As RM rightly said, depriving a child of one of the basic human senses OUT OF CHOICE is never in their best interests – this only reason we are having this discussion is because the deaf parents want a deaf child because they think it’s better for THEM and will make THEM feel closer to their child. This is not discrimination, this is common sense – science should never ever ever be used to create disabled children just to suit the parents’ interests.

Disability, for Deaf people, is not due to their hearing; it is a condition IMPOSED by the attitudes of people in the wider community who do not, by custom, accept people without hearing. There have been communities in history that not only accepted its deaf citizens as full participants, they even naturally included sign language in general discourse. One of them was in Kent, England.

“deafness not being an impairment of general health, ability or capacity to contribute to society” – what?!? of course deafness is an impairment. Deaf people are not able to contribute in society to same degree as hearing people, and robbing them of one of the five basic human senses means by definition they do not have the same abilities as other people.

And if deafness is such a minor or irrelevant handicap then why do these parents want to choose a deaf embryo for their children? Surely if there is no difference between deaf and hearing people then there is no need to handicap the child in the first place?

These embryos are already created, and the issue is actually whether government has the right to tell the parents to destroy the deaf embryos to keep those who are hearing, if any. Bear in mind that this is no guarantee that those preserved will be 100% healthy.

And this begins a slippery slope. If government has the right to order certain embryos destroyed, it can lead to government mandating certain individuals to be worthy of less rights than others. This attitude inevitably spreads to society in general who would then deprive certain people of access to human rights as they did blacks and Jews in history. Why, because they were defined by government as less than desirable.

Additionally, with deafness not being an impairment of general health, ability or capacity to contribute to society, it therefore does not deserve to be lumped with fatal neurodegenerative disorders or conditions that mean a lifetime of total care.

I hope that people who see parent-child combinations they don’t understand will find a way to stop and think about whether real harm is being done or if they are simply indulging in their opinions.