Bio technology can remove the disability some pros and cons…

Here suggesting that there are not cases where it is both obvious and necessary for young children to be removed from or be able to leave homes where they are subjected to abuse and neglect. No parent can claim the protection of some kind of right, in order to justify their ill treatment of their child. Neither however can we claim that parents do not have some rights in relation to the child. The twin conceptions of parental obligations and parental rights are not mutually exclusive, we can develop a model of the parent/child relationship, that both acknowledges the fact that parents have some very strong obligations to their children, but also acknowledges that this is not a one sides affair, that parents can and do have rights, particularly in relation to how these obligations are fulfilled and the depth of state interference in the process of parenting.

Genetic Engineering and Disability

Recently a number of cases involving the use of the cochlear implant as a ‘cure’ for deafness, and requests from parents with achondroplasia (dwarfism) or hereditary deafness, to have children who possess their disability, have highlighted problems with the position defended by Harris. The problems associated with requests such as these will become more common as our ability to manipulate our genes increases.

What factors would motivate the desire, on the part of persons with disabilities, to have a child who shares their disability, or not to ‘correct’ such disability when the option to do so exists? There are a number of reasons put forward for this choice. These include the idea of the value of Deaf culture(or any other culture surrounding a disability), issues relating to how persons with disabilities are viewed by the community at large, a fear of being unable to relate to and interact with a child that does not share their disability and the difficulties associated with adapting facilities and lifestyle to cope with a non-disabled child.