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Is it morally justified to create disabled designer babies?

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Abstract

This research paper explores the question—whether it is morally permissible for an auditory impaired parent to create an auditory impaired offspring? It makes an epistemological inquiry into the experiences of persons with auditory impairments to make an informed decision on the question at stake. There is a general attitudinal bias against the disability. On the contrary, arguments have been raised that a parent with auditory impairment may have a moral right and a liberty to have a specially designed deaf baby. It is argued that a deaf parent’s desire to have a deaf child, stems from their need to relate linguistically and culturally with the child. It is also in the best interest of the child and the parent. Such arguments seem grossly misguided and are often countered with arguments of ‘open future,’ and the costs of disability. This research paper seeks to inquire into the epistemic challenges in examining the validity and the soundness of these arguments. It engages into the arguments and counter arguments with respect to whether auditory impairment is a disadvantageous condition to find that deafness does involve an element of harm though it is not only and only harm. It argues against the proposition that laws permitting abortion in case of foetal anomaly are eugenic. It uses Kantian theory to delve into the moral permissibility of the use of genetic engineering for the creation of impairment and enhancement. In the light of moral, ethical and jurisprudential considerations it finds that it is morally impermissible to use genetic interventions to create impairments or enhancements, as it strikes at the humanity in the ‘designer babies’ and uses them as a means for the satisfaction of desires.

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Notes

  1. Following the standard convention used in research on this subject, the word ‘deaf’ in the lower case refers to the pathological condition of being hearing impaired of whatever percentage. ‘Deaf’ in the capitalised word refers to the cultural context of deaf persons. In addition to the condition of being ‘deaf’ it refers to a multitude of other characteristics that encompasses the ‘cultural outlook’ of deaf people.

  2. A culture that has sign language as the primary language of communication and includes other inclusive values and ways of life, giving a feeling of belongingness to deaf persons.

  3. ‘American Deaf Culture’ (Minnesota Hands & Voice). https://www.mnhandsandvoices.org/resources-information/american-deaf-culture. Accessed 3 July 2021.

  4. Doubts have been raised on whether the Deaf community has a separate cultural identity. See Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture (Harvard University Press 2006) 3–10.

  5. Bonnie Poitras Tucker, ‘Deaf Culture, Cochlear Implants, and Elective Disability’ (1998) 28(4) Hastings Centre Report 6.

  6. Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford University Press 2007); Ariel Glucklich, Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul (Oxford University Press 2003).

  7. Sara Goering, ‘Rethinking Disability: The Social Model of Disability and Chronic Disease’ (2015) 8(2) Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine 134, 134–138.

  8. The traditional understanding of disability can be traced back to the idea that a disabled body is a consequence of past sins that one must endure as repentance. See Pauline A Otieno, ‘Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Disability: Implications on the Rights of Persons with Disability in Kenya’ (2009) 29(4) Disability Studies Quarterly; Andrew Wilson, ‘Barriers and Enablers Provided by Hindu Beliefs and Practices for People with Disabilities in India’ (2019) 6(2) Christian Journal of Global Health 12. A disabled body was always seen as a burden. In 1880, the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf held in Milan, Italy, passed a resolution stating the primacy of oral communication over sign language. It stated that oral speech was the only way of complete communication. This view dominated the field for almost 80 years until around 1960 when the focus was shifted to societal response towards disabled persons. Donald F Moores, ‘Partners in Progress: The 21st International Congress on Education of the Deaf and the Repudiation of the 1880 Congress of Milan’ (2010) 155(3) American Annals of the Deaf 309.

  9. Mary Johnson, ‘Before Its Time: Public Perception of Disability Rights, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Future of Access and Accommodation’ (2007) 23 Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 121; William Draper, Workplace Discrimination and the Perception of Disability (DPhil Thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University 2012); Moores, ‘Partners in Progress’ (n 8).

  10. Elizabeth Barnes, The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability (Oxford University Press 2016) 89.

  11. A form of short limbed dwarfism.

  12. Melinda Rosenberg, ‘Harm, Liberty, and Disability’ (2009) 29(3) Disability Studies Quarterly; Elizabeth Barnes, ‘Disability, Minority and Difference’ (2009) 26(4) Journal of Applied Philosophy 337.

  13. Simo Vehmas and Tom Shakespeare, ‘Disability, Harm, and the Origins of Limited Opportunities’ (2014) 23 Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 41.

  14. The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring 1933 was passed by Nazi Germany to eliminate ‘life unworthy of life’.

  15. Colin Barnes and Geof Mercer, Exploring Disability: A Sociological Introduction (2nd edn, Polity 2010) 25; Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation and Disability Alliance, Fundamental Principles of Disability (1976) 3.

  16. Goering, ‘Rethinking Disability’ (n 7) 134–138.

  17. Anna Lawson and Angharad E Beckett, ‘The Social and Human Rights Models of Disability: Towards a Complementarity Thesis’, (2021) 25(2) The International Journal of Human Rights 348.

  18. Michael Oliver, The Politics of Disablement (Palgrave Macmillan 1990) 78. Oliver first coined the phrase ‘Social Model of Disability’.

  19. Moores, ‘Partners in Progress’ (n 8) 309.

  20. Barnes, The Minority Body (n 10) 54–89.

  21. Hannah Tough, Johannes Siegrist, and Christine Fekete, ‘Social Relationships, Mental Health and Wellbeing in Physical Disability: A Systematic Review’ (2017) 17(1) BMC Public Health 414.

  22. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (first published 1789, Clarendon Press 1907) 33. Bentham lists pleasures and pains. Interestingly he states that pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil. 102.

  23. Stephen M Campbell and Joseph A Stramondo, ‘The Complicated Relationship of Disability and Well-Being’ (2017) 27(2) Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 151; Lois M Verbrugge, Joseto M Reoma, and Ann L Gruber-Baldini, ‘Short-Term Dynamics of Disability and Well-Being’ (1994) 35(2) Journal of Health and Social Behaviour 97; John Harris, ‘Is There a Coherent Social Conception of Disability?’ (2000) 26(2) Journal of Medical Ethics 95.

  24. Refer Aristotle's ‘objective list’ view of well-being. Roger Crisp, ‘Well-Being’ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 6 November 2001). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  25. Barnes, The Minority Body (n 10) 55.

  26. Ibid. 54.

  27. Brigham A Fordham, ‘Disability and Designer Babies’ (2011) 45(4) Valparaiso University Law Review 1473, 1477.

  28. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Disability, Factsheet on Persons with Disabilities. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/resources/factsheet-on-persons-with-disabilities.html. Accessed 18 September 2021; United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Sustainable Development, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  29. Like in the electromagnetic spectrum of light, the infrared and ultraviolet waves are not visible, similarly in sound, the infrasound and ultrasound are outside the human hearing range. Hence, dog whistles are not heard.

  30. The standpoint leads to the question whether Deaf people constitute a linguistic minority or a disabled group. See Jan Branson and Don Miller, Damned for their Difference: The Cultural Construction of Deaf People as Disabled (Gallaudet University Press 2002).

  31. Emphasis added.

  32. This view asserts that an impaired body is merely different from the able body. Being disabled is having a minority body very similar to being gay. It does not make lives worse. Or, as Barnes suggests, it is even like being male. Women have the capacity to grow a child within their bodies and give birth, which men can't. This is not perceived as a bad difference. Barnes, The Minority Body (n 10) 57–58.

  33. A term used by Barnes as contradistinguished from ‘mere-difference’. Ibid. 55.

  34. Ibid. 56–59.

  35. Elizabeth Barnes, ‘Valuing Disability, Causing Disability’ (2014) 125(1) Ethics 88, 90.

  36. Harlan Lane, ‘Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World’ (2005) 10(3) The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 291.

  37. Ibid. 303.

  38. Norman Daniels, Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly (Cambridge University Press 2007) 2.

  39. Ani Satz, ‘Healthcare as Eugenics’ in I Glen Cohen et al., (eds), Disability, Health, Law and Bioethics (Cambridge University Press 2020) 20–21.

  40. Ibid. Satz supports this stand as insurance companies also support medical treatments instead of providing funds for hearing aids or wheelchairs and the State has made no efforts to help with either.

  41. Ibid. 21.

  42. Philip K Wilson, ‘eugenics’ (Encyclopedia Britannica). https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics. Accessed 3 July 2021.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Daniel Wikler, ‘Can We Learn from Eugenics?’ (1999) 25(2) Journal of Medical Ethics 183, 184.

  47. Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (World Economic Forum 2016) 19–27.

  48. ‘What is the Human Genome Project?’ (National Human Genome Research Institute, 28 October 2018). https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project/What. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  49. F Ann Ran et al., ‘Genome Engineering Using the CRISPR-Cas9 System’ (2013) 8(11) Nature Protocols 2281.

  50. David Cyranoski and Sara Reardon, ‘Chinese Scientists Genetically Modify Human Embryos’ (Nature, 22 April 2015). https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.17378. Accessed 2 July 2021.

  51. It is claimed that twin girls Lulu and Nana, were born in 2018. He Jiankui used the gene editing tool CRISPR to edit DNA embryos to make them HIV resistant. This got mired in controversy, as humankind was yet to decide on whether it can drive its own evolution and whether technology can be used to interfere with humanity's shared gene pool. The work was deemed ‘irresponsible’ and invited immense condemnation from scientists world over. Even China condemned it saying it was against ethics. He claimed they were healthy babies. He later presented his work at The Second International Human Genome Editing Summit held in Hong Kong on 27 November 2018, after this matter came to light when MIT Technology Review published an article. Antonio Regalado, ‘Years Before CRISPR Babies, This Man was the First to Edit Human Embryos’ (MIT Technology Review, 11 December 2018). https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/11/138290/years-before-crispr-babies-this-man-was-the-first-to-edit-human-embryos/. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  52. David Cyranoski, ‘The CRISPR-baby Scandal: What’s Next for Human Gene-editing’ (Nature, 26 February 2019). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00673-1. Accessed 4 July 2021.

  53. Christina Farr, ‘Experiments to Gene-edit Babies are ‘Criminally Reckless,’ Says Stanford Bio-ethicist’ (CNBC, 26 November 2018). https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/26/chinese-crispr-baby-gene-editing-criminally-reckless-bio-ethicist.html. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  54. ‘Statement on Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing’ (World Health Organisation, 26 July 2019). https://www.who.int/news/item/26-07-2019-statement-on-governance-and-oversight-of-human-genome-editing. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  55. Kate Kelland, ‘WHO Panel Calls for Registry of All Human Gene Editing Research’ (Reuters, 20 March 2019). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-who-gene-editing/who-panel-calls-for-registry-of-all-human-gene-editing-research-idUSKCN1R02IC. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  56. State sponsored systematic persecution of the Jews and Gypsies, among other communities.

  57. Allen Buchanan et al., From Chance to Choice: Genetics & Justice (Cambridge University Press 2000) 37.

  58. Forced sterilisation of around 4,00,000 people was carried out, of which 2000-4000 were sterilised on account of hereditary deafness. See Benoit Massin, ‘Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany (Review)’ (2001) 75(1) Bulletin of the History of Medicine 165, 166.

  59. Daniel Wikler, ‘Eugenic Values’ (1998) 11(3-4) Science in Context 455, 457.

  60. The UN Committee of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities expressed concern over societal perceptions about disabled life being of poor value. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Concluding Observations on the Initial Report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (CRPD/C/GBR/CO/1, 2017) [12]; Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol portrays that disabled people deserve pity; Also see Colin Barnes, Disabling Imagery and the Media: An Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People (The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People and Ryburn Publishing 1992).

  61. David Ruebain, ‘What is Prejudice as it Relates to Disability Anti-Discrimination Law?’ (Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund). https://dredf.org/news/publications/disability-rights-law-and-policy/what-is-prejudice-as-it-relates-to-disability-anti-discrimination-law/. Accessed 18 September 2021; Gerard Quinn et al., Human Rights and Disability: The Current Use and Future Potential of United Nations Human Rights Instruments in the Context of Disability (United Nations 2002); Compulsory sterilisation laws; Colette Leung, ‘Race Betterment Foundation’ (eugenics archives, 27 April 2015). https://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/tree/553e95f955b4ad0326000001. Accessed 18 September 2021; Immigration laws of the US to check the dilution of American stock; Buck v Bell 274 US 200, 207 (where Justice Holmes opined that ‘three generations of imbeciles are enough’).

  62. Dorothy Wertz collected data from 37 countries. The desire for healthy babies was the same across nations. China was more agreeable to State involvement in decision-making. Andy Coghlan, ‘Perfect People’s Republic’ (New Scientist, 23 October 1998). https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16021572-800-perfect-peoples-republic/. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  63. 80 out of 158 (51%) countries permit abortions in case of adverse foetal conditions. Antonella Lavelanet et al., ‘Global Abortion Policies Database: A Descriptive Analysis of the Legal Categories of Lawful Abortion’ (2018) 18(1) BMC International Health and Human Rights 44, 48. Examples of these laws include The Abortion Act 1967, 1967 c. 87 (UK), and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, Act No. 34 of 1971 (India); The UN Committee of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stated that ‘Women’s rights to reproductive and sexual autonomy should be respected without legalizing selective abortion on the ground of fetal deficiency’. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Concluding Observations on the Initial Report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (n 60) [13]; Physical and mental abnormalities are considered as Ground E grounds for abortion. Termination of Pregnancy for Fetal Abnormality in England, Scotland and Wales, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (May 2010). 3–4. https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/terminationpregnancyreport18may2010.pdf. Accessed 23 September 2021; See Chitra Subramaniam, ‘India’s New Abortion Law is Progressive and has a Human Face’ (Observer Research Foundation, 7 March 2020). https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/india-new-abortion-law-progressive-human-face-62023/. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  64. For more reading see Stephen P Marks, ‘Tying Prometheus Down: The International Law of Human Genetic Manipulation’ (2002) 3(1) Chicago Journal of International Law 115; Rumiana Yotova, ‘Regulating Genome Editing under International Human Rights Law’ (2020) 69(3) British Institute of International and Comparative Law Quarterly 653; Melanie Hess, ‘A Call for an International Governance Framework for Human Germline Gene Editing’ (2020) 95(3) Notre Dame Law Review 1369.

  65. Jyotsna Agnihotri Gupta, ‘Exploring Indian Women’s Reproductive Decision-making Regarding Prenatal Testing’ (2010) 12(2) Culture, Health & Sexuality 191, 195; Neetu Chandra, ‘Would-be Parents Opt for Abortion of ‘Deaf’ Fetuses, Says Study’ (India Today, 18 February 2013). https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/abortion-of-deaf-fetuses-on-rise-sir-ganga-ram-hospital-154253-2013-02-18. Accessed 18 September 2021.

  66. Andrea L Kalfoglou et al., ‘Opinions About New Reproductive Genetic Technologies: Hopes and Fears for Our Genetic Future’ (2005) 83(6) Fertility and Sterility 1612.

  67. S J Stern et al., ‘Attitudes of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Subjects Towards Genetic Testing and Prenatal Diagnosis of Hearing Loss’ (2002) 39(6) Journal of Medical Genetics 449.

  68. Shawna Benston, ‘CRISPR, A Crossroads in Genetic Intervention: Pitting the Right to Health against the Right to Disability’ (2016) 5(1) Laws 5, 6.

  69. John A Robertson, ‘Extending Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis: The Ethical Debate: Ethical Issues in New Uses of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis’ (2003) 18(3) Human Reproduction 465. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis is a process to screen embryos for potential diseases.

  70. ‘How is the Completed Human Genome Sequence Being Used?’ (Your Genome). https://www.yourgenome.org/stories/how-is-the-completed-human-genome-sequence-being-used. Accessed 20 September 2021.

  71. For more reading see JPM Geraedts and GMWR De Wert, ‘Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis’ (2009) 76(4) Clinical Genetics 315.

  72. Kirsten Rabe Smolensky, ‘Creating Children with Disabilities: Parental Tort Liability for Preimplantation Genetic Interventions’ (2008) 60(2) Hastings Law Journal 299.

  73. Benston, ‘CRISPR, a Crossroads in Genetic Intervention’ (n 68) 6.

  74. Nancy Pham, ‘Choice v. Chance: The Constitutional Case for Regulating Human Germline Genetic Modification’ (2006) 34(1) Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 133.

  75. Not a legal person at this juncture.

  76. Whether a future child would have a right to sue parents for choosing or creating disablement considering laws that support compensation for injuries caused to the foetus before birth remains to be seen but it is not a subject matter for the present study.

  77. John Gillott, ‘Screening for Disability: A Eugenic Pursuit?’ (2001) 27 Journal of Medical Ethics 21.

  78. Michael J Sandel, The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Harvard University Press 2007); Elizabeth Barnes, The Minority Body (n 10).

  79. Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, Quest for a Deaf Child: Ethics and Genetics (DPhil Thesis, The University of New Mexico 2011). See also Oliver Feeney and Vojin Rakić, ‘Genome Editing and ‘Disenhancement’: Considerations on Issues of Non-identity and Genetic Pluralism’ (2021) 8 Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.

  80. Allen Buchanan et al., ‘From Chance to Choice’ (n 57); John Harris, ‘One Principle and Three Fallacies of Disability Studies’ (2001) 27(6) Journal of Medical Ethics 383; Jeff McMahan, ‘Causing Disabled People to Exist and Causing People to be Disabled’ (2005) 116(1) Ethics 77; Guy Kahane, ‘Non-identity, Self-defeat, and Attitudes to Future Children’ (2009) 145(2) Philosophical Studies 193; Peter Singer, ‘Ethics and Disability: A Response to Koch’ (2005) 16(2) Journal of Disability Policy Studies 130.

  81. The author raises an interesting philosophical debate on a ‘right to disability’ for consideration. Benston, ‘CRISPR, a Crossroads in Genetic Intervention’ (n 68).

  82. Burke, Quest for a Deaf Child (n 79) vii.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Ibid. 163-168.

  85. Ibid. 166.

  86. Ibid. 166.

  87. Ibid. 166-67.

  88. William May as cited in Michael J Sandel, The Case Against Perfection (n 78) 45–46.

  89. Burke, Quest for a Deaf Child (n 79) 167.

  90. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press) 107-108. Knowing fully well that in the natural state there is always inequality, Rawls proposes liberty and equality on the minimax principle, to bring about justice in the society. Though we complain that nature is never just, we have built our understanding and our laws to suit that difference. Our equality laws have grounding in the fact that race, sex, gender, impairment are not choice domains. Designer babies/CRISPR babies challenge that notion. They project a world where some traits would be naturally considered superior and thereby all babies could have them and this would be demeaning to the others. For it would not be just about removing impairments, it would be indirectly derogating the moral status of the living with those not so preferred characteristics. For more reading see Kelly Dhru, ‘Rawlsian Questions about CRISPR Gene Editing’ (Bill of Health, 23 August 2016). https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2016/08/23/rawlsian-questions-about-crispr-gene-editing/. Accessed 25 June 2021.

  91. Colin Gavaghan, Defending the Genetic Supermarket (Routledge 2006) i. The author refers to the works of Robert Nozick where he speculated about prospective parents able to shop the characteristics of their child from a genetic supermarket.

  92. Burke, Quest for a Deaf Child (n 79) 167.

  93. Immanuel Kant makes a case for a moral theory in his writings titled Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (also known as the Second Critique; 1788), and the Metaphysics of Morals (1797).

  94. Larry Alexander and Michael Moore, ‘Deontological Ethics’ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 21 November 2007). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/#DeoTheKan. Accessed 20 September 2021.

  95. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (Thomas Kingsmill Abbott tr, first published 1785, Dover Publications 2005) 29.

  96. Luke Staniland, Public Perceptions of Disabled People: Evidence from the British Social Attitudes Survey 2009 (Office for Disability Issues, HM Government 2010) 24–34.

  97. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Disability, Disability and the Media. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/resources/disability-and-the-media.html. Accessed 20 September 2021.

  98. Gerard Quinn et al., Human Rights and Disability (n 61) 33–35; Naveli Sharma, Virendra Pratap Yadav, and Aashima Sharma, ‘Attitudes and Empathy of Youth Towards Physically Disabled Persons’ (2021) 7(8) Heliyon.

  99. Robert Johnson and Adam Cureton, ‘Kant’s Moral Philosophy’ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 7 July 2016). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/. Accessed 30 June 2021.

  100. For more reading on inclination, see Tamar Schapiro, ‘The Nature of Inclination’ (2009) 119(2) Ethics 229.

  101. Michael J Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (Penguin 2010) 197; Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (n 95) 27.

  102. Burke, Quest for a Deaf Child (n 79) 167.

  103. This extract is from an interview of Teresa Blankmeyer Burke from a podcast episode of Let’s Make the Future. ‘Deafness and Genetic Engineering’ (Let’s Make the Future, 7 September 2018). https://letsmakethefuture.com/2018/09/07/lmtf-podcast-episode-20-deafness-and-genetic-engineering/. Accessed 24 June 2021.

  104. Denise C Park and Chih-Mao Huang, ‘Culture Wires the Brain: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective’ (2010) 5(4) Perspectives on Psychological Science 391; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘Culture Influences Brain Function, Study Shows’ (Science Daily, 13 January 2008). www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080111102934.htm. Accessed 20 September 2021. This study found that patterns of usage of the brain varied from culture to culture.

  105. See Padden and Humphries, Inside Deaf Culture (n 4).

  106. Marion Andrea Schmidt, Eradicating Deafness? Genetics, Pathology and Diversity in Twentieth-Century America (Manchester University Press 2020).

  107. Kathleen Brockway, Baltimore's Deaf Heritage (Arcadia Publishing 2014); Clifton F Carbin and Dorothy L Smith, Deaf Heritage in Canada: A Distinctive, Diverse, and Enduring Culture (McGraw-Hill Ryerson 1996); Kathee M Christensen and Gilbert L, Deaf Plus: A Multicultural Perspective (DawnSign Press 2000).

  108. Megan A Jones, ‘Deafness as Culture: A Psychosocial Perspective’ (2002) 22 (2) Disability Studies Quarterly 51. Jones refers to authors perceiving deafness as an impairment in the Deaf Culture Debate.

  109. Barnes, ‘Valuing Disability, Causing Disability’ (n 35).

  110. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (first published 1863, The Floating Press 2009) 8, 14. See also Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (n 22) 1–7.

  111. Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (n 95) 16.

  112. Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (n 95) 5.

  113. For more reading on enhancements see Alexander Harding, ‘Rehabilitation or Enhancement? FDA & The Gene Therapies of Tomorrow’ (2020) 33(2) Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 639.

  114. Walter Veit, ‘Procreative Beneficence and Genetic Enhancement’ (2018) 32(1) KRITERION-Journal of Philosophy 75.

  115. Richard A Posner, ‘In Defense of Prometheus: Some Ethical, Economic, and Regulatory Issues of Sports Doping (2008) 57 Duke Law Journal 1725.

  116. Sandel, The Case Against Perfection (n 78) 45–46.

  117. May as cited in Sandel, The Case Against Perfection (n 78) 45–46.

  118. Sandel, The Case Against Perfection (n 78) 61; Posner opposes Sandel with a libertarian argument in Posner, ‘In Defense of Prometheus’ (n 115).

  119. William J Brennan, Stephen L Sepinuck, and Mary Pat Treuthart, The Conscience of the Court: Selected Opinions of Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. on Freedom and Equality (Southern Illinois University Press 1999) 41; Federal Communications Commission v Pacifica Foundation 438 726 (1978).

  120. A common law liberty-right protected from state interference. E.g., It's the fundamental duty of parents to send their child to school in India. The Constitution of India art 51A(k).

  121. Erik M Zimmerman, ‘Defending the Parental Right to Direct Education: Meyer and Pierce as Bulwarks Against State Indoctrination’ (2005) 17 Regent University Law Review 311; Wisconsin v Yoder 406 205 (1972) on the kind of education; Prince v Massachusetts 321 158 (1944) on exposure of children to serious hazards.

  122. See also Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3 (CRC) art 18, 23.

  123. CRC art 18.

  124. John A Robertson, ‘Genetic Selection of Offspring Characteristics’ (1996) 76(3) Boston University Law Review 421, 480.

  125. Burke, ‘Deafness and Genetic Engineering’ (n 103).

  126. Robertson, ‘Genetic Selection of Offspring Characteristics’ (n 124) 481.

  127. State may intervene in cases of harsh punishments to child. Parents Forum for Meaningful Education v Union of India AIR 2001 Delhi 212.

  128. Jason C Glahn, ‘I Teach You the Superman: Why Congress Cannot Constitutionally Prohibit Genetic Modification’ (2003) 25(2) Whittier Law Review 409, 430–34.

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Dev, S.I. Is it morally justified to create disabled designer babies?. Jindal Global Law Review 12, 311–335 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41020-021-00152-7

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