Kim - I couldn't agree with you more. While some kids needs some professional services from time to time - anyone spending 100k a year isn't looking to improve their child's quality of life - they are looking to get a child they didn't get in the biological crapshoot of life.
This bill's intention is to rid the world of auties; by preventing their births, by trying to "cure" the ones that are here, and in all likelihood by institutionalizing the ones that "don't respond well" to treatment.
That's not a bill I could ever support. It's not going to help out families like us, families who live on one income so one parent is always home and ready to run to school, so the kiddoes have that consistency they crave, so mom or dad (it's dad in our house) can stand at the bus stop every day or take them to and from school to make sure the bullies don't get at them. Dad takes him to the park after school, helps him work on his social skills in real life situations. Dad helps him keep his cool when doing his homework and he gets frustrated by a question he doesn't understand but knows he should.
But we're not where the money will go. Our schools (which ours has been fabulous and we've stayed in a town I literally HATE because of how good the schools have been for DS) won't see the money either, for better or worse.
This bill reminds me of an episode of a sci-fi show I saw one time. Parents of a boy were worried as it was nearing time for him to take an intelligence test required of all people at age 12. As you watch the show, the parents console themselves that surely he'll do just fine, and the boy seems normal and bright.
The day of the test comes, they give the boy truth serum and ask if his parents told him to cheat, he says no. He proceeds to take the test. They cut back to the anxious parents in their home waiting, they get a call telling them their son finished, his intelligence was higher then "x", and so he was exterminated. Naturally you expected he had to get a high grade, but of course the government wanted to keep everyone down.
Here, with this bill which thankfully didn't make the grade, the government wants to keep all possible auties out of sight.
_________________
Mean what you say, say what you mean -
The new golden rule in our household!
http://asdgestalt.com An Autism and psychology discussion forum.
10 Oct 2006, 12:51 pm
