Because 'Race!' and 'Racist!' is the answer to freaking everything anymore,

no matter how stupid.
Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, at Impact Ethics, "considers the problematic nature of gene therapy research aimed at eliminating hereditary deafness."
But beyond the possibility of medical risk -- which is rightly investigated and weighed -- there's this:

Members of the signing Deaf community argue that research which aims to eliminate or cure deafness is a form of cultural genocide. The argument goes like this: the use of gene therapy to cure hereditary deafness would result in smaller numbers of deaf children. This, in turn, would reduce the critical mass of signing Deaf people needed for a flourishing community, ultimately resulting in the demise of the community.

"If you want to cure deafness, you suck!  You want to commit genocide!"  The level of idiot in this is amazing.  And further on, this from another paper:
...The article aims to show that such minorities have the properties of ethnic groups, and that an unsuitable construction of the Deaf-World as a disability group has led to programs of the majority that discourage Deaf children from acquiring the language and culture of the Deaf-World and that aim to reduce the number of Deaf births--programs that are unethical from an ethnic group perspective. ...
Think about that.  Wanting to reduce the number of kids born deaf is 'unethical'.

One more bit:
...There is now abundant scientific evidence that the Deaf-World has the properties of an ethnic group. Many Americans, perhaps most, would agree that society should not seek the scientific tools or use them, if available, to change a child biologically so he or she will belong to the majority rather than the minority, even if society believes that this biological engineering might reduce the burdens the child will bear as a member of a minority. Even if children destined to be members of the African American, Hispanic American, Native American, or Deaf American cultures could be converted with biopower into white, Caucasian, hearing males--even if society could accomplish this, it should not.
So, according to these idiots, helping someone who's deaf be able to hear is the same as trying to eliminate a race of people...

Few years back there was a news story about two deaf lesbians who wanted to have a kid, but wanted the sperm donor to be someone who also suffered from congenital deafness, so that they could ensure that the kid would be born part of 'deaf culture'.  This is... deliberately wanting a kid to be handicapped because "It's our culture!"; I don't have the right word for just how disgusting this is.   This "We're not handicapped, we're differently-abled!" bullshit is disgusting.  And they're willing to keep kids suffering a handicap for their whole life.