Posted on 05/13/2002 5:03:04 AM PDT by rw4site
Rush Limbaugh went deaf last year and received a cochlear implant. In time, he can expect to hear and speak about as well as he did before. But deaf babies are not so lucky. Most have no access to cochlear implants, because their parents want to cure the affliction but cannot afford the procedure. By contrast, deaf parents who use genetic manipulation to conceive deaf babies are guaranteed lifelong public support for their children under various state laws and the Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA.
Every year, about 4,000 deaf babies are born in America. If a baby cannot hear, its auditory pathways become altered, so that by about 24 months language comprehension and speech begin irreversible degeneration. But with an implant, the baby grows up hearing, attending regular school, even taking piano or ballet lessons. The earlier an implant is received -- in Germany now as young as five months -- the less special care a baby needs.
Yet only one in 10 deaf babies gets an implant before damage sets in. One reason is that just 65 percent of babies have their hearing tested at birth. Then there is the money. Inadequate reimbursement by private insurers and Medicaid puts implants beyond the reach of most families. To avoid losses, implant centers are forced to limit the number of cases they take. Some are in danger of closing.
The scandal is that neither Congress nor the executive branch supports parents who choose hearing for their baby. Government maintains deafness, while the rest of society acquiesces. This is because of the activism of the deaf community, whose view is that deafness is a lifestyle, not a medical affliction, even though they insist that they are covered by the ADA.
From Congress to newborn wards, parents and policy-makers face deaf activists who extol the virtues of living deaf. Meanwhile, implant surgeons are labeled "profiteers" and anti-deaf "bigots," and accused of genocide. Some are so besieged they dare not even offer patients the option of an implant. Meanwhile, we swallow the myth that keeping a baby deaf is morally and medically equivalent to letting the baby hear.
Society is not wrong in according respect to the deaf community. The isolation of deafness was, until recently, quite real. Helen Keller said that if given a choice between deafness and blindness she would choose to hear because deafness isolates you from people, while blindness only isolates you from things. Thanks to the deaf community, American sign language is hugely successful in ending the isolation. Ironically, just as the deaf culture came into its own, technology produced the cochlear implant, the first bionic device to stream digital data directly to the brain. If every deaf baby gets an implant, then the deaf culture, long sought by deaf individuals, will shrink in the coming generation. This is hard for many to accept.
It would take $160 million per year for an implant in every baby whose parents choose hearing. Savings from avoiding special schooling and other support could be 10 times that amount, according to recent independent studies. The funds can be found: direct grants to families or guaranteed loans; educating insurance executives so that medical policies cover implants, surgery and habilitation; and vouchers that let parents choose either deafness or hearing for their baby. One way to jump-start the drive is parity of funding. Let total federal funds each year for implants for newborns match the annual total for special education of children and students who are kept deaf.
But the first step is to come to our senses -- literally. Deafness, like blindness, is a medical affliction. More than 95 percent of the parents of deaf babies are hearing parents. They desperately want their babies to hear. If later the child decides to turn off the implant, that is real choice. There is no choice if we strip the baby at birth of its ability ever to hear.
It is time we do as much for those who want hearing as for those who don't. The parents of these babies are isolated and defeated. Against their wishes, nine babies a day are abandoned to deafness. They deserve the same miracle that Rush Limbaugh enjoys.
However, how long do you think it will take for Congress to make the funding available for those on Medicare/Medicaid?
You aren't kidding me, are you?
This was written by Hillary Clinton, right?
So why stop at cochlear implants? Rush also golfs and owns a private jet. Let's buy everyone golf lessons and private jets also!
I hate it when otherwise worthwhile charitable causes decide to go on the attack. Now, instead of feeling sympathy for deaf children, I feel contempt for their advocates.
Wheeler should know that you can get loans from those rotten banks.
You can start a fund for the child.
But noooo! Slam Limbaugh... he's an evil right-wing conservatve who has money.
I pee on this type of thinking.
Can I substitute advanced fly-casting for the golf? ;-)
I must EMPHATICALLY disagree with you. The article states
One way to jump-start the drive is parity of funding. Let total federal funds each year for implants for newborns match the annual total for special education of children and students who are kept deaf.
What the twit who wrote this is advocating is taxpayer funding of implants for deaf babies. The money would be much better spent by the individuals who earned it in the first place rather than taken from their pockets at gunpoint and then squandered by government bureaucrats on making the deaf more dependent on government. Remember every single dollar that government spends on anything comes from the pocket of someone who worked to earn it, and that is a dollar that the original earner can't spent to feed, cloth, house, etc. himself and his family.
I'm not heartless, but hmmmmm... Let's see. Rush has plenty of money. Rush has medical insurance. Hey, nimrod! Didn't Rush PAY for his "miracle?" You got money to pay for everyone else that "deserves" this treatment?
I didn't think so.
It gives "fluff" a bad name.
How about the choice to be BORN???
And the deaf activists are waiting in the wings of the hospitals for some parent to mention trying to get their kid to hear. Then they'll descend on them in the fashion of either side of the abortion or sex ed debates, giving out so much false information and appeal to emotion, that the parents will in the end consider it to be child abuse to get their kids the medical attention they deserve.
Sorry, rant over. I saw a show on this a few years back on a treatement that could help deaf children, and the few deaf activists they interviewed really sickened me.
To put into perspective: "Don't get that baby's severe cleft palette fixed" said the speaker for the Cleft Paletteers of America.
They have a Junior NAD division, sort of a deaf cub scouts organization, which can help your child tremendously. The vast majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents, and those kids tend to grow up with seriously underdeveloped social/coping skills, self-image, etc. Early socialization among other deaf kids, with instructors expert in deaf culture, can make an enormous difference.
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