“Let’s Make the Future” presents: Deafness and Genetic Engineering

Possession is nine-tenths of the law, they say. Unsurprising, then, are the polemics of jurisdiction over genetic material. A question like that posed by the Journal of Medical Ethics -- "If [genetic preimplantation] could be employed to produce deaf children, would it be acceptable for deaf parents to do so?" -- is well-suited for philosophy,...

deaf here, Deaf there, deaf everywhere (II)

As of the first chapter of Deaf in the USSR, we were in 1917, on the tail of a revolution from centuries of despotic rule by a series of tsars. Inclusion and unification were at the top of the revolutionary agenda, and the deaf were perfect mascots for the new Soviet ideal of human perfectibility...

deaf here, Deaf there, deaf everywhere

You may have already learned that sign language isn't universal, but it's a common assumption to have. We think sign language as a brain app that clicks on when a human is running on deaf mode, as if deaf experience itself were universal. But the only thing universal about deafness, apart from not hearing, is...