Clay for brains
Using multi-coloured clay to teach kids about the different areas of the brain. This was one of the activities at the Cambridge Science Festival which is one of the largest science festivals in the country.
There was a controversy last week surrounding a deaf couple’s intention to undergo IVF (if they are unable to conceive naturally) so that they could have a second deaf child. Under the new Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, this would be illegal because Clause 14/4/9 states that "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 serious physical or mental disability, a serious illness or any other serious medical condition must not be preferred to those that are not known to have such an abnormality."
The couple’s appearances on BBC and interviews with various national newspapers have triggered intense debate. There are some who decry the couple as callous for intentionally bringing a disabled child into the world and others laugh off the couple’s plea on the basis of equal rights as extreme liberalism. To be fair to the couple, they did state that they would love a child with normal hearing as much as a deaf one. And I do agree that their arguments can come across as convoluted and at times, contradictory.
But the main point which they have touched on is whether the State should over-rule a couple’s decision on what sort of embryos they should use for insemination, assuming that no laws would have been broken if the child had been conceived naturally to avoid any problems with incest by insemination. Let’s say deafness could be identified to a specific gene; and because of the recessive nature of the particular gene, any children of a particular deaf couple would definitely be deaf. Would the flipside of a law that compels the use of embryos that do not carry the recessive allele be that deaf couples should be forbidden from conceiving naturally and compelled to only have children through IVF using “normal” embryos?
Sunday, 16 March 2008
