why are people with Autism considered to lack empathy?

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Because SOME Autistics show traits that indicate that, and SOME Autistics go around spreading this myth and we are ALL judged by an ignorant society who believe in this crap.

This.

Theory of mind should be used as a term for cognitive empathy, because most people (NT or not) use the word empathy to describe "kind, caring, thoughtful, understanding, loyal". So then people, even many autistics, get the wrong idea of what empathy means and just assumes that lacking empathy means "nasty, callous, uncaring, heartless", instead of an alternative to lacking theory of mind, which then gives autistic people a bad name.

May I say your comment about defining what is meant in the question by the term empathy, I think is good.
You are right. People who talk about people with Asperger's as having no empathy often do not define exactly what they mean when they use the term or word empathy, and thus cause confusion on the matter.
Yes. I believe they need to be told off! Good, thank you for your input.

Re:
"I think one has first to have an agreed set of definitions of what is meant by empathy, and how it differs from sympathy and compassion. As has been said, psychologists distinguish also between types of empathy, especially cognitive and affective. My understanding is that it is specifically cognitive empathy that is often considered to be deficient in many autistic people. By contrast, they may have normal or even enhanced affective empathy, and compassion."

Just seen your post^^
I'll throw my 2C in anyway
There are two types of empathy to consider in relation to ASD.

Cognitive -or what can be summarised as shallow empathy.
Theory of mind, difficulty understanding anothers perspective; typically this happens at an almost intuitive level, but with extra processing time it could be possible for some/many ASD folks to think it through.

Affective -deep empathy, felt at an emotional level, needed to genuinely empathise with another. An area that can function well for people on the spectrum, once we process how another is feeling/their perspective.

The spectrum is too broad for any generalisation to be universally true.

More info:
Musings of an aspie
Love that site.