| I am not familiar with the deaf community nor the controversy surrounding curing deafness. If you're asking me if I support firebombing clinics, no. I don't know what incident you're referring to. I looked up some info and I find the issue to be far more complicated than you've summarized. One thing I note is that 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. They are making a decision about implants for an infant based on a reality they want the infant to experience, but they wouldn't even know any alternative way of living. Why do they get to make the decision for the child? Deaf people live like the rest of us. They face struggles, yet they live full happy rich lives. Devices like implants don't come without risks and drawbacks. For people used to deaf culture, they have to learn how to integrate into hearing society, which can be frustrating and also lead to ridicule, shame, and embarrassment. The devices can be broken and can be distracting and annoying. I can understand why many would not opt for them, and would advocate against them when there is a ready and willing culture to receive deaf people as they are. Maybe some people choose these implants and that's what they want. That's fine. No one is stopping them from doing that. But I don't exactly see why hearing people are deciding that they must "cure" their child's deafness. I read that people are calling it child abuse. See, that's something I can't get behind, and it's an admission that our society is abusive toward people with differences. That's not a reason to genetically alter people so that they conform to the abusive society, it's a reason to change society so that it doesn't abuse people with differences. So again, I'm not familiar with this debate, here is some info I looked up: https://www.businessinsider.com/why-deaf-people-turn-down-co... |
Because past some age, you can't meaningfully learn to use hearing for communication anymore. You can choose to lose hearing as an adult if you really want to. But only if you were given the opportunity to have it in the first place as a child.