Just joined the autism speaks hate group

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So the other day me and a few friends where having a discussion about abortion and its morality now please feel free not to have that discussion here
I am against it as a general rule but during the debate we talked about wheater it is ok if you discover your child has a horrible debilitating disease and someone who does not know I’m on the spectrum asked if you were going to have a child with autism would not abort
This is why I don’t like them because they give off the impression that being on the spectrum is a horrible debilitating disorder when it is often not
Sorry if this sounds ranty I may come bac k and re word all of this later

"If you knew your unborn baby would grow up to be a narrow-minded bigot, would you abort it" - would be an appropriate response.

What about special-needs adoption? I'm sure there are autistic kids out there floating around in foster care, needing parents of their own. I can see that it might feel a little troubling to you to bring an autistic child into a world which still has so much anti-autism prejudice; I don't see it as being wrong to do so, but since there are kids to adopt, that would be a great alternative.

OP... beware of joining groups that are based around hating some other group. Polarization of opinions and general increase in hostility is not really a good thing. Better to join a group that's pro-autism-rights, rather than joining one that's anti-Autism-Speaks.

No, I would not abort a disabled child. There are plenty of methods of helping the disabled all ready available now, and more are coming. Helen Keller went deaf, and I think blind also, as a very young child due to an illness. This happened just as she was starting to learn to talk, so for years she was mute as well, until a new tutor managed to make a break through with her using sign language. Helen Keller turned out to be a very intelligent person. You can't tell right at birth just what potential anyone--healthy or not--may have. There is too much potential in any new born, even a disabled one, to take a chance on wasting that potential.

As for how other people perceive spectrum disorders, and react to us, for now I prefer to limit who knows that I am on the spectrum. I already have problems with people because of my differences, I am not about to give them more ammo.

I have some problems with the way Autism Speaks portrays Autism. I also have a problem with hate of any kind.

I may hate some of the things they do, but I do not hate the people involved with Autism Speaks.

Hate has never brought about positive change. Ever.

I've joined ASAN a couple of years ago.

/groan

I abhor Autism Speaks, but I'm no fan of reactionary types either--especially anti-choice autistics who screech irrationally about how abortion perpetuates fear of autism. I had an abortion, so I know why women get abortions. I had my abortion years before I was dx'd with Aspergers. But after my dx, I quickly found out there's this insane, irrational and detached-from-reality segment of autistics who freak out and talk nonsense about how people would abort if they found out their future child might have autism because autism so horrific to them. Anyone who has had that kind of conversation about abortion, regardless of what you think about abortion, is not living in the real world.

NO ONE--and I mean absolutely NO ONE--takes that kind of kneejerk attitude towards having an abortion. For starters, the simple event of getting pregnant puts you in a pretty serious, reality-based state of mind. Everything about you, your body and your life will never be the same. So from that point on, any choices you make about that pregnancy will have that same level of gravitas. Since few things in life have the same level of gravitas that getting pregnant does, it's understandable that people who haven't been pregnant, let alone consider an abortion, don't get it. Yet for some reason, that ignorance doesn't seem to stop them from moralizing on it, does it?

I had my abortion almost 20 years ago and since then I've talked with many women and heard many stories from women like me. NONE ever approached abortion so casually. Yet I have see repeatedly how people who have no effing idea what it is like to find yourself having to consider abortion talking as if it's a light-weight choice, like the kind of car you'll buy or what kind of curtain you want in your living room. Women who consider abortion are weighing far heavier choices than anything like that. It may be a choice between having another baby when you already have 2, 3 or 4 kids. It may be a choice about whether you can raise child on your own. It may be a choice of having a baby versus leaving an abusive partner. It could be a choice between a difficult,,even potentially life-threatening pregnancy or sparing your body, your fertility and your life. And it could be in cases where disability is an issue, a matter of what quality of life you can give your future child, and whether you can provide that quality of life for that child for her or his entire life if they would not be able to be self-supporting.

Do you have any real concept of what it is like to raise a disabled child? Do you have any idea what such parents face? Quality of life includes not just the time, money and effort it would take to care for a disabled child, plus medical care, support services, and providing a proper education. It also includes how you would protect that child from scorn, isolation, prejudice, even abuse and neglect at the hands of people you would have to trust to care for that child. And if it's a disabled child who could potentially out live you, how would you be sure that child continued to get the quality of care that you want for them?

Some potential parents know they would do anything to make sure their disabled child would get the best life possible. Other may not be so sure they could provide the quality of life they would want for their child. Others yet know they simply could not provide for a disabled child, for whatever reasons. What those reason may be, however, isn't really for you to judge. Everyone's circumstances are different. And reality is, some people really cannot provide for a disabled child or genuinely do not think their child would have the quality of life they believe a child should have. And if these people were to opt for abortion, it would be out of their own conscience--a conscience they have EVERY right to follow. These ideas that people abort out of fear of disabled children isn't a reality--it's paranoid theoretical gobbledygook that people who have had no life experience regarding abortion throw around in casual conversations like the one you had. That's a luxury you get to have, so enjoy it, but for those of us who had to face these choices, we have no choice but to live in the real world where there's no easy, pretty options to serious problems like how to provide quality of life to a disabled child in the society we live in.

Now, you didn't want to talk about abortion, although you did just that. You were just looking of an excuse to justify your childish stance on abortion and so you saw it in your friend's equally childish response. This then let you fallaciously link abortion to a fear of autism, and thus by juxtaposing abortion with fear of autism, you've implied that abortion allows people an easy way out. Except that's not reality, as I've outlined for you. Choosing to have an abortion is not easy for anyone. So it's a very warped notion of abortion you are pushing to even suggest it could be, ever, for anyone, and it's demeaning, callous and bigoted towards women and parents who have to face these extraordinarily difficult circumstances.