I've only had two lectures so far, but my bioethics course is proving to be incredibly intreguing to me.  Until now, all the classes I've taken have dealt in pure facts and the science of things.  There's been a little mention of ethics and ethical considerations, but mostly in relation to current legislation.  This course is entirely about the ethics of various biological practices.

Today we were talking about genetic modification of humans and animals.  Part of that discussion was related to prenatal selection for various traits.  This is topical because last week the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was brought to the House of Lords.  This has caused problems because one of the clauses states:

"Persons or embryos that are known to have a gene, chromosome or mitochondrion abnormality involving a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop -

(a) a serious physical or mental disability,
(b) a serious illness, or
(c) any other serious medical condition,

must not be preferred to those that are not known to have such an abnormality."

This has been interpreted that parents with some kind of genetic disability will not be able to state a preference for a child with the same disability.  Indeed, they may be prohibited from having an embryo with that disability implanted.  Most of the debate around this clause has been based around the deaf community.  Would a deaf couple be allowed to have a deaf child via IVF? 

It was particularly interesting to me as I had listed to a Radio 4 podcast from last week on the way to Uni about that very topic where John Humphries had spoken (through a translater) to a deaf parent and activist.  A transcript can be found here.  The deaf father that they interviewed seemed a little millitant, but I felt he made some good points.  The one that stuck with me was what would his deaf daughter think or feel if he and his wife had another child through IVF, but they weren't allowed to have a deaf child that way?  Would that affect her self-worth?  Is this the government saying that deaf children are worth less?  In this day and age, the deaf are accepted and have a high quality of life.  they have their own culture and language.  Most don't even consider themselves disabled. 

I don't think that its acceptible to deny these people the right to have a child.  It might even be cruel to force a hearing child to be born into an entirely deaf family, where it would stand out as different.  Would they be able to help its vocal language develop in the same way as a hearing child in a hearing family?  It is one thing to implant an embryo without screening and accept the child that is born and another to screen out "defective" embryos.  Where is the line drawn between screening for painful, distressing and debilitating diseases where a child would have a poor quality of life and something like deafness?