All The Young Dudes

The Human Fertilisation And Embrology Bill

As I was writing the last post in the Human Fertilisation And Embryology Bill, I realised eradicating deaf people would have far greater consequences than most people realise.

It would be in the interests of the Cochlear Industries, and hearing aid manufacturers, and other firms specialising in assistive listening technologies to get their fat arses behind the STOP EUGENICS campaign against the Human Fertilisation And Embryology Bill

All told, not does the Human Fertilisation And Embryology Bill affect Deaf people, it has serious implications for the livelihood of all the firms that produce their miraculous cures for deafness, and help the deaf to hear. Their cash cow would be effectively eliminated by medicine. Which has flow on effects, not only the CEO’s salaries, but the economy as a whole.

If anything, this is proof, just how much deaf people contribute to the economy.

Dame Baroness Deech, think again!

Oh Lord! Praise Be They That Drag Their Knuckles…..

Oh Lord! Praise Be They That Drag Their Knuckles and Lag Their Brains. For theirs is the nadir of human progression.

Exactly what I thought when I read the latest media report on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill,
Couples Could Win Right To Select Deaf Baby, by Richard Gray, The Telegraph’s Science Correspondent, but more accurately, a Misrepresentation [or Misinterpretation] Correspondent. Positions which are pretty common in the media.

Jesus’s last word’s on the cross, have special significance for me now. “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do!”

Now I’m not going to refresh your jaded minds about this Bill, or the resulting campaign, you can do your own reading and research, by going to the source, STOP EUGENICS. Nor am I going to regale you with stark illustrations of hearing ignorance as to what constitutes disability, and how often it’s not the deafness that is the problem, and how their world actually contributes to the many of their perceived limitations of deafness [indeed, disability]. If you ask anything of the hearing, don’t ask them to think! The mop up operation would be just horrendous!

What I am gonna do, if I haven’t already, is throw out all pretense of impartiality and bi-partisanship, and go for the jugular. Hearing people are stupid. Hearing people are stupid. Come on Deafies, repeat after me. Insert as many four letter words as you feel appropriate. Then repeat the mantra. But really, you don’t have to do this to convince yourselves of their stupidity, they have already convinced us. By responding to a media misrepresentation of the issue, with their own uninformed views. How clever is that?

The irony in the hearing response to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, is that are doing the exact same thing they accuse us of doing. You must remember, the scenario, if presented with two embryos, one with the hearing gene and one with the deaf gene, and they choose the hearing one, they have engaged in eugenics. They are just using the excuse of eliminating disabilities or other negative and undesirable traits as a guise for their eugenic act. They are creating perfect hearing people [that's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Where one says "I Believe", and the rest reply "Bah!"]

Now having said all that, and enjoying venting my spleen, there was one rather enlightening comment to the article, Couples Could Win Right To Select Deaf Baby, someone who actually understands and appreciates, the diversity and the glory of humanity. The quote speaks for itself. I can’t say anymore. I’m all vented out.

52.This is possibly the very point where the real debate on ethics in genetic research takes place; not cloning, not hybrids, but this. Since we began to unravel the secrets of DNA the question has surfaced time and time again; What if we could change this? What if we could change that? And then the final question, do we want to? There can’t be many who would want to see a child born disabled (and I can’t imagine many deaf or blind parents actually choosing this for their children, even if the option were available), but then disabilities are a fact of life. We are human not only because of our achievements and our improvements but because of our flaws. Take homosexuality, for example. On the surface it does nothing to advance the species, contributes nothing to our evolutionary journey, and yet it happens. Remove it from our genetic make-up, and what would the knock-on effect be? One geneticist once joked, “Less ballet”, but it could actually prove if not cataclysmic then at leist seismic. It is impossible to say how much of a part sexual desire and deviant (in the truest sense of the word) variations on that theme have had in our development over the centuries. Take away a significant aspect of human sexuality (an aspect present in almost every other warm-blooded species you could care to think of) and who knows what the end result might be? The same could very well apply to disabilities. While nobody wants to see a fellow human being struggle or suffer, it may just be possible that the role disabled people play in our society is a part of what makes us, well… us.

There’s more irony afoot this bill than is apparent. Particularly amongst the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill’s main proponents. I’m not going to elaborate on this one. You know how to use the net. You do the research.

Should I ever, highly unlikely, but please indulge me, if ever I am presented with two embryos. Both with the hearing gene. My question will be, is it intelligent. If the the answer is no, or they can’t confirm it’s intelligence, then I will direct them to destroy the frigging thing. There’s enough intellectually bereft hearing people in the world today, whose first language is “Bah!” add another “Bah!” and we can all sing, “Bah Bah Black Sheep!”

Readings Of Note:

Stop Eugenics
The Good Doctor
Disability Now Coverage
MEDIA WATCH: The Certainty Principle
Hearing Beethoven
The Right To Remain Silent
Telegraph on ‘deaf babies’ we are still failing to get the message across
Stop Eugenics
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part 4
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Three
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Two
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage, Part 2
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage
MEDIA WATCH: A Cacophonous Din of Ignorance & A Sane Voice [More Linx]

MEDIA WATCH: Comment and Analysis [Article Re-Print]

The political and media response to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, has provided the inspiration for some very good writing, thought and analysis by Deaf people and their Hearing colleagues. The Stop Eugenics site is replete with articles and links, of which the following editorial Disability Now Coverage by Disability Now, blew me away. That I just had to re-publish it, in its entirety.

It is short and pithy, where the mainstream media talks our of its collective arse.

As Complex As Life and Death [published March 25, 2008]

Once again the general media have got it completely wrong. Previously they’ve turned the whole welfare to work debate into an exposé on what a bunch of work- shy malingerers we disabled people are. Now they’re using the passage of the human fertilisation and embryology bill (HFEB) through Parliament to express astonishment, indignation or rage at deaf couples wanting designer babies. This is a complete red herring which confuses and takes focus and attention away from the real issues.

It is possible to find deaf people who actively do want to have a deaf baby. But this is most often for cultural reasons rather than to perpetuate deafness as an empowering disabling state.

Equally it’s possible to find deaf people who are so shocked by that idea as to find it repugnant. It is probably somewhat easier to find people with a congenital impairment or condition who would welcome having a child who shared the impairment just as much and in just the same way as they would welcome, love and cherish a child who didn’t.

And therein lies the real reason for the objections of deaf and other congenitally-disabled individuals and groups to one clause (14.4.9) in HFEB. That clause states that when embryos are being selected for IVF, if there is a choice between those carrying the possibility of inherited impairment and those with no such possibility, the ones carrying no risk will always, automatically and incontrovertibly be preferred.

What this represents in principle is a value judgement: an embryo carrying the possibility of an impairment is always, automatically and incontrovertibly less desirable than one which doesn’t.

What it represents in practice is nothing short of eugenics, or at least the thin end of a eugenics wedge. It’s clearly a move to engineer out congenital impairment.

What it also represents is the abolition of choice.

This doesn’t negate the fact that you should be reading all the other stuff on Stop Eugenics. Read the Good Doctor and get educated!

Readings Of Note:

MEDIA WATCH: The Certainty Principle
Hearing Beethoven
The Right To Remain Silent
Telegraph on ‘deaf babies’ we are still failing to get the message across
Stop Eugenics
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part 4
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Three
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Two
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage, Part 2
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage
MEDIA WATCH: A Cacophonous Din of Ignorance & A Sane Voice [More Linx]

MEDIA WATCH: The Certainty Principle

Americans have the Grand Canyon. The British have the Lake District and the Yorkshire Moors. Australia has the Blue Mountains, where we lose unsuspecting tourists [implantees, oralies, and their friends] and leave them to their fate. Wandering, dazed and confused, amidst the wilderness teeming with Bunyips, red backs, funnelwebs, wombats, dingoes, taipans, red bellied black snakes, scorpions, lyre birds, wallabies, boxing kanagroos, dogs, and cats, and kokaburras.

It is there, I took a trip last Thursday [10 April, 2008], to visit an old mate of mine. He is hearing [yes, I know what you are going to say. But, as perfect as I am, and as lofty as my ideals are, I like to slum it! How often,depends on my mood. Who better to slum it with than with a hearing person. As is the usual, it involved glasses of AUSTRALIAN wine and some civilised conversation, peppered with some character assassination [smug smile].

Me and my mate, we don’t talk, so much as pyschoanalyse. And from our conversation that alcohol induced murk, two themes emerged: Post Modernism and The Certainty Principle.

The discussion about Post Modernism became quite fascinating as I began to link it to the D/deaf experience; pertinently to the oral deaf experience. It became quite surreal, and a few chickens certainly came home to roost, but that’s a blog post of a different magnitude and for another time.

For now, I want to talk about The Certainty Principle.

The Certainty Principle as defined by me and my mate [or my mate and I], is where a person assumes and holds a position, belief, view, faith, or perspective, that is definitive. Irrespective of reality, direct experience, or facts . Much like the oralist position of not wanting to limit themselves and wanting to become part of a worldwide community. People who adhere to The Certainty Principle, cannot [or will not] see any other position, belief, view, faith, or perspective as valid. Theirs is the position, belief, view, faith, or perspective. Irrespective of reality, direct experience, or facts.

More than this, The Certainty Principle is utilised by people whose modus operandi is to create a world in their image, working under the guise of “working for the betterment of all”. Working for the betterment of all, is a serious delusion that our governments suffer, which without The Certainty Principle, their real intentions would be laid bare for all to see.

The Certainty Principle can be best exemplified by the people behind the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (HFEB), the media portrayal, and the various responses across the internet and in print. Of course, the media can be accused of having no scruples in their treatment of the issue, and the journalists who approached the Stop Eugenics team, as Snake Oil Salesmen! Still, all this is guided by the Certainty Principle.

Steve Emery, the Good Doctor, points out in his post, Telegraph on ‘deaf babies’ we are still failing to get the message across,and as can be seen from the Department of Health’s response to 19 March meeting with representatives of the Deaf community, inspite of the good work that the STOP EUGENICS team and their supporters are doing, we still keep hitting obstacles:

“…the [Telegraph] heading is actually quite a disappointment as far as I am concerned. We are not out to create deaf babies, how many times do we have to make this clear before the message gets through? Maybe it probably never will..”

It’s a foregone conclusion that headlines like these are going to generate further expressions of The Certainty Principle [which gave rise to my reinterpretation of history. 10,000 BC Age of The Knuckle Draggers, and 2008 AD, Age of The Brain Laggers, of which my research has failed to shed light on events between 10,000 BC and 2008 AD, that would explain humanities failure to progress].

Everytime the subject of deafness rears it’s head, hearing people automatically pull out the line [amongst many other asinine comments]: we have ears, therefore we are meant to hear. A line that is so patently self explanatory, and coupled by The Certainty Principle, is used to further entrench ignorance and justify prejudice: [just follow the appropriate links] Media Watch: Hearing People Still Don’t Get It! Media Watch: Hearing People Still Don’t Get It! Part Two.

This line of thinking bears all the hallmarks of the one of the most asinine arguments presented against homosexuality: God made Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve! Der! As if that one line [or couplet] is so self explanatory, and that it encompasses the entire range of human sexual experience: don’t ask me to link or quote here. It induces more severe cases of headshaking, than the ignorance of deafness does.

In both instances, The Certainty Principle blinds the adherent to any other modes of reality. And I am very hard person to convince, that this is not the prevailing infestation of thought, that infects the thinking of Hearing people, all around the globe. I’m not that glib, just indulge me, like you patronisingly indulge your Hearing betters. Or like they, RNID [anyone], AG Bell [anyone], [insert your favourite anti-deaf organisation or people here] anyone, patronisingly indulge us!

All I can surmise, is that The Certainty Principle, has nothing to do with
cold, hard facts, or reality. Nor does it accommodate any actual brain
activity we call thinking! Least of all, Baroness Deech [now what word does that rhyme with], whom I have trouble reconciling her faith with her expressions of humanity. Meow!

So what more can I say, except leave you with more readings on The Certainty Principle, some of which are no doubt saner than others:

• Deaf To Reason [Would You Vote For This Guy?]
• Deaf Couples Choosing Deaf Babies Is Sick A So Called Thinker, whose political leanings are centre-right.
• Deaf To Reason Catchy Title
• Reproductive rights, d/Deafness and the social model of disability
• Deaf Designer Babies: Brave New Britain Gets Newer and Braver A Picture of Certainty, that is Certainly Certain.
• Different ways to see the world
• UK: Couples Could Win Right To Select Deaf BabyTraditional Anglicanism in America [Mine Eye's are cast Heavenward. I don't think I will be turning the other cheek anytime soon]
• Deaf Couples In Great Britain Could Win The Right To Make Their Child Deaf As Well
• You’re deaf, not retarded
• Catholic pressure on fertility bill
• Creating a deaf child IS immoral and no parent should be allowed to choose this for their child
• Genetic DisEnhancement — Does reproductive autonomy extend to choosing a disability?
• Couples could win right to select deaf baby
• NEW POLL: should deaf couples be able to select deaf babies?

Further [and Saner] Readings:

Why I Might be More Libertarian Than I Originally Thought!
Hearing Beethoven
The Right To Remain Silent
Telegraph on ‘deaf babies’ we are still failing to get the message across
Stop Eugenics
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part 4
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Three
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Two
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage, Part 2
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage
MEDIA WATCH: A Cacophonous Din of Ignorance & A Sane Voice [More Linx]

ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy P4

While the recent flurry of feedback towards the HFEB and Clause 14(4)(9), there have been some interesting articles, and some continuing moments of ignorance, but, given time to ponder the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Bill and mull over the ramifications of Clause 14(4)(9), the media is throwing up some more considered responses, of which the following two articles have been the most interesting. Especially the second one:

• Fears Over Fertilisation And Embryology Bill Clause
• Choosing Children: Reflections On The Regulation Of Embryo Testing

Unlike MM’s exhortation, Liberty Undermines Stop Eugenics, Liberty, attempts to clarify what the Bill, and Clause 14(4)(9) entails. Liberty’s response does not derail the campaign being carried out by STOP EUGENICS. The STOP EUGENICS team, makes a point of COMMUNICATING, CLARIFYING, and SHARING information. Which is what Liberty, a Human Rights Advocacy Organisation has done. CLARIFY!

MM, himself, is not helping the cause by sending out mixed messages about his own position on the issue. One moment he is against the campaign, as evidenced by many of the comments he leaves at other blogs, and forums, or the next, he appears to be AGAINST Clause 14(4)(9), and by extension supportive of the STOP EUGENICS campaign, as he seems to show in a previous post of his, Eugenics Posters. In Eugenics Posters,he publishes some graphics for readers to download and use [presumably] with the slogans: STOP EUGENICS and KILL THE CLAUSE: Not Deaf People.

So, either he is for the Clause 14(4)(9) or he is against. Just as it is irresponsible of the media to misrepresent the issue, it is equally irresponsible to mislead your readers as to your position, further contributing to ignorance and malfeasance towards Deaf people.

I can’t stress enough, though, when in doubt, go to STOP EUGENICS.

Further Reading:

Stop Eugenics
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Three
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy: Part Two
ANALYSIS: The HFEB & Clause 14(4)(9) Media Feeding and Talkback Frenzy
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage, Part 2
Deaf People & Genetics: Media Coverage
MEDIA WATCH: A Cacophonous Din of Ignorance & A Sane Voice [More Linx]