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Comment by esyir | Hacker News Reader

Hell no. You're telling me that it's in the domain of parents to knowingly cripple their kids sensory function? That's absurd.

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Would you say people with a gene for deafness shouldn't be allowed to reproduce?

That would open a whole can of worms. What if some society says black skin is a disability so black people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce?

There's a clear line between stopping reproduction and intentionally inducing disabilities.

I'm going to put it another way. Does this really pass your own personal sanity check? That parents should be allowed to:

- Amputate their children's limbs (Various developmental defects

- Remove their children's eyes (Blindness)

- Perforate their children's eardrums (Deafness)

- Remove their tongue / vocal chords (Mutes)

- Paralyze their kids (Various forms of musculoskeletal issues)

- Inflict brain damage on their kids (various forms of intellectual disabilities)

No, but should a deaf woman be allowed to choose sperm from a deaf donor? That's actually happened, the baby was born deaf, and the mom was thrilled.

Fantastic grey area.

Here, I'd probably have that be legal. Not because I approve of it, but because the alternative, regulating who gets to reproduce, is worse.

Or remove their foreskins :')

That too.

I left it out intentionally as while I personally think it's in the same category, it's unfortunately sufficiently normalized as to pass without question.

There are medical reasons for the removal of foreskins such as phimosis [1]. Inasmuch as I would agree that religious justifications for circumcision are the ramblings of a cargo cult, circumcision itself was and is (for now at least) not without value.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phimosis

There also could be medical reasons for the removal of arms. That doesn't mean parents should be allowed to remove the arms of their children as they are born.

If there's a medical reason to amputate an arm and if it would be appropriate to attend to it immediately after birth so that no long-term complications arise from a delay in action, a parent should acquiesce to it. If parents shouldn't make that decision then who should?

I mean, we trust parents around kids and they can do all sorts of semi-permanent and permanent things to damage their kids. And then, this will shock you, but we just let those kids grow up and be around other people. If you really want a head trip, we let those kids have their own kids (after the age of 18). And raise them! If you've not read any stories of parents abusing their children, you really shouldn't, some of that shit is real nightmare fuel. That some well-loved children are hard of hearing after childhood? Real parents obviously don't bare their actual feelings to you. (I am not a parent. I am endlessly grateful to state run sex education for that. No offense to those that would choose that path for themselves but I definitely was not capable of making that decision at 13 or 15 or 18. Giving teenagers that choice is ludicrous but then again, I don't run that department of society.)

There's a difference between parents screwing up and giving them a blank check to cripple their kids. If my parents knowingly and intentionally crippled my sense of sight/hearing/touch/taste for the sake of crippling me, that goes far enough into "sufficient abuse" that retributive murder suddenly appears in my "appropriate response" options.

As for the existing cases of child abuse, we've already got things for that. We have anti-child abuse laws and their like. They're not perfect, but they denote a line of behavior beyond which is not tolerated.

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