Dare to comment? Observe the rules!
I'm deaf AND have MS. Could I conceive such a child, why would I choose a fate of possible blindness, paralysis, numbness, balance problems, cognitive issues, yada, yada, and ohhh, the "most special disability of all" deafness?
WHY would I impose such hardship on ANY child of mine? I think if you go out of your way to "custom design" a defective child, you should be arrested for child abuse. If you deliberately caused your child to become deaf AFTER they were born, you would be arrested. How is it different?
Extreme? Maybe. But it's my opinion.
Hello, I am oral Deaf and have Cerebral Palsy. I also am visually impaired, no functional vision in the left and 20/40 corrected in the right. I feel that design babies of all kinds are eugenics but an pro-choice. That is, if someone chooses a Deaf baby, that is eugenics; same as if someone chooses a hearing, able-bodied, sighted baby. Eugenics is eugenics!
However, there is a huge difference between supporting choice and support eugenics. I support the right to abort a foetus which may or may not be deaf, blind, or disabled, because the government should stay out of private health-care decisions. There does not need to be a law legalising "special cases of abortion" if abortion is already legal. Women will get abortions for many many reasons and it's for no one to decide what a "valid" decision is. That being said, I oppose disability-based abortion and designer babies and will speak frankly on this. But ultimately, I can only educate, not overpower. Harriet McBryde Johnson delivered a powerful speech in her debate against infamous [in the disability community] Peter Singer and allegedly changed the attitude of many parents on raising disabled kids for the better. She is a lawyer with MD, and spoke humbly but firmly. This is, in my experience, most effective. Not petulantly shouting, "DON'T KILL OFF OUR DEAF WORLD" but explaining why Deafness is a good thing, drawing on metaphors, elaborating the benefits, etc. Civility wins a lot of points in debate and life. Seriously.
Firstly @ Sherry - noone is imposing a "hardship". The embryo is *already* deaf, but any embryo *already* deaf should not survive if PGD takes place. Certain classes of people are not allowed to be developed.
Please note this is NOT about abortion. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill does not have any powers to change the existing laws around abortion. This is around selection of embryos BEFORE they are implanted into a woman. Therefore we are not even touching this subject, as it simply detracts from the work that we need to do.
In the UK selection is usually prohibited. You cannot select an embryo on the basis of its gender, or traits, e.g. tall and outlawed specifically under this Bill.
However, parliament is seeking to make "abnormality" a special case, and an exception to the rule. Selection could take places to screen out "abnormality". It is suggested this includes deaf people (cf explanatory note 109, preceding consultation).
(Side note: screening out of deaf embryos is already happening in the UK, and was given the go ahead from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority).
However, parliament is promoting selection but one way: deaf embryos amongst others are not allowed to survive and a "healthy" embryo must be preferred. You could have 9 deaf embryos, and 1 hearing embryo. Parliament is saying the 1 hearing embryo wins, 9 deaf embryos don't get a chance.
Through this parliament is making a statement who is permitted to live and who is not. Eugenics?
There is a second point this Bill covers, which is about the right for certain people to be donors. If you carry a deaf gene you cannot be a donor. The same goes, if you have severe refractive errors i.e. long or short sighted and in need of glasses, you cannot be a donor. What happens if a couple wants to ask a friend to assist them to conceive? Parliament here is making a statement who is permitted to reproduce and who is not.
Cost should not be used as an argument whether a particular class of persons is allowed to live or not. You cannot put a price on life and liberty.
Gay people are expensive, need to make additional legislative provisions! Black people are expensive, again more legislation! Those who use a minority language are expensive! Lets outlaw them all, and get everyone the same, since diversity is a drain on the State. *rolls eyes*
What is cost anyway? Doesn't all money just churn itself into the economy ... cost of employing an interpreter, they get more spending power and the money gets recycled somewhere. False argument?
A human embryo is a human being.
See Bioethics comments - http://www.all.org/abac/dni003.htm
The mere rejection of a human embryo, for whatever reasons, is essentially an abortion process. Not strictly speaking in medical terms involving pregnancy but essentially so since life is purposely destroyed just as in an abortion procedure. It makes no difference to the embryo, it's human life has purposely ended without being given a chance.
English Law makes a very clear definition of what abortion is/is not. Policy the same. Thus going by these definitions, and the framework that is presented to us.
Alison, it is still discarding a human being.
If truth be told Mike, 'Deaf' people have not read the clause properly and gone off on a tangent somewhat, there is a lot of hysteria about this, and clarity has got lost. The percentage of deaf parents taking up IVF must be minute.... It is a gift to the more extremist deaf 'though, it will be tomottows chip paper (A Brit phrase for yesterday's news)....
A very sensitive subject. I do notice a lot of postings from England related to the eugenics in the DeafRead. I do see a point for this subject, to save tax-paying people money. God knows what happened to millions of babies who were born disabled centuries ago... I am sure they were quickly discarded.
Hmmm... as for designer babies, I draw a line there. Parents design them more for themselves, not for the babies. Say, if I had an incurable, painful disability which restricted my ability to run, ride bike, etc., from birth, but the kind of disability that gave me skyrocketing IQ (I am making up as I go along...) and if I wanted to design a baby to be like me, I'd want him/her to be smart like me, but without lifetime pain... sure if there are any tweaking of genes that would enable my child to enjoy the freedom of running, riding bike, etc. I'd be thinking of him/her not myself. Since we live in societies that look down at the disabilities which are drains on the tax money, I'd have to think hard for the child's life... whether I would want to bring him/her into the kind of world that he/she would experience hardships, etc., all just because of the parents' pride in the disability? If the societies are more forgiving and more generous, OK.
Still not an easy subject... If I was given two embyros... one that could be born with a disease that could accerlate the aging process and death by the preteen years and another embryo with the potential to develop MS, cancers, blindness, deafness, which embryo would I choose? I dunno... both embryos would still suffer the pain so I'd opt for the rejection of them so that I'd not subject them to the lifetime of pain or am I doing this for myself, not wanting to take care of them?
Sigh... God makes individuals for a Purpose. We have to appreciate whatever/whoever comes to us, since we have lessons to learn from them.
Good topic, Mike.
Mike - as soon as we label it as abortion, we lose support from trade unions. Abortion in the UK is defined as the act of taking out an embryo or a fetus *from a woman*. We are going by UK legal definitions here, to go by anything else we might as well not campaign at all.
Trade Unions have a pro-choice stance, where a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body. This stance goes over and above the right of an embryo. An embryo is not a person for the purposes of English law or international law. cf relevant conventions.
We cannot make up a legal framework to suit ourselves as deaf persons otherwise we would be laughed at by the mainstream. It is difficult enough to get the general public to latch onto our thinking towards this Bill and the powers that comes with it. Labels on abortion anywhere is really not going to help this campaign, and the Bill will just go straight through parliament.
For the purposes of IVF many embryos are fertilised, say 10. What happens if a woman gets pregnant on first go by the first embryo? Are you saying she has a moral obligation to now carry and give birth to 10 children? Ultimately, irrespective of the eugenics stance, those embryos will get discarded (as crude as that sounds). I don't have the energy to consider wider IVF practices, which has been in place since the 1980s.
Alison, again, they're human beings to begin with. The consequence and conscious lies with the person who make these decisions regarding an embryo or embryos. International law does not make them to be the "moral" authority or consciousness for the world. The responsibility lies with each individual in this matter and how you value life.
I sense that deaf people from Britain have a better grasp of how politics are played out than we deaf Americans, hmmm, from reading the British blogs registered with DeafRead. Uhhh... I just noticed Alison's way of commenting... to the point, almost blunt, truthfully, and I cannot really comment to him because I know almost next to nothing about Parliament politics.
Still it is interesting...
So no matter what the 'Deaf' community thinks these decisions will ALWAYS be out of their hands, unless they do IVF or start a family..... If the UK legislates against the deaf embryo they will simply go somewhere else to have the child. I think while most of us harbour thoughts that some disablements/issues are 'worse' than others, (and we DO, only a liar would say different), we cannot adopt the moral or the ethical high ground. Unless the deaf are perfectly happy to have ANY child regardless of issue or disability (Even hearing ones !), and regardless, that won't be described as hypocritical...
HFEB clause 14(4)(9) as i understand it:
1. defines DEAF as disability, disease, abnormality
2. if an unimplanted embryo is determined to be Deaf it will have to be destroyed if this bill becomes law
-----
opponents of this bill are not opposing it because they they are pro-life / oppose abortion
- they oppose it because it is:
1. a form of eugenics - selective breeding to make a perfect race
2. it denies reproductive rights for certain sets of people - if my genes are deemed to be highly likely to produce a Deaf embryo - under this law it is conceivable that i would be given someone else's egg / sperm to prevent any abnormal offspring coming from my egg
the slippery slope u write of re: the economics of "feeding" the disabled or as the Nazis called them "useless eaters" shows a braved "blindness" to the importance and value of diversity within the human species
as my students said - hearing people produce far more disabled offsprings than probably the disabled do themselves - should not then hearing people be forbidden to use their own genes for reproduction
also at the end of the day almost all of us will be facing some kind of disability / infirmity with age
costly costly costly
what then- take us out back behind the shed and shoot us?
the HFEB Heads Humanity to a Black Hole of medical ethics
id like to keep the "human" in humanity and not have any man/woman/government legislate who can reproduce and who can not
peace
patti durr
I'm having a moral problem with this. Perhaps we shouldn't be screening embryos for genetic abnormalities at all? When parents wish to be implanted, maybe they should take their chances like everyone else? I don't believe our role should be to determine who is or isn't born because that will disrupt the natural balance. I believe there's a good reason some of us are disabled. It is because the disabled see the world differently. Diversity helps all of us learn compassion and tolerance. There would be something missing without disabled people in the world. Besides we will always have some disabled because of accidents. I work with a mentally disabled person and she is the sweetest person I've ever met. Most of the mentally disabled people I have ever volunteered with have been wonderful people, and they have taught me things about character and patience. I just don't like this idea.
Sherry,
I just read your comment. You've made a very good point. One other thing I might add. So many of us have lived with families who had a difficult time accepting our disabilities. My hearing loss wasn't diagnossed until I was 19, but it began before that. My parents weren't able to openly discuss it until three years ago. They were in denial until I finally had a temper tantrum during a family get together in which I was expected to converse with people in the dark, after a long evening of sitting in a noisy restaurant of conversing and reading lips. I just had it pretending to be hearing for them because my mom couldn't face the fact she had a daughter who was deaf.
Seven of ten disabled people become disabled during their lifetimes. I was not born with hearing loss. We will never wipe out disability because there will always be accidents and new diseases. There will always be parents who will have shattered dreams, who will have to adjust to the fact that a child has had an accident or has become sick. This is life. My parents inability to accept my deafness impacted my self-esteem in a negative way. I don't want this to be an overly long comment, but I will say it was other late-deafened people my parents age who helped me understand, and they helped me to help my parents accept this.
I don't know how you're doing, but one of my friends with MS is going through a similar thing with her mother.
I agree with you. I'm very uncomfortable deciding people with disabilities shouldn't be born. What next? Embryos that *might* later become disabled will be eliminated-- meaning those with questionable genes? Where are we headed with this?
Kim, I would never go with a "Custom Baby" Factory where one could order from a catalog- blonde hair, blue eyes, dimples, tall, leggy model type only IVF's. We don't need a world of Cylons. (Sci-Fi anyone?)
But to choose a disability? For our child(ren)? ON PURPOSE? I'm not talking about eugenics. I'm talking about screening out the defective genes. Yes, I'd do it. To otherwise not to screen them out is a horrifying thought.
Hmmm, note to doctor: "No deaf baby, please."
Something like that? Preventive medicine, so to speak?
I **think** most parents would agree with you, and I believe most parents are upset when they find out their child is mentally retarded. But I've heard many parents of mentally retarded say their children were a blessing. I can understand why they say this. I love mentally retarded people. I really do. I have volunteered with the Special Olympics before and I work with someone like this at the library. Also when I worked in dental offices, I cleaned their teeth. But like you, when I was having children I probably would not have chosen to have a disabled child if I could have screened through IVF. The pain the child goes through and all the complications for the parents. I know someone who had three disabled children-- THREE. Two in wheelchairs. All HERS too! There was some kind of rare genetic thing in her family. If she could have screened for the perfect embryo, she never would have had kids because she couldn't produce healthy ones. I don't know the answer.
I never had IVF. However I'm looking at it from my perspective NOW at this point in time, twenty-five years later. I don't like the idea of weeding out "imperfect" embryos.
I'm afraid the next step would be weeding out ebryos that might possibly develop diseases down the road, and then weeding out those that won't develop a disease, but maybe those that could be "carriers" of a genetic disorder. Where do we draw line?
It's too disturbing.
And I'm not saying we couldn't leave the choice up to parents. I'm just saying I don't feel the government should decide they will destroy Deaf embryos. I really feel it SHOULD BE the parents decision if they want to raise that child.
Well, if you had a horrible condition as a result of a genetic defect and suffered so as a result, would you want to pass that same suffering to your offsprings? I guess it boils down to on the degree of suffering it could cause. Between having a child with cystic fibrosis over a child that may develop pollen allergies. A no brainer.
Mike-- I understand what you're saying, but it isn't for me to judge others. I'm saying I think it should be up to the parents to decide if they want to have that embryo implanted. Deafness ISN'T a **horrible** condition. My brother is diabetic. Is that **horrible**? What defines **horrible**? WHO defines it?
I believe the reason England has come up with this new IVF law about "deaf" embryos may be because they have nationalized health care. We don't. Unlike most other liberals, I am against nationalized health care for this very reason-- because suddenly you'll have bureaucrats sticking their noses in your medical business where it doesn't belong. I much prefer creating a bigger safety net for the uninsured. I dread the day I become a victim of Medicare-- our "National Health Care Plan" for the elderly.
Okay, okay. I'm fed up. I'm mainstreamed and grew up oral. Got exposed to Deaf culture late at age 16. Now I attend Gallaudet University. I sign fluent ASL and I embrace my birthright culture that I should've been exposed since birth.
I have read many things and I'm just simply fed up. DEAF is nothing compared to other "disability" or "abnormality." If you think about it: DEAF is the ONLY "abnormality" or whatever you want call it- that has its own culture, traditions, customs, beliefs, values, and um LANGUAGE.
I'd choose Deaf embryo over and over and over hearing ANY time. Am I passing down "hardships, sufferings, burdens" to my Deaf child? NO. Why? We have a culture and all that. A LIFESTYLE! We have more available resources accessible to the Deaf: interpreters, Videophones, YOU NAME IT.
Stop being ashamed to be Deaf and be proud. Geez. Otherwise, we're all gonna be wiped out and there will be no Deaf people around. Just deaf people who wishes they can be hearing. Oh wait, there's COCHLEAR IMPLANT! Yaaaaay! ........
Firstly, The BILL,is about IVF. THe amount of DEAF couples undertaking IVF must be almost negligible.
Second, America has practiced (Via medical advice), selective abortion for at least 50 or more years, basically ANY 'disability' they see as severe (Or the parents do), can be aborted. One Dr advised abortion TWICE to one woman who had an extra finger issue in her family).
Thirdly, by selecting a 'deaf' gene, you are practicing the very thing you oppose.
Fourth, The proposed BIll is just the 'Legal guideline', no matter how it is enactted,or even if the deaf succeed in overturning the clause,patient confidentiality, will prevent the deaf sector KNOWING a choice has been made, indeed it does already.
Time to accept this has been going on for many years and whilst the Brits have gone public over it, most civilised countries in the world have done this already, once more 'disabilties' get identified clearly, THEY will go on a 'hit list' too.
I could add many deaf get that way NOT from genetics but illness or accident after birth, this will have no effect on that. Only TWO PER CENT of all deaf have the genetics of deafness, this doesn't seem to reflect a mass erasure of deaf people... IVF take-up is considerably less than that...
MM
Wow! This could be the end of the Deaf community. The moral problems with IVF and embryos is not that complicated. It will be a matter of time before the UK and EU require an abortion of "defective" babies.
E, only because UK and many (if not all) have nationalized health care. That means the govt is spending money to take care of you. If they can help reduce the source of loss of money it'd be at the very begininng. Pre-conception or embryo genetic screening with the later doesn't involve discarding a human being.
And guess who support Nationalized Health Care?
For one candidate, it's Hillary Clinton.
Will Canada soon take the same role as the UK?
As a Brit I support our NHS, it provides medical help for all regardless if they are rich or poor, this is humanitarian, and we aren't fans of American health services that apparently are prepared to let people die if they can't pay, that,IS NOT Humanitarian to us.
It was developed via fighting affluent Dr's who decided who they would let live or die, depending on how much money they had or what social status they were in. It was genocide of the poor and sick practiced by greedy Dr's, the same Drs exist in America today who practice the same thing still.
If an American comes to the UK and is taken ill, we don't demand they pay first, our NHS helps all regardless, of course if you would prefer to die instead.......! How do you acquaint helping the sick in the third world, while operating food kitchens and refusing to treat your own sick and poor ? Not a sick excersize in patronisation is it ?
MM
MM, incorrect. Even by law we are supposed to help even the illegal aliens in hospital emergency rooms for life threatening conditions. Which why the cost is shifted over to those who can afford the medical bills (or via their insurances). Even medics arriving in ambulances assist the injured from car crashes to collapsed buildings. We have a system called "Medicare" and even "Medicaid" for those who cannot afford medical treatment, even life threatening ones. And, of course, we have a variety of insurances available. Some affordable. Some expensive ones. We have HMO. Govt programs. Etc.
The difference here in the United States is that you don't wait forever to the necessary treatment.
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/
And I'd be remiss if I don't mention that the United States is the world’s largest source of humanitarian aid as well.
http://www.heritage.org/Research...gnAid/
wm630.cfm
I know a few Canadians who are less than thrilled with their health care services, despite that fact that their taxes are sky high. I have also known Americans who lived in the UK and were subjected to their National Health Care system. Scary stories of ineptitude and arrogant doctors who wouldn't listen to saavy American patients who demanded better treatment because they knew they what they could get in America. I have also talked to English people who immigrated who LOVE our system. One guy I know-- his wife in the US and sister in the UK were both diagnosed with the same cancer at the same time. His wife lived because she was treated immediately in the US, while his sister was put on a waiting list in the UK. By the time she got treatment the cancer was too far progressed!! She died.
Finally I would like to point out that in the US, we already have a National Health Care Plan. It's called Medicaid. Additionally many states have state plans. If anyone wants to know what our National Health Care would look like on a larger scalre, all they need to do is take a look at Medicaid and Medicare. Horrifying. 
On the other end of the spectrum is the issue of euthanasia. While I'm in favor to a certain extent, again I feel it should be the patient and family members making informed choice. I do wonder what happens in countries with natioinalized health care when someone is near-death. Do doctors do ALL they can do save lives? Is cost factored in? The patient's life should be the only consideration, not cost, unless the patient has a living will or is brain dead or terminal.
If the UK decides Deaf children are too "expensive" or too much of a drain on the economy (and we know this is the reason behind their decison to deny IVF services to Deaf couples with Deaf genes)-- then what's next?? Will the UK decide to pull the plug on someone with Parkinsons? Quadraplegics? If someone is deemed terminally ill with cancer, will they be denied life-saving treatment and only be given pain meds? Where will this end? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm really disgusted and creeped out by this. I may not vote for Hillary.
I also want to add that my oldest son was without medical insurance for awhile. And my nephew didn't have medical for about a year when he worked on contract.
We have state insurance medical here. We also have clinics you can go to if you don't have insurance and the charges are based on a sliding scale according to your income. My son had to go a couple times when he was sick.
It's not as if people are totally without medical care here if they don't have insurance. My son told me most the people being seen at the clinic were Hispanic.
He was only without insurance a few months while in-between jobs--when his insurance hadn't kicked in yet. They took credit cards for payment. The cost to him was affordable and he was treated well.
Maybe I should be more clear. We're talking about IVF, correct? Say Test Tube A has an egg with a "deaf gene" waiting for sperm in it. Test Tube B has an egg without a "deaf gene" waiting for sperm in it.
Everything else is equal.
Why would I drop sperm into Test Tube A when Test Tube B would be better for the child?
THAT is what I am talking about. I am not talking about selective abortion. I thought we were talking about IVF, the ability to create "designer deaf children" and where to draw the line.
In that case, if you choose to have a disabled child by choosing Tube B before it's fertilized, I'm calling it child abuse.
Hope that's clear.
Sorry...by choosing Tube A...not choosing Tube B. :-p
Yes--I understand now, though I didn't at first. However, you must consider that child B's only choice of existence is to exist in deafness. It's not as if you're choosing for child B to exist in deafness or not deafness. You're choosing whether or not child B should exist at all. Few Deaf people born to Deaf parents regret being born, or growing up in Deaf culture. We're not talking about someone who is living in pain.
I think Deafness should be taken out of the equation if the embryo looks otherwise healthy. I don't know that much about IVF, but I'm under the impression they test for viability, so they must know which ones are healthy before they place them in the womb.
What I'm saying is parents shouldn't be allowed to screen for a Deaf baby either. In other words, IF they want a Deaf baby and they only produce non-Deaf embryos, they that's too bad. I just think they shouldn't test for a Deaf gene, unless parents have concerns. It should be an option, but not enforced by the government. Deaf people are not unhealthy and do not consider themselves disabled.
The issue was ALWAYS via IVF, What I read (And from a number of othre Brit deaf), is they are by-passing this fact and stating ALL deaf genes are to be removed. This is incorrect reporting by well-meaning deaf who haven't bothered to read the issue, or, prefer to mis-inform other deaf they are to be eradicated via gemnocide, emotive, but frankly hysterical in response.
On a Brit board I was asked "So there is nothing deaf can say or do, to prevent parents, or doctors, opting for a hearing gene over a deaf one, where a CHOICE is available ?"
My answer was "No, there is nothing you can do, because the parent has the ultimate right to choose, the issue of DEAF people taking IVF was never covered at ALL. Patient confidentiality will not tell the deaf community or anyone else, that decision has been taken."
Where there is free STATE provision of IVF, doesn't the state have a right to suggest a guideline ? after all they are paying, and any extensive support/care needed, or payment via litigation after the child is born is going to be paid for by them too...
Why should it matter to the state which type of embryo it implants when we're discussing healthy Deaf children?
Negativity and expensive support cost is a fact of our life, there are also deaf people who don't want to be deaf as well, the issue is not simply Deaf community versus hearing, it's more involved than that. Parents contemplating having IVF I think are conciously if not otherwise always leaning against deafness or any other 'disability'. We cannot and won't attack the parent whose decision is final, so are attacking the 'system' for publicising it, and stating the reality instead. Perhaps the deaf community should be rethinking their strategies on promoting deafness as a positive thing, clearly they haven't been able to do this. Such is sod's law, the more angry we get, the more negative we're seen....
MM--This discussion is taking an intersting turn in Shane's blog in DeafDC. I'd be interested to see your response to Deaf Pundit. We ALL carry a few "defective" genes. The implications of this law are wide reaching and scary. In my own family we're prone to cancer, heart-disease, diabetes, high-blood pressure, stroke, alcoholism, near-sitedness, "lazyeye and obesity. Not that I've had any of that--except the near-sitedness. Should ALL genetic weakness be screened out?
Certainly we all carry a few "defective genes" but I was limiting my argument to IVF. Normally with IVG you have several viable eggs.
In my family only my mother and I have autoimmune diseases. We were talking about this one lazy day..."would we have reproduced again, knowing about our defective heritage?" Apparently something's off kilter with both of us.
My mother's answer didn't surprise me. She said no. I guess I wouldn't be here, nor would my kids. Me, I'm leaning towards no as well. My kids have a 30% chance of acquiring MS. My daughter I worry about more than my son simply because she's female. Females and autoimmune disorders go together like shoes and purses.
Don't everyone clap at the same time!
In my late 20s/early 30s I went thru a crazy insane time where I just HAD to have babies. Prior to that, I always thought adoption sounded great, and looking back I still think adoption sounds great-- but at that one point in life when I was primed for baby-making it was all I thought about. We're wired for reproduction in our 20'-30's. Adoption sounds so simple to everyone else, except those who want to make babies. I can understand why Deaf people want to make their own-- I really can. But I also see your point too. I've often thought if I had to do it over again, I would have been more careful not to have three. Not that I have ever regretted the third one. But God knows--neither the first or the last were planned and raising three is expensive. Now we're putting three through college.
Was your hearing loss caused by an auto-immune disease too Sherry? They have never know what caused mine for sure, but theorized it was the measles, however have mentioned it could have been some other undiagnosed autoimmune disease. It's surprising how often they do NOT know the exact cause of someone's hearing loss.
Kim, I don't know about America I do know the response to the potential screening out of deafness and other 'issues' has been near ignored by the disability rights system here in the UK, they do not seem as upset about this issue as the deaf are.
No, my deafness was caused by antibotics- streptomycin given when I was 11 months of age.
Neither my mother nor I knew we had Autoimmune problems until both of us were adults. Both of us had already had our children so it was a hypothetical question, not a realistic question. It's possible under REALISTIC conditions we'd change our answer. Right now, I would not have children if I could. I would not pass on the possibility of this kind of disorders onto my future children.
But is it something that's easy to say now? I don't know. My mom and I think we've both experienced enough NOT to want to pass anything on to our children out of love. Love would be the only reason.
Sherry,
I understand and I'm not judging you. I know you love your children. I realize MS is painful. I have other friends who feel the same-- not because of MS-- but because of other genetic disorders.
One Otolaryngologist mentioned the possibility of streptomycin or other drugs in my case too. Something damaged my cochleas that led to early progressive hearing loss. We don't know exactly what. My mother doesn't remember what drugs were given. By the time my hearing loss was diagnosed, it had been over fifteen years since I had had the measles. The doctor I went to as a young child lived clear across the country, and had retired. His office wasn't even there anymore. We'll probably never really know since my hearing loss wasn't sudden. The only thing I do know for sure is what did **NOT** cause it by process of elimination through blood tests, MRI's and CT scans. (sigh) At this point it doesn't matter what caused it anyway..
Commenting by HaloScan
