Do deaf parents breed deaf children?
This may not sound like a civilized question its certainly one that has been asked times in many cultures, by supposedly civilized people. And its still being asked. There is a philosophy (or pseudo-science) called eugenics, which deals with inherited characteristic the possibility of improving (or controlling) those of succeeding generations by choosing suitable parents. Suitable parents would be encouraged to breed, while unsuitable parents would be discouraged, even prevented, from having inferior-quality children. Eugenics was a popular topic in the 19th century, when many hearing educators and philosophers decided that it was better for the future of the race if deaf people could be prevented from reproducing more deaf people. Even Alexander Graham Bell, whose own mother and wife were deaf and who invented the telephone while seeking a device to help hard-of-hearing people hear, subscribed to this absurd notion. In his Memoir the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race discu
