• Government has overstepped its bounds, once again meddling in affairs that should be left to market forces?

No

• the law puts undue burden on small business who now have to pay a higher premium to insure their employees?

No

• the law does not do enough to help children born deaf or severely hard of hearing?

Nope, not that either

So what is the complaint? It comes from Audism Free America:

The notion that being deaf is an affliction and an abomination which alienates one from society and leaves (one) dependent and isolated is a myth,” the petition states. “We do not wish for your state to be mislabeled as promoting eugenics and linguistic and cultural genocide.

Taken from “Ear-implant law draws dissent“, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune.

What this petition seems to be saying is that deafness is not a disability but just another part of cultural diversity. Therefore, to mandate a procedure that could enable children who are deaf or severely hard of hearing to hear more is like trying to bleach African-American skin white so that African Americans can fit into a white culture better.

Such a ridiculous statement has its roots in modernism, the philosophy that truth is created by personal experience and perception. Modernism celebrates diversity, not because every human person has innate dignity, but because every individual has his own truth. In the case of the petition from Audism Free America, modernism is saying, “Who are you to call deafness a disability. From our perspective, deafness is normal and hearing is an abomination.” Yes, I have heard some proponents of “deaf culture” take the argument that far.

The problem with Audism free America’s position is that deafness is a disorder. Human nature includes the five senses as a normative and universal constituent. In other words, the senses make up part of what it means to be human, and a diminishment of the senses is a diminishment of something that a human person should have (however not a diminishment of their humanity or dignity). Therefore, deafness is a disability based on the standard of human health. Modernism does not believe in disability because it does not believe in a universal standard of human life or of human health.

The problem comes in how we look at disabilities. We tend to look at people with obvious and severe disabilities and say they are disabled and we are not. I have been around severely disabled people all of my life, and I have learned that there is no “they” and “us.” Fallen human nature is fallen for all of us. Disability is not a matter of having one or not having one, but a matter of degree and of kind. People who are disabled in one area of life are also extremely able in other areas of life. The term “disabled” becomes a problem only when we let it define a specific segment of the human family.

One can see the same line of thought in the homosexuality movement. The Church calls same-sex attraction “disordered” because it is opposed to the universal human purpose of sexuality. Modernists see this as an insult that alienates a specific segment of the population. However, the Church realizes that every person’s sexuality is disordered to one degree or another, so calling same-sex attraction disordered is actually a statement of solidarity, not one of divisiveness. Again, modernists rankle because they do not believe that a standard for “normal” sexuality even exists.

I had friends in high school and college who were deaf and hard of hearing, and I learned sign language in the course of our friendship. One of these friends had been brought up in the “deaf world” and had a difficult time relating to the “hearing.” The others tried very hard to interact with everybody, and counted a number of the “hearing” among their friends, even those who did not learn sign language. It was not the deafness that isolated them. In the case of my one friend, it was his desire to see his deafness as something that set him apart and his consequent unwillingness to form relationships with those who would not share his unique “culture.” He had implicitly bought the lie of modernism.

In the end, the petition from Audism Free America isolates deaf people from the rest of us by accentuating the differences rather than acknowledging the fact and universal nature of disability. And their modernist bent would keep children from getting help to overcome their disability. That is just not acceptable.

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