I think the Mother is mistaken, but I don’t think the State has any business forcing her children to have implants.
It would sure help with things like education and getting a job, and the kids should decide for themselves, but they are three and four.
This is a very big issue in Deaf communitites.
I’d be interested in Handy’s view.
They took custody of her kids because she left them with a deaf person? WTF?
I was born severely to profoundly deaf. I’m also an audiologist, so I have a rather interesting perspective on issues like these.
I have no moral objections to cochlear implants…indeed, they have been of great value to many individuals who have them.
But I do think that the decision regarding whether or not a child should get a cochlear implant is the prerogative of the parents. The state has no business making that choice, and they are grossly in error in this case.
Hmmmm…
I suspect that there’s more to this than just the implant issue.
I wonder if the article was truly balanced.
Are there other articles on this case in other journals?
And, how is abandoning the childrens’ health care good parenting? 
I don’t think it’s the prerogative of the parents. It’s the child who will be affected by this decision, not the parents. And since I understand that these implants must be done as early as possible to suceed, it seems said childs won’t be able to reverse the decision made by the parents.
The will of the parents to keep the deaf community/culture alive trump the right of the child to receive implants as much as the will of the parents to be good Jehovah witnesses trump the right of the child to be transfused when necessary.
The state has any right to protect children from poor decisions made by parents which aren’t in the best interest of the child, but in their (the parent’s) interest, when the interest of the child is as obvious as it is in this case. As much as a deaf parent is willing to perceive himself as only different and not handicapped, it’s blatantly obvious that a hearing child will have a much more easy live and much more opportunities.
A deaf person with cochlear implants is not a “hearing” person, but rather a person with a very limited ability to perceive sound. Cochlear implants are often presented (especially by the surgeons who profit from putting them in, and the companies that profit by selling them) as a panacea for deafness, but they aren’t; the decision to use them in most cases is nonsimple and (with current technology) really a roll of the dice.
I’m not a big advocate of “the deaf community” (I think insularism is a bad idea), but standing up to the surgeons and their insatiable urge to cut is not a bad thing in and of itself.
The best analogy I can think of; if Black parents in the 50’s could make their children White, would they?
And since in most cases, the child will be too young to make the decision for himself or herself, it is up to the parents to make that decision on the child’s behalf. It is the parents’ choice how they want their child to be raised…it is the parents’ choice how they want to care for their child. As long as these choices do not violate the bounds of legality (i.e., child abuse), then there’s no reason to prevent them from making this choice.
For instance, in my case, my parents had to make some difficult choices after I was diagnosed with severe to profound deafness in the early 1970s. Although there were those who disagreed with the choice my parents made to have me pursue an oral language approach, there was no legal effort made to supersede that choice with that of a third party’s. Nor should there have been.
And it is the prerogative of the parents…I don’t have any children myself, but I can easily imagine what my brother’s reaction would be if a doctor said that he was going to perform elective surgery on my nephew without parental consent. My brother’s reaction would not be a gentle one.
The mother in the article linked in the OP has made the choice for her child not to have that child receive a cochlear implant. That choice should be respected.
Likewise, if a parent chooses to have their child receive a cochlear implant, that choice must be respected as well.
And since I understand that these implants must be done as early as possible to suceed, it seems said childs won’t be able to reverse the decision made by the parents.
**
Even if it is likely that the child might acquire excellent skills in oral communication? Granted, cochlear implants are not a cure for deafness, but they do represent a valid option for individuals born with hearing losses that are not remedied by traditional amplification. Results do vary, but the technology has been consistently improving over the last fifteen years.
I accidentally left the following phrase from the post I was responding to…please ignore it in my previous post.
I think it’s precisely because “results may vary” that it should be the parents, and not the state, that makes the decision. The best, unbiased opinion that the medical science can offer in most cases is “it might help, and it might not.” The decision to proceed or not to proceed is not obvious. And when it is not obvious, the state should leave the decision in the hands of the parents, who may have legitimate reasons other than the strictly medical upon which to base their decision.
From what I understand, cochlear implants are very hit or miss, as KellyM said.
They don’t always succeed and usually take away any small ability to hear that the child already posesses.
I don’t think I’d want to give my child an implant, if only because I think the risks outweight the benefits in this case.
Besides, don’t people have them as adults? There was one actress on Guiding Light who had one as an adult, IINM. If it IS the case, can’t someone have one put in as an adult?
My Great Aunt Gina was born with a hole in her heart. Her mother, my great-grandmother, decided against surgery when she was born because there was only a fifty percent chance of survival. However, if the surgery didn’t take place, Aunt Gina would never have been able to have children, and probably would only have lived until her forties. When she turned 18, I believe she opted for surgery.
I don’t know if this would be the same…but it just made me think of it.
Yes, but they are usually unable to understand speech or learn to speak.
I’m quite dubious about claims that deafness is just a “culture”, not a disability. And I don’t think parents should have completely unlimited power over the life and health of their children. However, I think the state has overstepped itself here. Cochlear implant surgery does have risks and costs associated with it, and the benefits are sufficiently uncertain that reasonable parents (even without any of the “deafness is a culture” arguments) might choose other ways of coping with their child’s problem (such as learning and having the child educated in sign language). This isn’t a case of parents choosing faith healing over an appendectomy and letting their child die of acute peritonitis; I don’t think parents should have complete power over the lives of their children, but I do think they have the first responsibility to raise their children, and society should only intervene in cases of real negligence, not just differences of opinion.
I don’t know what the issue was with the mother leaving her child with a deaf babysitter. Are the authorities are not arguing that deaf people are unfit to raise children? That seems unsupportable. The article mentioned “other disabilities”; I guess if the person watching the children were deaf and quadriplegic or something, that could be a problem.
A pretty bad analogy, I’d say. Objectively, there’s nothing a person with white skin can do that a person with black skin can’t; whereas a person who can hear has an entire sense available to them that a person who is completely deaf does not. If or when the technology of curing deafness becomes more reliable, and less likely to complicate other efforts needed to cope with the condition, I’ll probably change my answer. If we could just wave a magic wand and make deafness (or blindness or paralysis) go away, we should do so; I’d say a consenting adult should still be able to refuse any they want, but that wouldn’t give them the right to seriously impair another human being’s life, even if that human being is their own offspring.
Looks like it pretty much covered the facts.
http://vh80000.vh8.infi.net/news/statewire/sw62469_20020907.htm
That’s about it, in a nutshell.
In the 1950’s?
You’ve got to be kidding.
Technology changes, and it changes quickly.
Conchlear implants are subject to the same forces that made the 286 you though was so nify completely obsolete. Unfortunely, conchlear implants are pretty destructive, and not only cause the loss of any natural hearing, but may prevent the person from using better technology in the future. It’s a risk, and even the winning returns aren’t all that great. Plenty of people love their implants, but a lot of people hate them, too. They do not make deaf people hear. They do provide stimulation based on sound to the brain that the brain may or may not interpret in a meaningful way. Sometimes the brain doesn’t get it right and you are left with a bunch of confusing meaningless stimulation that does nothng but annoy you. A signifigant amount of people wish they could return to their previous state.
It really is a judgement call that nobody but the person involved is ready to take. However, as the person involved is a young child, the parent is the next most logical person to make that judgement.
I think sometimes we get so caught up in oppposing the whole Deaf identity thing that we miss the fact that they occasionally have a good point.
There were things people with black skin weren’t allowed to do, but there weren’t things they couldn’t do. The problem there was with the laws and customs which stupidly prevented people from living up to their full potential.
The problem with deafness is not that society has separate “deaf only” water fountains or something. The problem is that deaf people can’t hear–they can’t sense sound vibrations. (Assuming we’re talking about people who are completely deaf.) Now, we can develop technologies and ways that allow deaf people to largely compensate for this handicap (special telephones, sign languages, people who can hear who also know sign language and can act as interpreters), and we can pass laws or develop customs that mandate or encourage everyone to use those technologies and ways of doing things wherever possible to help deaf people compensate for their handicap as much as we can. But of course if we could just cure their deafness, so that they could sense sound vibrations, that would solve the problem right there.
(However, as to the issue at hand, it’s not clear enough that cochlear implants are a cure-all for me to be happy with overriding the judgement of a parent in such a case if there are no other factors.)
Ok. If this description of cochlear implants is accurate, I withdraw my comments above and I admit that the decision must rest with the parents…
However, I still think that any arguments against implants based on the survival of deaf culture, or on the concept that deaf people aren’t handicapped, just different, are irrelevant and must be ignored.
As Devil’s Advocate:
Her kids are “profoundly deaf”. They can’t hear a damn thing.
I believe you can unplug the wire if you want to return to the previous state.
Regarding future technologies: THe operative word there is “may”; we don’t know what those technologies are.
I’ve never heard any of the Deaf people I work with complain on any of those issues; it is always about Deaf Culture.
No, you can’t. You can’t “unplug” a cochlear implant; they’re permanently imbedded in the skull and cannot be easily removed. And any residual auditory capacity remaining is destroyed when the implant is inserted. Even profoundly deaf individuals frequently have some residual hearing.