Is Science such a good thing?

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It's just a thought that's been going around my head recently. We have these scientists that are investigating the effects and the causes of Aspergers, Autism, and other mental disorders.

It's good to know the interesting facts and see if they are indeed relevant to yourself, and it's good that they've found out that it exsists in the first place, or we'd probably ujst all get labelled as trouble kids...

But can it go too far? Sometimes, I always land up thinking, what if I or any other in my situation we to be born further into the future, and scientists have been able to spot the genes of a disorder while the child is still growing inside it's mother?

How then, would a mother respond to the scientist saying "Your child has this disorder", and the mother then has the option to abort this child? Most people are ignorant to disorders like this, so basically, you have to think, that if this technology exsisted now, more than half of us would probably never have actually been born.....

Is it really these peoples right to say that we are not worthy of having a life? I know this is kind of bordering on that old topic of whether abortion is morally correct or not, but I still think that it is very relevant to the point I'm trying to make here.

I dont think anyone really has an answer to that.

I guess it hinges on the philisophical question of "If you died before being born would you be born somewhere else instead?" or the one of "if you never existed would you care?".

While society may reject auspies their skills are unique and useful to society.

It really depends on how its catagorized.. as others have stated around here NT's may call us "abnormal" or "broken" but from another perspective we simply have different strengths and weaknesses than normal making us a kind of subspecies I guess you could say.

Whether or not a parent would want to abort an auspie depends entirely on whether or not at the time the people see it as a curse or blessing.

Whether or not its morally acceptable is another matter though.

AS is one of those rare mutations that is neither entirely detrimental or entirely beneficial making it hard to decide whether its something that needs to be cured or respected and left alone.

Personally I think of auspies as a seperate social order mixed in with the bulk of humanity.. kind of a new species of human who think and interact in a significantly different manner but are no more or less deserving of the right to exist.

Scientists are already trying to develop a pre-natal test for autism.

I think it's a terrible thing. The only way to eliminate autism is to eliminate autistics. They talk about how much it costs to provide special education and therapies for us, how stressful it is for our families, how much pain we go through, and make it sound like we'd be better off never living.

There is a pre-natal test for Down's Syndrome. Up to 90% of foetuses that test positive for Down's are aborted.

I find it interesting to learn about the neurological differences in autism. I think this type of research can help doctors and therapists treat the conditions that commonly occur in autism, such as the sensory issues that can be distressing. The only pain that comes from autism comes from people's reaction to us. We think differently and experience the world differently, but we are of equal value.

Personally I think being seperated from the NTs and allowed to form our own society.. just move us all to a city of our own somewhere.. would solve 90% of the "problems".

Just let us take care of ourselves and each other I say.. its the NTs and trying to conform to their expectations and preconceptions that make our lives hell.

Instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole, move to a board with square holes made for square pegs.

"But can it go too far? Sometimes, I always land up thinking, what if I or any other in my situation we to be born further into the future, and scientists have been able to spot the genes of a disorder while the child is still growing inside it's mother? "

Actually, the Human Genome Project has indeed identified genes that code for susceptibility for Aspergers and Autism.

See e.g.: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/disp ... ?id=608781

ASPERGER SYNDROME, SUSCEPTIBILITY TO, 3

Alternative titles; symbols
ASPG3
Gene map locus 1q21-q22

The HGP is one of my current perseverations and I'm learning everything I can about it at the moment. It strikes me as amazing how many diseases/conditions and their loci are known - any yet no doctor I've ever consulted has suggested a DNA workup just to make sure: invariably they just guess your condition and chuck a broad spectrum treatment at it. I pondered this for a while before realising that it comes down to cost - it would cost an enormous amount to actually utilise all the information in the known genome and test for everything they can, in theory, now test for.

But I entirely agree, the thought of being terminated for being autistically me is abhorrent.

Thats the same way I feel about people talking about "curing" us.

Its not as simple as curing a life-threatening disease.. theyre actually advocating fundamentally changing the way a persons brain and thought processes work, which equates to changing who the person is in nearly every way.

Its the same thing as brainwashing in my opinion.

I may not particularly like being "abnormal" but I sure as hell dont want anyone changing me to be like them.

Is it really true that 90% of Down's Syndrome dx's end in abortion? When I was pregnant, I had the wrong due date and a blood test suggested my son had Down's. They called me at work to come down to do an emergency ultrasound! I thought, "what good will this do? If it's positive, then what? I'm nearly 4 months pregnant, I can't have an abortion now!"

I mean really, you don't what condition a child will be in when they are born. I'm a big pro-choice proponent, btw, you can abort for cosmetic reasons for all I care. But the medical industry pushing this idea for cure and obliteration, is completely disgusting.

The best things that have come into this world have been brought forth by "atypicals", people with severe depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, autism, Asperger's-I'm sure I am missing a lot too. It wasn't all too long ago, they sterilized Indians to kill us off too. Within my lifetime (36 years).

It's not that science is bad, it's what society does with it. Being able to detect autism during pregnancy allows society to do alot of different things with that information. It could mean abortions - or it could mean alot of people don't have to suffer through 30 or 40 years of being misunderstood.

I would just guess that abortion would be discouraged in the case of things like Asperger's. Any society that decided to abort all AS fetuses, would probably suffer too heavily in scientific and technological sophisitication. It would be frowned upon. If the issue came up, it might even force society into making a decision to validate and recognize AS more strongly, which would be a good thing.

Nonetheless there are alarming problems that may come up because of genetic science. Life or health insurance could start using genetic profiling, meaning some people with serious problems would pay exorbitant rates and many would go without. Conditions that are not seen as having little or no potential (retardation, for instance) might be aborted. And then there are other weird issues that could come up - like some parents with a disability of some sort (being deaf, for instance) might use genetic services to ensure their own child has the same handicap as them.

where would we be without science? i'll tell you where still burning people at the stake and feeding them to lions for believing there a witch or something so yeah i think science is a good thing.

There used to be allot of down syndrome people around when i was young and now i never see anymore. I think it will be the same when they develop a test for autism. They will "cure'' autism by eliminating people with autism before they are born.

I'm a bit of a fence-sitter on the issue of aborting fetuses who are found to have low potential (ie. genetic illness). But if I had to choose, I would choose to abort them all than let them be born. My reasoning is that if they aren't born then they're not going to care.

The real problem lies in defining traits that are truly undesirable and those which are tolerable. Perhaps the most ethical way to handle that question is to let each parent decide that for themselves, with no pressure from anyone.

In the words of System Of a Down:

Making two possibilities a reality,
Predicting the future of things we all know,
Fighting off the diseased programming
Of centuries, centuries, centuries, centuries.

Science fails to recognize the single most
Potent element of human existence
letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith.

Science has failed our world
Science has failed our Mother Earth.

Science fails to recognize the single most
Potent element of human existence
letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith.

Science has failed our world
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things,
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things.

letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith
letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith.

Science has failed our world
Science has failed our Mother Earth.

Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things,
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things,
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Science has failed our Mother Earth.

Remember the Film GATTICA?, people fail to realise the whole point of being human, in the film ALL defects are screened and what you were affected your role in life, if you were rich your parents could have you 'modified' and be perfect. you got a system with Haves' and have-nots, the have-nots did all the menial stuff, but one dared to dream, and fakes his way into the privilaged class of the Haves' and his other abilities made him a rising star. then when a murder takes place and they are screening everyone he is in danger of being found out... it didnt matter how good he was, it was he was 'imperfect'. the most important part of the film to me was a childhood flashback with his brother (who was 'modified' By the way) they were competing with each other in a moonlight swim, and he beats his brotherwho starts to drown, saves him... years later, near the climax of the film, he confesses to his 'modified' brother about that night, the reason he managed to win... he refused to give in, and didnt leave enough energy to make the journey back...

REMEMBER ... NOTHING can overcome the Human Spirit... think of all those people who have contributed to this world who have had defects. Einstien & Stephen Hawkins to name two off the top of my head.

My country had sterilizing-laws before Nazi-Germany even existed and people were, often on very vague diagnoses, sterilized as being "abnormal", long after Nazi-Germany was wiped of the map, to 1976 to be exact...From the 1930:s, Sweden also had an "A"-children ("A" like in "A-type", not like in "Autistic") competition each year, that just happened to take place for the last time 1945...

The State of Aspergia or Autistica perhaps?

America had sterilization too, and I think it continued into the '70s or '80s. We also had... I think they were called "fit family competitions" or something like that, where the "most eugenic family" and "most eugenic child" and so forth got awards. We also still have the remnants of the laws about who is allowed to marry and who isn't in some places. Also some people still get sterilized, not as the result of law but as the result of parents making the decision on their behalf once they hit puberty.

In fact even Germany was interested in that stuff long before Nazis existed, Nazis just took it to an extreme level and then around the world a lot of that stuff fell out of favor. (Although it's worth noting that medical killings in Germany continued after the Nazis were gone.)