Many deaf people cringed at the moment in the BBC’s documentary earlier this year about Eastenders star Rita Simons and her deaf daughter, when the star was told by a deaf woman that giving her daughter a cochlear implant would equate to “abuse.”
Now Simons has revealed how she felt in an interview with Hello magazine, describing the “extraordinary” hostility she feels that she and her husband Theo encountered in making their decision.
Simons told Hello! magazine the hostility “comes mainly from people who firmly believe that deafness should be embraced rather than treated as a physical deficiency that should be corrected.”
In the interview, she says that while she respects the point of view of those who are against cochlear implants, “when a 19-year-old girl told me that I was an ‘abuser’ to let my child have a cochlear implant, I was horrified and deeply hurt.”
Read the full story here: http://news.sky.com/story/1019853/eastenders-rita-simons-accused-over-deaf-op
Further reading: Blog by Ian Noon on informed choice, responding to the documentary: http://iannoon.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/rita-simons-and-informed-choice/
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Robert Mandara
December 3, 2012
Simons sought and received honest opinions. Did she expect to agree with all of them?
Whether you see this as abuse depends on your perspective – both sides have valid arguments and the hearing side tends to drown out the deaf. When her daughter is grown up, with or without CI, she won’t consider her parents as abusive anyway. They have strived to make the best possible informed decisions for her and ultimately that’s what matters.
Liz Ward
December 4, 2012
I can understand how hard it must be for hearing parents when they have a deaf child, especially when they have no experience of positive deaf role models. I didn’t agree with the deaf person who said that cochlear implantation is abuse, but at the same time I didn’t agree with Rita Simon’s black and white view of deafness as portrayed in the film. I felt that she didn’t have enough exposure to deaf people who might have helped her to understand and accept her daughter’s deafness, rather than seeing it as a physical deficiency. It was definitely a cringe worthy moment, and I did feel as though it was an incredibly unbalanced documentary.
The thing is, there are deaf people with cochlear implants and they still sign, they are still deaf when they switch off at night, in the shower etc. Having a cochlear doesn’t mean you’re hearing. I just feel that parents are sometimes led to believe that, not always, but in some cases. Personally, I would rather leave the decision to a child when they are old enough to understand the implications.
At the same time, I realise that they are often more effective the earlier they have the implant. So it’s such a difficult and fraught decision to make. It doesn’t automatically mean a child will get the best education or the best chances in life. That is down to opportunity, postcode and/or attitude of parents and teachers etc. They will still have to fight against prejudice and deal with their own sense of identity. I think that parents sometimes just don’t realise, at least not at first, what it means for a child to have implants. They will still need deaf role models and people who they can relate to.