](#): > > One is just playing up one aspect more than the other in the press release. They are BOTH creating a deaf child, ON PURPOSE. Absolutely untrue. Unless of course you’re using a different definition of “on purpose” than the rest of us. One coulple is accepting the risks and having children, the other is deliberately trying to maximize the risks. (I can swear I’ve said this before). The first couple _is not deliberately trying to have a deaf child_. > [@Apos](#): > > Illogical. How very Vulcan, but I’m happy to say that I just plugged in a different animal to the same analogy you used. It’s good to see you admit that your analogy was illogical. > [@Apos](#): > > No essentialism required. Playing fast and loose with definitions doesn’t mean you’ve made a logically compelling point. You have essentially (no pun) implied that there is an ultimate reality to pain and suffering and that the ‘essence’ of a human being is not suffering or being in pain. When faced with your own logic turned against your own position, you claim that it is illogical. After all, it requires, in your own lingo, religious essentialism to say what human consciousness should be and what constitutes pain and suffering based on what a human ‘should’ be feeling that is a baseline. > [@Apos](#): > > They aren’t on the sensation continuum, so its a moot point. What, you delcare they’re not on the continuum by fiat? They most certainly are, they just show that your argument is intellectually bankrupt. There were many others things “on the continuum” which I could’ve used, but an extreme example simply demonstrated the logical inconsistency of your position much more easily. [ > [@](#): > > An amoeba, for example, can detect the presence of edible cells and particles in its immediate vicinity and, as long as the intended meal does not move too far out of range, will relentlessly pursue it by extending its pseudopods. Amoebas also show specific behavioral responses when exposed to light. Bright light causes an advancing pseudopod to be withdrawn. And when an entire amoeba is suddenly exposed to bright light, it draws in all of its pseudopodia and vigorously contracts to form a spherical blob of protoplasm. ]([Psychozoan: The Definition of Life](http://baharna.com/philos/life.htm)) > [@Apos](#): > > . > You apparently don’t know what essentialism is, so I’m not sure the above paragraphs are an execise in anything other than the demonstration of non-comprehension. Durrrrrr. Me no know what essentialism be. You please tell me yes maybe? Just in case you’re confused, claiming an ultimate ‘essence’ for the phenomena of pain and suffering is certainly an essentialist doctrine. You want to posit an ultimate essence for ‘suffering’ and ‘non-suffering’ and claim that ‘suffering’ is bad, This requires you to claim that the ‘essence’ of humanity or a specific human is something other than this ‘suffering’. And you resist labeling genetic damage a birth defect as you claim that would be religious essentialism? Perhaps you should get your own house in order? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-implications-of-deliberately-trying-to-cause-disability-to-a-planned-baby/333892.md?page=6)