The Law of Unexpected Consequences

Selected Topics of Interest, 2002 The Law of Unexpected Consequences Donald F. Moores Moores is a professor in the Department of Education at Gallaudet University, Washington, DC. Over the past year or so I have been reviewing publications, engaging in discussions with colleagues and graduate students, and following the popular media in an effort to understand major trends and issues facing us as a field. It seems clear to me that some of the bitter conflicts of the past have been resolved or at least are temporarily dormant. I am referring, of course, to questions of classroom communication and school placement . Although professionals may disagree on the appropriate services to a particular child, most are in agreement on the need for a range of communication and placement options . Another group of issues, however, seems less amenable to solution. For these issues there is a clear polarization and, in some cases, positions are intractable. Inevitably, some people tend to take the high ground, presenting their position/opinion as moral and opposing views as, by definition, immoral. Clearly, recent developments in genetics and cochlear implants fit within this framework. To some degree the high stakes testing movement (as exemplified in recent federal legislation) also would fit within this category. Some proponents of genetic modification , cochlear implants, and high stakes testing present them as panaceas , as cures for physical conditions or for inadequacies in our educational system. However, each of these areas has had unanticipated consequences and raised unexpected questions . A generation or so ago, many researchers in the area of deafness had a tripartite model of research that included prevention of deafness, cure of deafness, and accommodation to deafness. The assumption was that after medicine and technology had accomplished their miracles, those of us interested in children would take over. The model fell out of favor due, I believe, to the fact that it represented a negative view of deaf human beings along with a belated acceptance of deafness as a cultural condition . Over the past generation I have read hundreds, perhaps thousands, of statements to the effect that the medical /pathological view of deafness should be and is being replaced by a social/cultural view. To some extent this is true within our profession, but I am not so sure that it is generally accepted by the public at large, whose views may be shaped negatively by TV programs on cochlear implants and the supposed resistance of the deaf community or by newspaper articles on a deaf couple's preference for a deaf baby as well as positively by the presence of deaf actors and actresses in movies and on television or articles on a deaf woman professional basketball player. Going back to the old three-legged stool of prevention, cure, and accommodation , genetics has been portrayed as a means of prevention and cochlear implants as a form of cure. I will address these in order before turning to testing. Genetics Four years ago I wrote an editorial entitled "Genetic Engineering and Our Brave New World" (Moores, 1998) that raised several questions, including the rights of deaf parents to choose to have a deaf child. As we all know, the study of eugenics in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century was discredited by the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and its programs of sterilization and murder of people deemed not worthy of life, including individuals with genetic deafness. The atrocities were not limited to Germany. The United States, Sweden, and Great Britain, among others, had strong eugenics movements that lasted well into the last century. In April 2002 the governor of Virginia publicly apologized to still-living elderly citizens who had been involuntarily sterilized by the state, mostly due to a diagnosis of mental retardation . Many deaf Americans are conVolume 147, No. 2 American Annals of the Deaf cerned about genetic engineering because of A. G. Bell's widely publicized eugenics views and his belief that marriages of deaf couples would produce a deaf variety of the human race. Bell considered this circumstance to be a disaster and, as a result , he opposed the use of sign language and advocated closing residential schools, eliminating clubs and...