I didn’t say they were being denied the choice, I am saying that it seems like there are some deaf groups that would deny them the choice. Multiple people on here have posted about such.
I think “saying people should make a different choice” is fundamentally different than “denying people a choice.” It seems we’re not going to agree here.
I suppose it ok to advise someone not the take the cure, as long it is remains that person’s choice.
but how often does it happen that parents get the right to deny their kids the cure to something?
Cure to some, changing their identity from a deaf person to a hearing person to others. Will opting them out as a child mean they’ll be unable to take an implant when they turn 18? Nope, that choice is still out there for them to freely make–a very different scenario from Christian Scientists who don’t let their kids have antibiotics.
- we were also talking about autism. Curing autism in order to do any good, would have to be done before brain development.
I’m not actually sure that’s the case. While autism starts to present around age 2, that’s not because the kids are neurotypical until age 2 (that fallacy is, in fact, the core argument of the antivax folks). The behaviors or neurotypical and autistic zero-to-two-year-olds are often simply too similar to distinguish. Now, there are some early-intervention-type therapies which help build skills at a young age, and that’s a different thing entirely, and early diagnosis and intervention is great. But it’s skill-building, not a cure. You’ve probably got autism as a zygote–which, yes, is technically before brain development, but probably earlier than you were thinking. And you’ve still got autism after your early intervention therapies help you more easily pass for neurotypical.
- As for deaf people, yeah they can opt for an implant at age 18, there can be problems with that. Speech for example. In order to be able to speak normally, they would have to get the implants as a child. I think it would be much easier as a child, when they are in a school environment already. I suppose they could get the implants at 18 and still learn to speak normally, but it could take several years. Also if you deny them the implants until age 18, you deny a childhood of being able to hear. Think about that.
I’m sure they take that into consideration. I’m not sure what their answer is on that one, but it may have been covered in the documentary. Probably something along the lines of their language skills still develop normally using ASL, and lots of people have difficulty with their second language. Although that’s pretty lazy–at least grade-school-level exposure does help with picking up second languages. But it’s a common laziness, at least here in the states where it seems learning any second language is a late-teen thing, if at all.