Katatonia wrote:
Joker wrote:
Not everyone shares your opinon either
Where in that statement did I say that?
The opinion Joker seems to be referring to (correct me if I'm wrong) is "There should be a cure for those who want it."
While that seems like a nice egalitarian option, it shatters into some really dangerous problems when it comes in contact with real life politics.
1. We will never discover a complete cure for autism. This isn't because it's theoretically impossible (it would take technology that's probably a couple hundred years in the future, and would entail being able to completely restructure a person's brain on the microlevel). It's actually because, long before we discover a cure for autism, we will discover a prenatal test that will let us discover those at high risk of autism before they're born. At that point, research into a cure will lose funding, as the prenatal test is used to practice eugenic abortion.
2. If there is a cure for autism, people would not be allowed to choose whether to take it. Any cure would only be effective very early on--before the age of two. That's much too young to make your own medical decisions. But let's say you are old enough to choose: How much chance is there that you'd still be allowed to? Very little. If you needed any outside assistance to survive, you'd simply be treated against your will, presumed to be incompetent to make your own medical choices. If you couldn't have a job and needed welfare, you would probably be denied any assistance if you refused treatment, leaving you with the choice of dying on the streets or submitting to treatment. The only people who could reject treatment and survive would be the people with extremely mild cases--those who can work, pass as NT, never need hospitalization or intensive therapy, and earn enough money to pay for their own medical care (no insurance company would take you if you refused a cure for autism, since that would be considered too much of a risk--autism is expensive, remember?).
So, yes, many of us do not believe that it would be a positive thing for there to be a cure for autism--even though some people would want it. In reality, the idea of being allowed to choose or not choose a cure is a pipe dream--it would be forced on you whether you liked it or not. Remember, according to the rest of the world, we are incapable of thinking clearly because our minds are too affected by our disease. They must think for us, speak for us, make decisions about us without asking us what we think. In that climate, there's absolutely no way you would be able to choose.
14 Jun 2012, 1:49 pm
