I understand this. And I agree that it's true in some cases: there are probably many people who think of deafness as broken ears and think that by popping on a CI they are no longer deaf. I want to counter that as much as you, I don't want my daughter seen as broken. And I don't want people thinking she's been 'fixed.'
But there are others who don't see it that way, who think of themselves as deaf, and yet still get CIs to add a channel through which they can access sound. There are parents who think that adding a CI is like adding French or Spanish to a child's curriculum to expand their means of communicating with more people, with more family members. That adding another language is not insulting to or repudiating their native study of English or Mandarin, but complements it. And that someone with only 1 language is not broken vs. someone with 2 languages.
I just think that this perspective that any parent who opts for a CI wants to fix his child and sees the child as broken is a generalization that doesn't apply to people on this board -- everyone here identifies as part of the deaf community, so much so that we even have some deaf-wannabe parents 
. But most of all Shel, I see the pain that this perspective causes you, and I don't want you to think that's my motivation, just as I would never want my child to feel the same. So I want to argue against it as much as I can, and keep the thought that this is everyone's motivation behind a CI from seeping into the community.
