A rather confused interview on Today this morning:
When I heard the interview, I thought that the government's proposal was that deaf embryos would be targeted to be aborted. When you look on the internet (e.g. here or here) a lot of people seem to be interpreting it that way - as a kind of eugenics.
Actually, it's pretty clear from the bill and its explanatory notes that precisely the opposite is true:
Clause 14/4/9 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill states:
Persons or embryos that are known to have a gene, chromosome or mitochondrion abnormality involving a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop —
(a) a serious physical or mental disability,
(b) a serious illness, or
(c) any other serious medical condition,
must not be preferred to those that are not known to have such an abnormality.
The explanatory notes state (110)
Outside the UK, the positive selection of deaf donors in order deliberately to result in a deaf child has been reported. This provision would prevent selection for a similar purpose.
So it's clear, I think. The Bill isn't proposing to prevent deaf children from being born. It is proposing to prevent parents from deliberately choosing only deaf embryos for implantation. It is eugenics (on behalf of the deaf) that the Bill opposes. It doesn't propose it.
P.S. FWIW, I don't object in principle to IVF - it would be fine, as far as I'm concerned, if one embryo at a time (or as many as would be implanted) were fertilized. Obviously I object to the current practice, but that's another story...
