Rethinking Autism: Autistics Speak Video

Post Reply New Topic

I do assume people knowing their child will be born on the autism spectrum will abort rather than deal with it; hence my analogy to India. In Hindu culture, and in most of India's culture, boys are prized and girls are not. Parents will abort their unborn daughters rather than have to pay a dowry, which has lead the male:female ratio in India to slant. Autism is very expensive to treat, and is clearly not looked upon well. Gene therapy wouldn't change brain function, as neurons don't reproduce. As a side note, I don't consider abortion in and of itself to be wrong; I consider some scenarios, such as my fear, amoral, but not necessarily others.

Going further has lead to the death of some children, because many kinds of 'therapies' used to 'cure' autism don't work, and instead cause physical harm. Sometimes it's better to do it the slow way.

What does the fact that neurons don't reproduce have to do with genetic problems? Those neurons still have functions that need to be carried out, including ones that deal with connections to each other that need to be sufficient. Genes are responsible for those functions being carried out. Some variants of such genes can weaken or enhance their performances.

What "therapies"? Gene therapy hasn't been tried on autism. So what you're saying isn't relevant. The slow way isn't better. You just don't know what's out there.

good vid that not the most engizing but then thats not the point

When Autism Speaks talks about a "cure", they seem to use it as a euphemism for genocide. When a parent talks about a "cure", they seem to want something that will magicaly make their child "normal". Sometimes I wonder if autism is just a set of personality quirks than an actual "disease". Growing up autistic is going to play a role in the development of a person's personality and idenity. Is it possible to "cure" a personality? I don't know, it seems like if you were able to cure autism, it would basicaly make the person into someone else.

@ dalurker
I am an autistic person. Autism is an integral part of who I am and it cannot be separated from me, just as I cannot be separated from my height, my gender, or my left handedness. Without autism, there is no me.
Autism is not a disability in itself, it's a difference accompanied by disabling features (just as my gender is accompanied by some disadvantages).
Good therapy works on nullifying those disabling features, which vary from person to person, and working with autistic individuals to overcome their unique challenges and capitalize on their unique strengths.
As far as the promise of gene therapy goes, we've been down this road before, with down's syndrome. It's not a hyothetical, when a test for a highly stigmatized developmental difference is developed (and don't be fooled it will be before any gene therapy is so much as a twinkle in a scientist's eye) ,fetuses identified by the test are aborted the overwhelming majority of the time. In a culture as toxic to Autism as ours is now, developing these technologies is nothing short of eugenics.
Imagine what would happen if there was a neonatal test for gayness. What would happen to the LGBTAQ population and what kind of message would it send to living gay people?
Even if gene therapy or any other unautieifying wunder-procedure were a real, imminent possibility that would be wrong too, Removing Autism from an autistic person would be nothing else then putting a stranger in their bodies.
There will be no cure, just as you can't cure gayness, or femaleness, or blackness or whatever, as inconvienent and painful as those things may be, they are essential to human identity and they can't be stripped away without irrevocable damage.

Sometimes it's hard to be who we are, whoever that may be, but that's life and autistic life is worth living, valuing, and protecting.

Stop repeating recycled lies. Your side are the only ones saying the stuff you use to make up claims, so you have no credibility. Stop screaming murder to scare others away from devising cure, which is being pursued to end oppressive disability. You have enough ability/skills/talents of your own. It's time to let someone else have some, which is what cure would do. Stop saying the word "quirk" to conjure up in others' minds, a small genius child who is so enthusiastically wondered about by the adults around them, they lose all sense of what matters.

If your way of dealing with others, as shown by what you just have been saying, is what constitutes a great personality, then I detest "personality".


If you being the person who you are means being extremely high functioning at the expense of keeping others down and low functioning, then yes, I want your status/identity to change. It's not my fault you couldn't stand living without being above others. There are many who are burdened with their impairments who don't get to do much with the persons who they are.

First of all, why are you mentioning such therapies, when you don't even want disabling features to be eliminated? And what therapies remove all of the disabling features for all autistics?

Leftie high five? Only no touching, cause I hate touching people.

You seem to enjoy a good strawman argument. Have you tried reading?

I read between the lines.

Oh good grief.

I can't get the stupid video to run.

Many times, before I was frightened back into shadows, I dreamed of making an "I am autistic, and I can speak for myself" video and hoping it would go viral.

Wouldn't it be nice if WE could accept the diversity that exists within autism and learn to work together in everyone's interests??

Since we can't seem to do that, how the hell do we expect NTs to do it???

**sigh**

I'll tell y'all the same thing I told the Christians and the Pagans before I gave up on both of them and walked back into the woods. "I will light a candle and say a prayer for the lot of us. Be safe, be happy, be blessed."

IF an organization can define YOU by a set of diagnostic criteria THAT changes as frequently as the dearly departed Liz Taylor changed husbands THEN i would have to be of the opinion THAT such an entity SPEAKS for AUTISM.


They giveth and they taketh.

*Just an opinion and should be taken as such

TheSunAlsoRises

I agree with everything that's said in that video, hands down.

I hate autism speaks with a passion but I agree with the video