Politics versus Choice, the final frontier.

Thank you for the comments re the last blog, assuming it becomes the rule that parents of deaf children should recieve all and any information and told of options, does the NAD have the unbiased means to give it ? or the Audiologists ? Should they consider that the deaf world is so polarised over this, perhaps an independent body should be elected instead ? Holistic approaches is what it is all about (Not Barry !), even the NAD admits it via a request to be involved. Should Audiologists provide the information ? Clearly there is little love lost between them and a number of cultural and deaf areas like the NAD, who would challenge the type and dissemination of information, even if the Audiologists decided to provide it, some do not feel non-medical approaches are part of their job descriptions. The NAD could always find something to object to, including the fact they ARE Audiologists.

Audiologists are now 'awareness' areas ? Focus on the politics of deafness on deaf cultures ? A minefiled surely ? Should we not focus on what is best for the deaf CHILD and forget the often and very divisive arguing and set views that emanate mostly online. It's not about culture, it's not about the CI Program, certainly nothing to do with deafhood, and to a degree not all about parents either, since they can get condemned whatever choice they might opt for, by sectors that expect an new-born child to not only excersize its own, or perversely, have that choice STILL taken away from them by the lobby sector that is against CI's and mainstreaming. Deaf children will always lose the choice lottery.

Choice is something the deaf child at day one is never going to have, the law empowers the parent for obvious reasons.

If you have a deaf child, ANY child new born and diagnosed with deafness, considering a serious operation on the head is no light matter to be considered, I still cannot believe these parents are as unaware as they made out, should they not have immediately sought out what alternatives were available first ? Maybe they were dissolutioned instant and normal hearing was not resumed, and the NAD stepped in to use them for political expediency, not entirely given over to free choice. I am also surprised at the total trust given over to consultants as well.

Maybe they didn't really listen to the explanations at day one, in that no CI can replace hearing as we know it, or guarantee any operation will never have some risk with it. Which is old news to everyone else. If you have a deaf child, you do not take even a mild interest in the deaf ?