Deaf By Design

Choice. Your life is determined by choices. Choices you make, and choices other people make for you.

If you could choose between being deaf, or being able to hear, what would you choose?

Deaf By Design is an article that describes a controversial use of prenatal genetic testing. More than often, genetic diagnoses are used to predict whether a fetus will have a disability. However, some people in the deaf community are using this test to see whether their child will be deaf.

Before leaping to any conclusions, I bet most people will be thinking,

"Why on earth would anyone want to be deaf???"

The same reason you would want to hear.

From my personal perspective, I would want to hear. I can't imagine my life without music or speaking, it is a part of my culture. The majority of people have become accustomed to life with sound because they were brought up to rely on sound for communication.

But you cannot deter deaf families from wanting the same thing we do. From their perspective, they have grown up without sound. Their culture and community rely on sign language for communication. To them sign language is as effective as speaking is to us.

We watched the documentary, Sound and Fury, to see the contrasting viewpoints of both deaf and hearing communities.

Most hearing parents would fear having to raise a deaf child, because they do not know the deaf community and how to raise the child to the best of their abilities. You could say the same for a deaf family. They would fear having to raise a hearing child, because the hearing community is foreign to them.

Either way, I believe that being afraid of how to raise a child is not a reason to disregard what their child wants. Cochlear Implants are implanted onto deaf children by the discretion of their parents. My personal belief is that parents should wait until children reach a certain age where they are able to communicate their desires. If a deaf child shows with full confidence that they want a Cochlear Implant, regardless of their age, you should allow them to do what they want. Parents should be able to believe that their child is bright enough to adapt to a new environment, and also believe in their own abilities to guide them.

In the end, it's still about choices. Every person has a different system of beliefs and is entitled to make their own choices. The happiness for one person may be despair to another. All we can do is respect each other's opinions and try to understand from their point of view.