> Some Deaf parents, he added, celebrate when their newborn baby’s hearing test indicates that the baby is deaf too and so can be part of their community.
Tough one. You want to respect the wishes of the parents, but you also want the kid to have the option to hear (and understand spoken language) when they are an adult and can make their own decisions. You may not be able to have both, given that this kind of deafness is progressive, and even with gene therapy you evidently need to treat it when young to give the child any hope of hearing. What if it turns out the kid wants to be able to hear, but by the time they are of age, it's too late and their inner ear’s hair cells are all dead?
Tough one. You want to respect the wishes of the parents, but you also want the kid to have the option to hear (and understand spoken language) when they are an adult and can make their own decisions. You may not be able to have both, given that this kind of deafness is progressive, and even with gene therapy you evidently need to treat it when young to give the child any hope of hearing. What if it turns out the kid wants to be able to hear, but by the time they are of age, it's too late and their inner ear’s hair cells are all dead?