Here we go again with another post.
Today I want to cover something a little controversial. Prenatal testing: the process of testing a foetus to find disabilities like Autism before birth.
It's already a common practice for Down Syndrome (I'll get back to this point) and it has, in the last few days, been successfully done to test for Autism.
Surely this is good, right? Quicker diagnosis and all. Right?
Right?
Well.
The initial publication of the study had so much wrong about it, including the fact that it refers to Autism as an "incurable disease" (later corrected to "disorder") - so yeah, these are the kinds of people we're going to be working with today.
As well as this, the study STILL has the line "these findings could enable the early diagnosis and TREATMENT of infants with the condition, significantly improving the child's chances of reconnecting with the world around them"
where do I begin with why that's problematic?
YET AGAIN, we're focused on "treating" Autism instead of accommodating it. I don't understand why parents are so focused on this idea. If you decide to become a parent, you're signing up for all of it. You don't GET to take the "easy way out"
Screening for Autism as an attempt to help "treat" it is disgusting. It will lead to eugenics, and it will lead to a genocide upon Autistic people.
need proof I'm not just really dramatic? Let's go back to my Down Syndrome point. For years, it's been possible to prenatally identify Down Syndrome in a child (and note that this is not with 100% accuracy, there are MANY false positives) and what has happened since then?
The number of children born every year with Down Syndrome reduced drastically. In 2009, only 3 children were born with Down Syndrome in Iceland. In many other countries this is an echoed result, and every year it continues to be an echoed result. They have become practically extinct as a group, because everyone either chooses to abort their baby, or is pressured by doctors into doing so.
Again, remember, these tests are not 100% accurate and often return false positives, but the doctors still pressure the parents into aborting the baby since it will "have no quality of life"
While I accept that Autism and Down Syndrome are incredibly different, I fear for a repeating of the past. If the option is there and it can be identified in a foetus early enough, people will abort to avoid having an Autistic child, and we will be driven down rapidly in our numbers until there are none of us left to fight.
We could be the last Autistic people on earth. Ever.
Don't believe me? Let's just think of the lengths people have gone to in avoiding Autism due to the massive social stigma around it:
- skipping their kids vaccinations (because severe illness & death are both "better" than being Autistic to these people)
- injecting their children with dangerous chemicals such as mercury (they claim it reduces autism)
- BLASTING THEM WITH RADIATION UNTIL THEY'RE POTATOES (people have quite literally done studies to "reduce autism via the means of radiation" in which they essentially fire a blast of concentrated radiation until they've cooked the child's brain enough that they can't do anything and that's a success because "the Autistic symptoms were reduced")
Do you really think people willing to do these kinds of insane things to avoid having an Autistic child wouldn't just flat out abort it?
A painfully overwhelming majority of neurotypical people don't know, don't care. They see the social stigma and follow it along, leading to these threats to our continued existence.
Research needs to be stopped. Simple. As it stands now, research into Autism is almost never actually productive, done by neurotypical "professionals" looking to make neurotypical lives easier by committing a genocide against an entire neurotype.
it hurts me to think that if I have a kid one day, doctors would actively pressure me and my partner into aborting the child if it were to turn out like me.
that I would be actively encouraged to make sure my child would have a "better life" by not being him/herself
it makes me wonder in a sense if this is a world I'd even want to bring a child into, with the risk of him having to suffer from ignorant researchers like these people as much as I have.
I'll be honest, this one went from post to ramble back to post, but I had to get this out there after I saw that headline. Yet again, Autism Acceptance Month kicking off with a bang, with researchers back out in the field of "how do we make the weirdos normal" because they're too lazy to make basic accommodations for us.
The same way you legally have to accommodate a wheelchair, you should legally be required to accommodate Autism, and hunting for "cures" and "treatments" and "ways to prevent more of them" ain't it.
that's it for now, I'll try and keep a more level head for the next post, but this one just really got under my skin.
- Josh.