You ought to examine the "Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Program" H.R. 1198 legislation passage closely what it really meant by "medical intervention for children with hearing loss" and "appropriate programs".
The EDHI bill also mention "treatment of hearing loss" and see deaf babies as "birth defect"
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bquery for the text of legislation - S 1712 and look for Hillary Clinton as a sponsor of S 1712 bill - Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program.
http://walsh.house.gov/list/press/ny25_walsh/pr_080408.html , Jim Walsh, Congressman
The incoming S 1712 Senate bill did not mention anything about the emphasis of ASL and bilingualism as a real necessity for language development and academic successes, etc.
Let's look at the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASLHA) website for the list of "Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Action Center -
http://www.asha.org for State Information, ASHA Resources, Other Resources
for State Laws, Find Your State EDHI Contact, ASHA's Resource Guide for Educational and
Pediatric and "Can Your Baby Hear?"...
What is the National Center on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders really doing to us, deaf people so far? Why it largely focus on the pathological aspects of deafness?
Are deaf people being slowly exterminated in name of science and human perfection?
The U.S. government once took the Native Americans' own identity and deny them to speak their native language, then cut off their long hairs and Anglicized their names in name of Americanization.
That could happen to us, deaf people which the Jews and other undesirables dismissed the possibility of systematic extermination and re-education programs in Nazi Germany until too late for them.
Our U.S. Government hardly bother to acknowledge our rich cultural and linguistic hertiage of deaf people and its contributions to the United States.
ASlize yours,
Robert L. Mason
RLMDEAF blog
Thursday, July 3, 2008
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There you go! This is why many of us are so concerned about the imbalance of options that are not presented to the eyes of the law. DBC along with NAD are going to change that!
ReplyDeleteHere is the most important part of this amendment: "Amends the definition of "early intervention" to require that families be given the opportunity to obtain the full range of appropriate early intervention services, educational and program placements, and other options for their child from highly qualified providers."
ReplyDeleteNotice that it includes educational and program placements, and requires that families be given full access to them. As I read through the bill, nothing else jumps out at me, the medical intervention term appears, when taken in context of the WHOLE bill, to simply refer to appropriate further screenings and evaluations as deemed necessary. There is nothing in there about forced CI's or anything of that nature. Also, the link provided in the blog above for the text of S 1712 is a broken link.
I think you are reading entirely too much into the "medical intervention" phrase, especially now that I have read the full text of the bill and amendment. Yes, I WOULD like to see them say something such as (Sign language education, ASL, and so forth) after the phrase "educational and program placement" in the amendment.
That is what you should contact your Senator or Representative about, to ensure that the appropriate wording is there to ensure ASL is not thrown to the side as an option.
Barba DiGi,
ReplyDeleteReal good to know that DBC and NAD are heavily involved in their effort to clarify and amend the necessity of bilignualism.
I personally think that the S 17172 bill is badly written as the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) law as too vaguely interpreted without being specific to list what kind of approriate programs and mechanisms against audiological peddlings from audiologists in pocket of CI industry and audiological interest groups.
That's what happened too often with the fate of deaf babies and youngsters.
I think that we should call for the tabling of S 1712 until this bill get worked out with more clarification and specific languages.
Anonymous,
With due respect, contact the House of Representative would be out of question since the H.R. 1198 bill already approved last April 2008. The bill with same title is amended to the S 1712 bill along with the "Screening Newborns and Infants' Health".
Many U.S. Senators are very skeptical about this bill due to privacy concerns which the health insurance industry could exploit the list of genetic flaws and health ailments to deny such coverage to individuals with children, etc.
You have to understand how the legislative process within the U.S. House of Represenatives and U.S. Senate. Every bills passed in H.R. , have to go thru the U.S. Senate for final legislation passage and send the bill to the POTUS to sign it into law or veto it.
Our best options are to ask the U.S. Senate to withdraw the S 1712 until further consideration to work out the legislative bill to the satisification of involved parties including DBC and NAD.
I am declaring the S 1712 amendment - EHDI to be really an eugenic bill until the language to be more specific to give parents real options what offer to them and deaf babies and youngsters without being biased in any way.
Thank again, Barbara DiGi and Anonymous for your comments. :) Happy 4th of July!
RLM
RLM:
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect to you, sir, I don't need it explained to me how a bill works. I apologize that I did not include my name on my post, I will do so at the bottom of this one.
While it IS true that it is before the Senate currently, contacting your Representative is ALWAYS an extra option, as they (Senators and Representatives) tend to very often communicate and work together when they are from the same state. They can share with the Senator, their constituents' views on bills, sometimes quicker than those same constituents can get an answer from a Senator. The reason for this is that Representatives generally have a smaller area to answer to, and with re-elections every two years versus every 6 years for Senators, they often are much more cognizant of commentary received and respond more quickly.
My mother was a Field Representative for a Congressman for quite some time, I have been involved in politics in some way or another for most of my life., including serving as a member of my party's County Executive Committee, Treasurer of the local party, and so forth. I understand VERY well how this works.
Contacting your Representative AND your Senator to ask for tabling of the bill due to concerns about the wording of the amendment is a very viable and recommended option, irregardless of in which house of Congress it is in.
I wish to say that I do agree it is somewhat too vaguely written overall, which I why I proposed contacting your elected officials to voice your concerns and ask for tabling until more specificity in the language is studied or added.
Regards, and Happy 4th of July!
Eddie Runyon