Moral implications of deliberately trying to cause disability to a planned baby?

Great Debates
41

Gee. I guess there is a debate here.

Dag, monstro. I should learn better than to follow your act in thread where you’ve gotten people all stirred up.

davenportavenger. Deafness is an inherent disavantage? No. I grant you being deaf (as I partly am) is a distinct disadvantage in some careers, occupations, and recreations; but I do not believe it is necessarily an insurmountable one in an age of close captioning or sign language interpreters, or where surgeries and technological advances can allow the deaf to interface with sounds, and make many careers possible for those with paralysis, blindness, anosmia and even amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

FinnAgain. There’re cultures that are your birthright, and ones you adopt after a certain age. Addict culture, like the sex trade culture, has the distinction of being primarily one for adults. It is itself a subset of recreational drug culture, in which irresponsible drug abuse for adults and kids is illegal, just like forcing kids into sexual activity for profit is frowned upon in porn. Yeah, I said, all cultures are essentially equal but I honestly didn’t think I’d have to exclude the ones that are rightfully unlawful to kids. I can see wanting a deaf kid, especially if you yourself and your partner are: who the hell in their right mind wants a deliberately drug-addicted baby, especially in defiance of the law? Currently, deliberately induced disabilities in kids isn’t illegal. I’m not sure it needs to be.

DSeid. Being beyond normal parental narcissism isn’t illegal either, though. All potential parents by biological inheritance or child rearing practices tend to remove certain choices from the child’s life for, when you get down to it, exclusively selfish reasons: religious choices, socioeconomic ones, cultural ones – even some genetic ones. That this debate is about deliberately stacking the odds for a sensory loss is not different from those realities. If parents who are born quadruple amputees due to thalidomide are ethically justified in wanting a child like them, heck, maybe Mom should be allowed to take thalidomide to maximize the child’s having no limbs. I just don’t think a) thalidomide is currently legal or b) there exists a thalidomide-child-by-thalidomide-born-parents culture. Thalidomide was a tragic unexpected medical defect.

I miss having my own computer in my own place, man. I’m having to bow out of this conversation because my boy wants a booty call.

42

The discussion is not about illegality; it is about ethics. The ethics of the thalidamide question are the same. Even if the culture is a culture of just two.

I’ll even take it to the discussion of shortness. I am fairly short but within normal range. That is defined how I am relative to others. What if two lesbians, both “little people”, well below the normal for our world, say three to four feet tops, decided to do the same thing: they choose that the one of them who had achondroplasia (genetic) was the donor egg with sperm chosen from another anchondroplastic in order to maximize the chances of having someone of extremely small height because they believed in little people culture? Never mind the fact of associated health problems, there will be difficulties in existing within a world designed for taller people. Is this an ethical act?

The abbreviated version of the question of this thread (avoiding a pun): is it ethical to attempt to maximize the possibility that your child will have difficulty succeeding in society in irreversible ways when they have no say in the matter and for no reason other than that it is part of your dealing with your own disability?

43

I think there’s a difference between selecting for certain genetic characteristics and actually attempting to harm or alter the fetus during development. Addicting a fetus to crack is cruel in a way that conceiving a congenitally deaf child is not.

44

I hope so!

45

mswas

What these parents are trying to do is the position closest to eugenics. They are choosing to form a child different than normal because they believe it is better than normal.

46

Music. Voices. Laughter. The sounds of nature. Not all the advantages of having hearing have to do with employment and access. There are aesthetic disadvantages to being deaf, too. A life without sound is a much less rich world.

47

I was thinking along the same lines, but what if those two ‘little’ lesbians lived in a community of other little people, their house was tiny and everything was at their level and a normal child would soon outgrow the house and the environs and would grow up feeling totally different to everyone around him. Would it be ethical then to get a donor to maximise their chances of a little child?

From what I understand, these two deaf women live in a deaf community and a hearing child could possibly end up feeling isolated and different. There are problems associated with being a hearing child of deaf parents. This link posted by FinnAgain in the pit thread says

I’m sure that these women want what is best for their children and for them that means trying to have a child that will fit into their world.

I’m not saying that it’s necessarily right, but I would certainly not call it a deliberate maiming of the child.

48

First, what about the adult child’s ability to experience the larger world, instead of their sealed up little community ?

Second, removing/suppressing a normal faculty is indeed maiming.

49

If they were deliberately puncturing their hearing child’s eardrum, then yes they would be maiming their child, but they’re not. They are maximising the genetic chances of having a hearing impaired child. The same chance the child would have if they were not lesbians, but a heterosexual couple.

From Dictionary.com

If you do not believe that you are imperfect or defective or impaired as a deaf person, how does maximising your chance of having a deaf child make it maiming?

I don’t disagree that they are limiting their adult child’s ability to experience the larger world but how we are raised has a huge influence on how we turn out as adults. I do not think that these women believe that they are limiting or making their child imperfect or defective. As Finn keeps saying, it boils down to intent. If they believe that being deaf in a deaf community will enable their child to fit in more easily have have an easier life, then they are not ‘maiming’ their child.

50

No, that’s just a way of doing the damage while trying to evade responsisibilty. The results are what matter, not technique.

Belief doesn’t come into it. Humans do have certain standard, built in parts and functions; removing one is maiming.

51

Ok, so if they were a heterosexual deaf couple who had a high chance of having a hearing impaired child, shouldn’t they then go and find a sperm donor who is not hearing impaired because according to you, they would be maiming their child if they had one (especially if they hoped he/she would also be deaf).

52

Yes, they should. Still, it’s not as bad as trying to have a deaf ( or blind or legless ) child.

53

I kept citing “it’s not illegal” simply to note most things we find egregiously unethical as a society we tend to outlaw.

I think your question has some just plain misleading or wrong assumptions. “Your child will have difficulty succeeding in society,” “irreversible,” “when they have no say” and “for no other reason.” No unborn child has a say in their conception; while traits are sometimes irreversible, few are insurmountable; few parents, if any, can guarantee their child won’t have diffculty succeeding in society; and cultural assimilation is NOT just “a part of dealing with your disability.”

Hmmm. It’s a less rich sensory experience. The world is pretty much still the same. I don’t know about much “much less rich.” You tend to appreciate some things more with fewer choices to distract you – and hearing (as opposed to listening) is a big distraction.

The deaf can still enjoy the percussive rhythms of certain music forms, they can still communicate nonverbally and learn to lip read, they can still LAUGH and experience the communal feelings of shared laughter. They may miss the sounds of nature, but nature still has its own vocabulary of visuals, smells, tastes and textures they can appreciate. Four out of five ain’t bad.

I mean, it’s their genetic material and senses being reshaped and combined for a new life, mimicking theirs. I can’t bring myself to call that desire or their methodology for attaining it unethical.

(On preview.) Der Trhis. But we reserve the term “maiming” for people who have fully functioning, non-regenerative standard body parts that are removed. (Otherwise a haircut is maiming.) When you never even had the experience of using the standard body part or sensory organ because it was disabled while you were in vitro, I think you have to call it something else, especially when it’s your own (presumably loving) parents who made the decision. You tend to accept the reality your are given.

What’s so bad about deliberately trying to parent a deaf or blind child born/raised that way from your own genetic material, if you and your partner are blind/deaf and want that for their child? Besides the (evident) disapproval from able-bodied people outside the two parents?

54

Because the child in question is damaged. I hear a lot about the parent’s rights and needs, but what about the kid’s ? Why should he be his parent’s toy ? Why do they have the right to damage him, and what recourse does he have ? When he turns 18 will he magically gain hearing ? No.

55

Biddee: it is certainly maiming. As the definition you quoted starts “To disable…” Full stop. They are deliberately attempting to disable their child’s sense of hearing.

But what right do they have to limit their child’s future to their world? It may not be illegal (although I do think they should be charged with child abuse and lose their license to be therapists), but it is definitely immoral.

Then what is it? They are deliberately removing the facility of hearing from their child, so it isn’t accidental maiming.

What is the substantive difference? If they induced deafness in utero via chemical means would that not be maiming? Why is deliberate genetic damage kosher but chemical or physical means are over the line?

As I pointed out in the other thread, a fertile hetero couple is a poor analogy in this case. Insetad, let’s take an analogy of a hetero couple where the wife is fertile and the man isn’t. If they are going to a sperm bank and select a donor deliberately to cause birth defects in their child, then they are as guilty as the lesbian couple of a horrible moral transgression.

Not everything in it boils down to intent, but much does. Their deliberate desire to cause birth defects in their children differes from a couple which acepts the risk of genetic diseases because this couple is actively trying to maximize that risk.

The reason behind that intent, or the intent behind the intent, if you will, is not much of a mitigating factor. Yes, they’re not doing it out of pure malice, but they’re still purposefully trying to cause birth defects.

Sure they are. Maiming doesn’t have to do with intent. You can be maimed whether or not the person doing it thinks that it’s for your own good.

But parents can maim you. Just because it’s your parents doing the damage doesn’t make it something else.

And yes, they are removing body parts but it is done from the point of view of what would be most likely had they not deliberately attempted to remove the child’s hearing. Just because it’s done in utero doesn’t make it any different. After all, would inducing deafness in a fetus via chemical means be acceptable and not-maiming?

But as I said, if this was done via chemical means after conception, or physical means after birth, we’d be talking about child abuse, right? It seems to me that genetics is just a technicality, especially when the damage is intentional.

Hey, if someone could want their child to be born with one birth defect, why not another? I’m sure someone could come up with a culturally relative reason why an addict would want to have an addict baby. I’m actually sure we could recycle many reasons which could be given for the deaf parents. But does it matter? Is the law the defining moral arbiter, or is damage to an innocent child?

No? Then where do we draw the line? Is it just illegal to maim your children once they’re out of the womb? Can we do it in the womb? Could you deliberately attempt to give your child Downs syndrome via a sperm donor?

It seems to me that if one is going to bring a child to term they are obligated to, if not give it the best care they can, at the very least avoid purposefully doing it harm.

Although, to be fair, that’s really outside of the scope of my OP. Whether or not it is, or should illegal really isn’t at issue. I’m only concerned with the moral dimension. And we really don’t criminalize the immoral, although they do often dovetail.

56

That deserved repeating.

I’d also like to address the question of when the damage is deliberately inflicted on the fetus/child.

I think we can all agree that if it’s done after birth, it’s definitely a moral wrong.
I think most of us would agree that if it’s done in utero it’s definitely a moral wrong.

Where the problem comes in, I think, is that some folks don’t accept if it’s the situation from the time of conception that it’s a moral wrong.

But what if a woman started talking thalidomide a week before conception and continued taking it through her pregnancy in a deliberate attempt to have a thalidomide baby? Would that be morally wrong? If so, how is attempting to cause their child to be deaf any different?

57

But why deliberately limit it to four when you can have five? I admit that the deaf may be able to enjoy their other senses to a greater extent than those who can hear, but IMO someone who has already experienced all five senses would say that having all five is preferable to having just four, even if the exclusion of one means the heightening of the remaining four.

Being deaf may not be as difficult as it once was, but the fact remain that deaf people are a minority. Society assumes, for the most part, that people can hear. Technology can help deaf people to a great extent, but surely that technology isn’t cheap. And even with such technology, deaf people are still at a disadvantage - unless they live within an enclosed society where the majority of people are deaf.

It’s been mentioned before, but I agree that it really comes down to intent. If a deaf couple wants a child, I don’t think it’s wrong for them to have one. I know the possibility of their child being deaf is fairly high, but their intent is not to have a deaf child, it is to have their own child. The lesbian couple mentioned in the OP is deliberately seeking to have a deaf child. They have the option of lowering the child’s chances of being born deaf, but they have deliberately decided not to choose that option. I just find such a mentality disturbing in people who are soon going to be parents. Why wouldn’t they want their child to have every possible advantage? Being able to hear is most definitely an advantage over deafness. Deafness may help you heighten your other senses; it may make you part of a culture that you would otherwise be excluded from. I respect that. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is still a disadvantage in this day and age.

58

You kept repeating this in the other thread (with utmost vitriol LOL) but I really can’t see the difference. What about my analogy about little people? That stands doesn’t it? Don’t you think that it is more difficult to bring up a differently abled child (even if they are more abled in this case rather than less) in a community where the less able are catered to fully, where they have very fulfilling lives and where the more abled child will have difficulties fitting in?

You also did not address the fact that the link that you provided states that hearing children born to deaf parents often have emotional problems. Do you think that having a difficult childhood would be overcome just because they can hear, where if they were born deaf, they would have a great childhood without any emotional problems or difficulties fitting in?

I’m not saying that I agree with what they are doing, I’m just trying to see it from a different perspective.

59

Please leave the Pit thread in the Pit.

Yes, it’s wrong in that case too. Children leave their parents’ house. Intentionally limiting the scope of a child’s life is wrong.

Again, children leave home, and should be able to. It is wrong to limit a child to a community that they can never leave without disadvantage.

What is there to address? Deaf childen also often have emotional problems. But in both cases they can be dealt with. Physical damage? Not so much.

They’d have a great childhood without any emotional problems? Because they’re deaf? And they won’t have a problem fitting in, in high school? Wow, being deaf is awesome.

I can understand their perspective. But let’s look at the objective facts as perspective means nothing.

60

Which is to say, if you want to discuss arguments which were made, that’s totally cool. But if you want to discuss tone or manner of presentation then the Pit seems like the place for it.

Let’s keep this thread on an intellectual basis.