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Well, children and babies undergo other types of surgery all the time for things like cleft lip and palate, webbed or fused fingers and toes, cataracts, etc., that they could survive without (because those surgeries didn't used to be options). Parents decide to have surgery done on their children to hopefully give their children a better and easier life. Now, people may disagree on what a "better and easier life" means or about whether certain surgeries should be done, but in the end it's up to the parents to make the choice for their children (unless it can be determined legally that the parent's choice endangers the health of the child). Parents make medical decisions all the time for their children without waiting for them to grow up and make the decision for themselves - that's part of what being a parent is.
This as usual ignores socially conditioned free will, cohersion, manipulation, and manufactured dependence for a product, it also ignores ci is an international industry and in some countires where implants occure litle or no choice is even given,
To be clear again, no one has denied parents mske the choice in america (for the sake of this discussion) to implant, so ststing water is wet only goes so far, what we are trying to discuss is not if water is wet,but the actual powers involved overt and covert that are brought to bare on parents to implant. Its a billion dollor industry, one has to ask how much free choice do two scared parents with a newborn Deaf baby actually make when confronted with a white coat doctor pedding a maricle cure
Another important fact to keep in mind, is the history here, in th 80s those in the new ci industry couldnt fathom snd wrap their heads around why adult Deaf were not falling over themselves to implant, to get the new technological messiah offered them. Market forcasts were done, a number of times, it wasnt just price, or bulkiness, so a bussiness decision, (not a medical one), was implemented to push to widen the ci market, for profit, to implant babies and children, in some countires, france as an example, babies were implanted against medical advice of the leading pedatric surgeon of the country who was horrified at what occured, the idea was once the implantng of babies occured, the momentum woukd be hsrd to stop (which trned out correct), but to wait for approval, Deaf wishes would be able to be known, along with oir communities and peoples opposition. Thus, money was the main factor, the market needed to widen....our wishes or not...ci implants in babies was rubber stamped by the fda in america in 1990...hugely widining the small market for the product. deaf wishes, were utter ignored, no other product in history has been so widely used on people while ignoring the very people the product touts to help.
And we are constantly attacked and scooded for our resistance to this assimilation.
I had surgery as an infant and don't remember a thing about it. That's one positive thing about surgery for young children - they're less likely to remember it afterwards than older children.
Your very good at missing the point, i grant you that.