IN THE TWO weeks since The Washington Post reported on Sharon Duchesneau and Candace McCullough, a deaf lesbian couple who used a deaf sperm donor to increase the odds of having a deaf child, the issues around disability rights and the creation of so-called designer babies have been hotly and transcontinentally debated.

In the case of [Gauvin], most of the outcry has focused on his mothers' preference to have deaf children (the couple's 5-year-old daughter Jehanne, conceived with the same donor, is also deaf).

It's a compelling argument and a challenging one to those who see deaf people as only objects of pity. And if the argument against Duchesneau and McCullough wanting deaf children is that deaf people experience prejudice and face barriers, shouldn't the goal be to reduce those prejudices and those barriers, not the number of people who experience them?