Comment on Vote Qualifications, Not Issues

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:55:21 GMT

These advantages look like rationalisations made by the parents in question, while I suspect (without evidence, I admit) that they simply fear their children being different. Seriously, ask a hearing person whether (s)he would accept a deafening operation in order to get away with ignoring people more easily.

Any condition can have similar "advantages". Blind people are able to sleep during daylight, can easily ignore visual distractions, are better piano tuners on average. Should blind parents therefore have a right to make their child blind if they wish? Or should any parents be allowed to deliberately have a child without legs, because, say, there is a greater chance to succeed in the sledge hockey than in the normal one?

I get the point of campaigns aiming to move certain conditions from the category "disease" to the category "minority". "Disease" is an emotionaly loaded term, and the people with the respective conditions may have easier life due to such campaigns. On the other hand, we mustn't forget that they would have even more easier life without the condition.

Discuss