Judge: Child Must be Forced to Use Implant

A judge may punish a Spokane man for not making his daughter use a cochlear implant. District Court Judge James Stow signed an order requiring Emma McLaughlin-Orton to wear the device all the times at the request of her mother. But Shaun McLaughlin, who is deaf, says he wants to give his daughter "her own choices in life." He faces a contempt charge in Kootenai County for not making her wear the device. Emma had surgery to install a cochlear ear implant on the right side when she was a year old and a second one when she was five years old. She does not want to wear the external processor and transmitter which activates the device when she is with her father. Emma's grandmother says the girl wants to "be deaf like daddy" when she visits him. The girl's mother, Jennifer Orton Miller, is not married to Shaun McLaughlin but the couple share custody.