ABSTRACT
Introduction The technology of cochlear implants has led to considerable discussion in field of bioethics. There seems to be an unusually sharp division between those who support and those who oppose the new technology: proponents take the optimistic line that such implants will eliminate deafness in the future, while critics, some of whom are themselves deaf, reject the implant, claiming that Deaf1 people are primarily members of a linguistic minority and not a group of disabled people in need of ‘repair’. Some even accuse surgeons performing such implantations of attempting to commit ethnocide and of wanting to eradicate Deaf culture entirely.
