Posted on 04/12/2008 8:18:01 PM PDT by stickman20089
I agree with you that planned disability is, in fact, deliberate child abuse. But I take it a little further- I think that the delivery of a NORMAL child into a home with no speaking parents also qualifies as a type of intentional neglect. Such a child has a very limited, or no chance of being able to communicate normally, IMHO.
As someone who is HOH (hard of hearing), I’ve been on the outskirts of the deaf community all my life. In elementary school in Illinois, I was allowed to be in a normal classroom but I had to go to another town twice a year to have my hearing tested. (I guess they wanted to see if my totally deaf right ear would spontaneously start working or my totally functioning left ear spontaneously stop working.)
Deaf people see themselves as a culture, just like Koreans, Kenyans, Mexicans, etc. They don’t consider it a defect or a disability to be surgically altered.
A part of me says “More power to them.”
The ones that are deaf who want this may have no understanding of what they are depriving their child of. To deliberately engineer or select an embryo and deprive that child of ever being able to hear or play music, or sing, makes me want to cry.
WooHooo!! I'm not the only one to think this!! But you know they will as it's "their due".
Two points of view, and of course the wifey & I (like most everything else, disagree). How have we been married for 24 years and so content?
This is just sad. Life is hard enough. When parents want to deprive a child of one of their natural senses because of any of their own personal reasons, I think it’s incredibly abusive, egocentric, and disrespectful. We need more laws to contain stupid liberals.
It’s mutilation.
A mother and father should eat right, skip the cigs, booze, and then thank the good Lord for whoever shows up. It's playing God when you purposely manipulate for reasons other than to heal a disease or health issue -- but, heck, since babies have become disposable anyway, why are we even shocked?
Who could desire deafness for their child?? The is the opposite extreme of the screening to weed out a child with any defect.
I was born with multiple orthopdedic problems (I had 17 surguries by the time I was 10) and based on info I’ve read from Planned Parenthood I should have been terminated and my parents should have started over. Lucky for me I was born 46 years ago and my mom did not have access to this info!! Though there may have been days when I was a teenager that she wished she had...
:)
“Both they,. and the parents/spouse of those who recieve cochlear implants, etc. are vilified by, and ostracised from, the radical deaf community.”
I’m glad you quantified “radical deaf” as opposed to the entire community. My deaf daughter has an implant and many in the deaf SIGNING community were very supportive, actually. Also, our school for the deaf now has 40 out of around 250 kids with CIs (probably that number is higher now) so the times are changing, even for the deaf. It’s important to realize though that a CI is NOT a cure.
“I find it hard to believe that you used to teach deaf children with your attitude that you “found” our community very weird. I’m glad that you are no longer teaching deaf children so that’s the right thing you’re doing, thanks.”
You said this perfectly! I am glad I read thru the posts prior to posting my own. I don’t want this kind of person teaching my kid, either.
I don’t think its ENJOYING DEAFNESS as much as it’s - this is the way it is. Until basically the mid 90s, CIs were not readily available. So, what do you expect the Deaf today other than accept their lives, and move on?
Actually, you are quite incorrect. Hearing babies born to deaf parents begin to “speak” as young as six months (if the parents are signing). Because a baby is usually signed to by his mom and dad, that baby can have expressive language skills as young as six months old - he can sign milk or more or mom and other words, ahead of his speaking only baby peers. Not only that, but most deaf people have hearing friends or parents or siblings, so the hearing babies’ receptive language is also stimulated. One of the new fads is teaching sign language to hearing babies to stimulate their language acquisition. There is all sorts of research into is; you can check it out yourself. And, most deaf parents of hearing babies make sure that their babies are in playgroups, with the grandparents, whatever, to make sure their oral language acquisition is stimualated.
“Its about narcissism. Which is the number one problem in American society today, everyone is totally and completely in love with themselves, even all their flaws are upheld as special and meaningful.”
Would you include overly enthusiastic sports parents in this?
Of course I would, and all parents who want to live vicariously through their children’s success.
My objection is that what these parents are doing goes far beyond just accepting the lack of current technology available to mitigate a disability and trying to make the most of the hand they have been dealt. We're talking about mutilating a child to produce a disability desired by the parents. This deprives the child of choice.
Even attempting to do this should be punishable by at least loss of parental rights.
I have what they call “single sided deafness”, which is rarely congenital. I have a CROS hearing aid system but I rarely wear it since most of my work is on the telephone and I don’t need a hearing aid for that.
If this is a biological “issue” that happens in the womb during the natural progress of a child’s development, I do not have an issue with it. Deliberately causing it to happen, I agree, is wrong. I don’t agree with you that producing a child who is deaf is “mutilating” that child - but I agree that it is wrong to deliberately cause the condition. I would say it was wrong if you were allowed to pick blue eyes and black hair, also.
Deaf/Hard of Hearing ping list
with interests in health and society
sorry for the late ping
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