Talked with my mother about "THE CURE"

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I was in the grocery store with my mother today and somehow we got on the subject of "The Cure for Autism" and I began debating that with finding a cure society could lose a lot of valuable people. I said I would hesitate about not finding some sort of genetic alteration to make some individuals more high-functioning. But this is only because I am a high-functioning individual and I would want to know what the middle- and low-functioning individuals would want, because I cannot speak for them.

And then we started talking about "the parents" and my mother said that if she had been offered some kind of "cure" at the time before my birth she would have taken it. I told her that that scared me s**tless, point of fact.

I told her I would not be the same person as I am now. And many of the things I can do, I very well might not be able to do if I had been born nonAspie.

But she did give a suggestion: that research be done as to what the autties, themselves, actually want. So that the parents might know that their child could regret their decision. And the world along with it.

Finding out what the LFAs want woud be in keeping with the best medical ethics practices regarding informed consent. I would probably be the first time anybody bothered to try and find out what they want for themselves too. Though if the researchers were unable to communicate with someone, there is such a thing as implied consent, where it is assumed that someone who is unable to convey their wishes would want whatever treatment is believed to be in their best interest. In the case of LFAs, the best course of action would be to administer a partial cure, enough so that they may exercise informed consent before continuing on with a full cure.

I like the definition of "curebie" on the Curebie BINGO cards at http://www.autistics.us/library/bingo.html:
"Curebie n. A person who wants nothing more than to teach child autistics to speak and adult autistics to shut up."

did you ever see that movie Gattaca? i always thought it did a good job of showing that what one person sees as a hindrance could be seen as an advantage to another. my fav part of the movie was the 12 fingered pianist who could play the piano better than anyone else because of his deformity. i was so happy when my bio teacher played this movie for the class when we were studying genetic engineering!

I had a very similar conversation with my mom yesterday. She keeps trying to tell me I need cured and finally I got her to understand the I like who I am and really don't approve of most of the rest of the world. If being cured meant being like everyone else (idiots in my world) why would I want that?

I had to explain that to my mom a couple of months ago too. I don't like the world and I definitely don't want to be like them.

That is how I have always felt and everyone has just gone off the deep end when I tell them I feel this way. Oh well, now after three decades they are starting to at least accept me. Although this might have more to do with them accepting my son and learning about me through him.

Tell that to someone I know. He thinks autism costs to much and people with it can't talk. Can they? I don't like him anyway but that costs too much things just mean.

It's the quacks who charge mafia prices for their BS "cures" that make the overall statistics for "treatment" look inflated.

Talk of curing autism is little more than pseudoscientific quackery. I mean it! The autistic mind is responsible for monumental achievements for all of humanity. To deprive society of its autistic people equals depriving society of genius itself!

Some can, some can't.

With the costs too much thing, I often like to point out the enormous lighting and other costs for accommodating sighted people.

I am overjoyed that I am who I am.

It scares me to think of a total "cure". Preventing people to be autistic at all. They think of people who are LFA and MFA and that they have to find a cure. But when a parent is asked if they want a cure, even if their child would end up like me, they would likely say they would want it!

This is scary. I feel there is so much I can do. And so much I enjoy. I love life-- MY LIFE-- too much to even consider myself any other way.

An autistic-free earth sounds horrible-- horrid-- humans playing God to their fullest.

...No Einstein... No Yeats... No Wittgenstein... No Tesla... What an insignificant world this would be!! !

Sophist, Tesla was Autistic? Yipee! Yay! Hazaa!

Curing AS is as stupid as saying "Let's cure genius!" or "Let's ignore Einstein!". Anyone smart enough to devise a cure is probably Autistic themselves anyways, so the cure would probably be locked away somewhere or destroyed.

In response to the "cure LFA and MFA to be HFA" thing, aside from again voicing my botheredness with the categories, I'm going to point at what I originally wrote in response to that (posted a link here awhile back):

http://www.autistics.org/library/theoakmanifesto.html

For those with metaphor problems, roughly speaking, within that article, plants are people, trees are autistic people, and non-tree plants are non-autistic people. Different species of tree are different kinds of autistic people.

And as an oak tree I don't want to be an apple tree any more than I want to be a daffodil, even if apple trees are more valued than oak trees and daffodils even more so. No desire to be cured of what I am, because it is what I am, not because of a few features of what I am that people happen to like.

Okay, point conceded. Though I'd like to know how you propose to go about learning the LFA and MFA people's wishes? Just as some AS people here want a cure and others find the thought apalling, surely there must be a variety of opinions from LFA people too if someone could find a way to survey them.

Everyone has different opinions, yes.

I don't believe in LFA though (or HFA, or MFA, despite having been labeled all three), so for finding people's opinions, you'd be on your own.

Edit: Just remembered, though, the fact that some people who want a cure will make a point of labeling themselves "lower-functioning" than those who don't want a cure, even if their form of autism is identical in every way (except opinion) to many of those who don't want a cure. That's basically a rhetorical tactic though and not a reflection of reality.