Better off deaf?

Abstract

Criticism of Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough's decision, reported in the Washington Post, to seek out and employ a sperm donor with a family history of deafness in order to maximise their chances of having a deaf child, has concentrated on two aspects of this decision. The first is that they are consciously seeking the birth of a child that the vast majority of people would consider to be"disabled". The second argument, which may or may not presume the first, questions their decision to bring a child into the world who is likely to have greatly reduced opportunities by virtue of being deaf. In my response to the controversy surrounding the case, I want to concentrate on the second of these arguments. The idea that deafness need not be a disability and can instead be an entry point to a minority culture coalesced around a signed language, and the foundation of a cultural identity as"Deaf", is one that I am personally sympathetic to. But this argument has been well made elsewhere, by Harlan Lane and others, and for reasons of space I shall not repeat it here.1 In any case, settling the question as to whether D/deafness is a disability or a cultural identity does not in itself resolve the question of the ethics of deliberately seeking to bring about the birth of a D/deaf child. One may concede that deafness is a disability but hold that this is unimportant because deaf children can have sufficient opportunities in life to justify bringing them into the world. Alternatively, one may agree that deafness is a cultural identity, but still be concerned for the opportunities available to the child as a member of that culture. The question of the obligations of parents with regard to the opportunities available to the children they choose to bring into the world remains crucial.