You Know What I Hate MK I

[Accelerator]

You’re gonna have to unpack that for me. How does one “cure deafness” and how can this cure be forced on people?

Cochlear implants. The younger they are implanted, the better, since a child's formative years are better for their language development.

Ok, several things.

Let me rephrase that. I think that it is ok for children to receive implants. I believe that, if it is serious enough, that children be mandated to have cochlear implants. I think that , if a parent was to bar his/ her child from getting a hearing aid or cochlear implant, not out of grounds of medical cost or fear of the surgery, but instead because he or she wishes to preserve deaf culture, then that parent is in the wrong and should be prosecuted for child abuse.

I also think that in IVF, choosing to have deaf children instead of children with no hearing disability is, frankly, grotesque. Whether for sharing in the experiences of deaf parents, or some other reason. We do not allow children to be deafened by their parents. We should not let parents deliberately conceive deaf children either.

I believe that people and their claims that curing deafness is threatening their culture and is commiting genocide to be inane and dumb.

[Heavy Arms]

Where's the ethically solid line of what is a condition that should be prevented as too abnormal, and a condition that should be allowed as it comports to normal?

I have been told, on this forum no less, that my parents abused me by... raising me as a Jew as they're Jewish, because by teaching me to be a Jew, and me embracing that identity, I've suffered trauma I wouldn't have if I was raised "normal" as a Christian instead.

There's a reason why eugenics is considered a bad thing. "Grotesque" isn't a quantifiable metric we can use to judge a genetic condition as something to try to regulate. Without some functional metric, this sort of thinking does far more to enable systemic abuse than it helps any children.

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It's also worth noting that cochlear implants are not a 'cure' to deafness. They don't give you bionic ears that hear the same as biological ears. While the earlier the better for the aid they provide to avoid impairment, they still require extensive therapy for optimal use. The more mainstream deaf community's issue is people thinking the implants and said therapy should completely replace sign-language and other aspects of deaf culture. Denying children additional adaptive skills like sign-language (even as a back up just in case their implants break), or access to a community to people with similar experiences to participate in is no help to those children.

[Charlaquin]

Cochlear implants. The younger they are implanted, the better, since a child's formative years are better for their language development.

Ok, several things.

Let me rephrase that. I think that it is ok for children to receive implants. I believe that, if it is serious enough, that children be mandated to have cochlear implants. I think that , if a parent was to bar his/ her child from getting a hearing aid or cochlear implant, not out of grounds of medical cost or fear of the surgery, but instead because he or she wishes to preserve deaf culture, then that parent is in the wrong and should be prosecuted for child abuse.

I also think that in IVF, choosing to have deaf children instead of children with no hearing disability is, frankly, grotesque. Whether for sharing in the experiences of deaf parents, or some other reason. We do not allow children to be deafened by their parents. We should not let parents deliberately conceive deaf children either.

I believe that people and their claims that curing deafness is threatening their culture and is commiting genocide to be inane and dumb.

Ah. Ok, that helps.

To directly answer your questions, I would say that it is not medical gatekeeping - an example of medical gatekeeping would be denying someone who is hard of hearing or deaf cochlear implants because they are not capital-D Deaf. I would say that your stance is somewhat ableist - it does come from a place of treating one set of abilities as normal and desiring to force others to abide by that definition of normalcy. I don’t think it’s actively malicious, simply rooted in a worldview that is biased in favor of ability over disability.

I would also posit that “we don’t allow parents to deafen their children” is a false equivalence, as in one case the child is born with a disability and not given a corrective medical procedure on account of their inability to consent to it, while in the other a child is (hypothetically) born able and has a disability imposed upon them without their consent.

[Accelerator]

It's also worth noting that cochlear implants are not a 'cure' to deafness. They don't give you bionic ears that hear the same as biological ears. While the earlier the better for the aid they provide to avoid impairment, they still require extensive therapy for optimal use. The more mainstream deaf community's issue is people thinking the implants and said therapy should completely replace sign-language and other aspects of deaf culture. Denying children additional adaptive skills like sign-language (even as a back up just in case their implants break), or access to a community to people with similar experiences to participate in is no help to those children.

I'm perfectly fine with things like sign-language.

I just think that cochlear implants are a net good, and should be made available to everyone. And trying to block people from getting them is a bad thing.

[Heavy Arms]

The primary problem is that for most families, they have to make a choice between implants and the therapy to use them, or immersion in deaf culture to gain fluency in sign language and other coping strategies. The pressure for a focus on implants thus means a pressure against sign language in a practical sense; even if there isn't any intentional bias against it. This debate actually predates the current highly successful cochlear implant technology significantly, making it a sorer point in the deaf community. When you force people to pick or say society should be allowed to pick for them, you're going to make people defensive. And that should make a lot of the "inane" and "dumb" stuff a bit easier to sympathize with.

[Accelerator]

The primary problem is that for most families, they have to make a choice between implants and the therapy to use them, or immersion in deaf culture to gain fluency in sign language and other coping strategies. The pressure for a focus on implants thus means a pressure against sign language in a practical sense; even if there isn't any intentional bias against it. This debate actually predates the current highly successful cochlear implant technology significantly, making it a sorer point in the deaf community. When you force people to pick or say society should be allowed to pick for them, you're going to make people defensive. And that should make a lot of the "inane" and "dumb" stuff a bit easier to sympathize with.

In other words, they can use both, but social pressure and practicality means choosing one or the other?

[Heavy Arms]

As a generalization of the state of things now, yes. This doesn't have to be the way it is, but especially with society and practically pushing things this way, it's hard to change. For example, one of the practical problems is expense. With the mainstream social pressure to focus on mainstreaming and "normalizing" children with disabilities, health insurance (even in countries with universal) and disability assistance programs frequently will help with implants and the training to use them, and not deaf cultural training, unless there is a medical reason why a specific child isn't a candidate for an implant.

So social value debates such as, "the best thing for the child is to make them as medically normal as possible," vs. "the best thing for the child is to make them as functional as possible in society," subtly but significantly impact practical things like, "how is the $250,000 bill for this getting paid?" when the largest sources of financial assistance are all operating on one side of the social debate.

[nofather]

Calling Jack the Ripper 'Saucy Jack.'

[Master Aquatosic]

Because it is disrespectful to his victims?

Anyway, i don't hate circumsion or even the many non-malicious, only slightly anti-semitic anti-circumsion advocates. But i hate how much the debate has me torn apart despite planning to only adopt and not until I'm in my late 30s or early 40s and have a stable career. Ilove my parents and i don't have any problem with my own cricumsion, but I don't think i could do that to a child under my care. It's not harmful, but it's also not my body. But if I wait for them to decide whether they want to undergo it at the age of majority, then i don't think they can have a Bar Mitzvah at 13 in any sect I know of and am comfortable with joining. I could say I'll just adopt girls and avoid the issue entirely, but damn if I'm going to separate siblings just to avoid testing my own conscience

[Heavy Arms]

I'm not sure if it helps, because there's still some of a bodily autonomy issue, but there are more Jews - esp. in the non-Orthodox communities - pushing to have milah only circumcisions re-recognized as kosher; rather than only accepting milah + periah circumcisions. It's not something I would imagine would satisfy all anti-circumcision advocates, but I would hope it would address the concerns of the more reasonable ones

To clarify if needed (or folks are curious and don't feel like Googling):

Milah in Jewish circumcision is literally "just the tip." That is, it only removes the excess foreskin that grows past the glans of the penis, leaving the vast majority of the foreskin intact and doesn't interfere with the natural development of the foreskin and glans. This is the only Biblical requirement for Jewish circumcision.

Periah is a later addition to the ceremony that involves active disruption of the development of the foreskin and glans. Originally the foreskin was left on, but peeled off the glans, causing the foreskin to not grow and cover the glans as the boy's body matures (this was done because some Rabbis decided they didn't want Jewish men trying to hide their milah circumcisions by stretching their foreskins longer as adults). Later it was expanded to just remove the foreskin entirely.

[nofather]

Because it is disrespectful to his victims?

No I just think it's stupid.

[TheCountAlucard]

My only real objection to circumcision stems from the baby being unable to meaningfully consent to it, and the non-zero chance of a very disastrous mishap occurring.

It's a tricky balance.

[AzraelFirestorm]

People talking politics and casually throwing out the word "Zionist" while critiquing Israeli or pro-israel US policies. Don't do that. It sounds really bad, and makes me want to not talk to you. This is right up there with "Cultural Marxism" as an antisemitic dog-whistle for me.

[Master Aquatosic]

Shout it to Gan Eden, Chavrati (changed after awesome Hebrew translation advice from Heavy Arms)!

Say it with me: Zionism is not synonymous with current Israeli government policy.

[Heavy Arms]

Indeed!

Also chavra is the feminine form, but in context you would probably use chavrati (chaver / chavra alone connote membership in the same social club or organization, where adding the possessive makes it more informal, basically the difference between 'comrade' and 'friend' despite it normally being translated as friend).