Autism Speaks Abortion

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Getting rid of debilitating symptoms without the destruction of children's lives would be fantastic. However, I doubt that Autism Speaks is headed by responsible or caring people with good intentions for us.

I am only convinced by results. My feeling has always been that the underlying genetics of Autism are everywhere in the population, and just as there is with many other conditions, environmental conditions can make the difference in whether or not a condition is disabling or just a difference.

The government of the United States has refused to fund environmental research on Autism, instead directing the monies almost entirely toward genetic research, because of past research that showed the debilitating symptoms of Autism as caused almost entirely by genetics. A quick look at the Autism Speaks website shows a number of new breakthroughs in understanding the effect of potential environmental factors that we did not have before.

I see it as a breakthrough because I think it shows that the genetics we see as underlying Autism are not necessarily just genetic defects, but an interaction of environmental factors and genetics that for some cause debilitating symptoms.

It means a prenatal genetic test is not as likely for Autism now, and that the government will likely be more receptive to funding environmental research rather than going strictly the prenatal "defective genetics", route.

If nothing else, some have thought there is somekind of eugenics scheme behind Autism Speaks; the results of this science proves that Autism Speaks has no hidden agenda or ability to control research results; they are as excited as everyone else about the results. Environmental factors can be altered, genetic defects are much more complicated to fix.

Also, there are preconceived notions about Autism Speaks, that are partly the result of miscommunication; Autism Speaks has designed a new website with new initiatives for the Adult population for with Autism, that haven't existed before. It is evident they are listening to criticism and evolving as an organization. If you haven't looked at their new website, check it out if you want to, and see if you think they are evolving in a positive direction for the benefit of all autistic people.

I would be interested to see what your objective opinion is on if or how much they are evolving as an organization in a postive direction for all Autistic people, after you check it out.

I didn't hear about Autism Speaks until well after most of the controversies were resolved a few years back, so my preconceived notions about the organization have been more about what they are doing now that what they have done in the past. .

http://www.autismspeaks.org/news

I had an abortion once the doctor said it was a bit big. Then I had to wait til after christmas til the next year to get it done, then it was even bigger.

I am completely against abortion, even under the harshest circumstances. Abortion is murder; it doesn't matter what you call it, it doesn't matter how you think of it. Turning a blind eye to or euphemizing this major and way-too-common type of human rights abuse just won't work. An attitude (not people) I hate even more than being pro-abortion is turning a blind eye to the issue altogether. Unfortunately, this is how most people in our society are. If people would at least open their minds to the issue instead of ignoring it, we would begin to see some progress in our society, but if things keep going the way they are now, nothing will ever even come close to getting solved.



One thing I hate is the term "pro-choice". First of all, it's very ambiguous, and secondly, does the unborn baby get a choice of whether he/she wants to be killed? I am not at all against women's rights, which is probably the most commonly-used excuse for justifying abortion. On the contrary, part of why I'm pro-life (and specifically anti-abortion) is because I believe in women's rights. Even though I'm not a woman and will therefore never be pregnant, I have a lot of sympathy for women because I know that pregnancy is hard, tiresome, and painful, both physically and emotionally. Unfortunately, humans evolved so that it would always be women who gave birth, which I think is very sexist on nature's behalf. However, while a woman might feel very uncomfortable being pregnant and giving birth, she most likely will not die from it. The baby, however, will certainly die if he/she is aborted, and even unborn babies can feel pain. Probably more than half of the babies that get aborted are women, because boys are honoured in most societies much more than girls, and people might therefore decide to get an abortion if they find out that their unborn child is a girl. This is a serious problem, especially in China, where there is a terrible one-child policy and most people want to make sure that their one child is a boy. In modern-day China, young men are finding it very hard to find women of their age to date or marry because most of those women were killed before they were even born.



It is also common for people to decide to have an abortion if they know that their baby will turn out to have a physical or mental disability. Having Asperger's syndrome, I am rather sensitive to this fact because it means that I could have been aborted if my parents knew before I was born that I had autism (knowing my parents, especially my dad, they would never have an abortion, though). This is becoming more and more common as pre-natal screenings become more and more advanced.



Though a classic argument for abortion is that it gives women a choice of what they want to do with "their own body" (though while they're pregnant, their body completely affects that of the baby), women are often forced or severely pressured into an abortion by their boyfriends/husbands, friends, family members, or even strangers such as abortionists. This may be because the women's partner doesn't want to have to raise a child, or because the women's family is disgraced that their daughter, sister, etc. is ashamed that she got pregnant. This is especially common in teen pregnancies.



I am not against family planning or contraceptives, provided that people know that if they engage in sexual intercourse, they may have to face the reality of having to look after a child, at least during pregnancy. This is due to the fact that no contraceptives are perfect, no matter how effective they claim to be. Though it is a terrible thing when women get raped, aborting the baby that was conceived due to the rape isn't going to solve any problems. After all, it's not the baby's fault that the woman got raped. In fact, bringing a new human being into the world that can be loved and cared for can be a positive result of a terrible thing. Although it's best if a child is raised by his/her biological parents, the baby can be put up for adoption if the parents are for some reason incapable of looking after the child. There are many couples in this world who are infertile and are looking to adopt, and this would be an extremely kind and loving thing to do.



Part of the unfairness of abortion isn't just abortion itself, but the laws that circle around it. In a nation that prides itself on democracy and freedom of speech, freedom of speech is often abused, even by the governments that promote democracy. For example, people are not allowed to protest, no matter how peacefully, within a certain distance of an abortion clinic. I heard a story of this one woman who spends a large portion of her life in jail simply because she's speaking out against abortion, which is a terrible crime to humanity. She is a petite woman in her 50s who stands peacefully outside an abortion clinic, holding an anti-abortion sign while doing absolutely nothing else except praying the rosary. Almost every time she does this, the police come and throw (yes, I mean throw!) her into their cab and take her off to jail. She has even spent several Christmases in jail due to this. Even though this has happened to her so many times, she continues to defy the law in this manner just to speak out against human rights abuse.



The police are more likely to arrest someone for protesting outside an abortion clinic than they are for many other, more serious crimes, and you know why that is? It's because protesting against abortion could potentially stop many people from making money. You see, abortionists get paid for every abortion they perform, and if people begin to realize that abortion is wrong and stop having abortions, the so-called doctors will be out of a job. So moneymaking is more important in the eyes of the law than the right for human beings to live. And they have the nerve to promote freedom and democracy! Wow, you have no idea how much that angers me!



I find it very ironic the way the belief in any human rights is considered liberal, except for the rights of the unborn, which are considered conservative. I am a strong supporter of rights of the unborn, and I consider myself to be a very liberal person. I hate the way that even though liberal politicians tend to have views and values that I agree with, most of them support abortion. This means that the only tendency of "conservative" politics that I like is the only "liberal" tendency that I hate. This means I'm going to have some trouble voting once I'm old enough.



Also, I hate the way that it seems like if you believe in LGBT rights such as same-sex marriage, you must also support abortion, but if you're against abortion, you must be against LGBT rights as well and think that LGBT people are a sin by definition. I, on the other hand, support both LGBT rights (same-sex marriages, etc.) and the rights of the unborn, and I would like to know that there's at least one other person on this planet who supports both these causes.



A major problem with the abortion issue is that the media (who try to focus on it as little as possible) disillusion people by giving the impression that supporting abortion is supporting women's rights, when it is, in fact, quite the opposite. People should realize that abortion hurts both unborn babies and pregnant women, both physically and emotionally. Therefore, abortion is a terrible crime against humanity under any circumstances.



P.S. I know this "article" is very biased, as all articles and essays are, but I hope people will read it and give it some serious thought anyway.

It's so cute how men feel the need to babble on about why abortion is a horrible horrible crime. You're never going to be in a position to decide whether or not to abort.

Also, fetuses are not the same as full-blown babies. I'm sure you have no problem eating meat or killing insects, and cows, pigs, mosquitoes, etc. are far more aware than fetuses. Fetuses can't even survive outside the womb.

I have no problem with abortion.

That being said, you don't need to have one to oppose Autism Speaks.
Half a million dollar salaries for officers, multiple heads of their research teams resigning in protest, the whole vaccine wild goose chase bullsh*ttery, funding of chemical chelation of CHILDREN...it's outright horrifying.

That's aside from their commercials about Autism likening it to cancer and AIDS.

I am sure Aids and cancer are very important issues. However people with autism who want treatments / cures to be developed have the right under the law and should be afforded the dignity to take autism seriously to find support in improving their choices to treatments.

There has been much controversy associated with the vaccine and chelation therapy issues, but Autism Speaks neither supports the idea that vaccines cause autism, or funds chelation therapy. At one point in 2007 there was a proposal to study chelation therapy that the NIH determined was not safe that Autism Speaks, in part, would have funded along with government funding, but it's a moot point because it never happened.

Chelation is not FDA approved to treat Autism. Those children that particpate in the treatment must be tested for heavy metal poisioning before the treatment can be approved. It is approved for heavy metal poisioning but that is a different issue from Autism.

From Wiki:



The research scientists that quit in protest, were concerned that any additional research might convince some parents that vaccination of their children was not safe. The research that continues is accepted as valid and important research among many in the scientific community, particularly in light of the latest research that shows environmental factors to play a much larger role that previously assumed. Autism Speaks though does continue to support vaccines as safe for the majority of children, through the criticism of many of their supporters that believe vaccines are still a major cause of Autism.

The previous director of the National Institute of Health, maintains that there is still a possible link between vaccines and autism, and continued research is important to determine what the link might be.

A continued reported salary of $600K, from sources on the internet, of Chief Scientific Officer, Geraldine Dawson is a bit of an exagerration if all factors aren't taken into account, her base salary was in the mid $300K range with a one time moving expense allowance in the mid $200K range. This is not unusual at all for a non-charitable organization that raises funds close to $90 million dollars for a cause.

It is a huge world wide organization; the skills and credentials required to maximize the efficiency of the organization, are not a common commodity, it requires a lifetime of specialized skills and training; they earn every dime of their pay as long as they continue to produce results that are expected by their level of compensation; the salaries are in legally required limits for non-profit organizations of the size of Autism Speaks.

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This is just a statistical statement that is quoted by many informational souces on Autism. If one does a google search on the statement many different organizations state it and support it.

Anyone can add the statistics up to figure out the numbers, it is a factual statement, and no exagerration. There is no suggestion here that Autism is any worse than these conditions, just that more children are diagnosed with Autism than the other three conditions combined.

I'm not sure how someone can find statistics offensive; at first I thought there might be a suggestion here that autism was worse than the other conditions, which I would find illogical and offensive for any professional organization to state, but it is just statistics on frequency, no actual subjective judgement on which illness is worse.

While some still may not support the level of compensation, areas of research, and wording of advertisements, taken all the actual facts in consideration, I don't see anything currently horrifying about any of this, or anything autism speaks is currently doing. I challenge anyone to present any actual facts of what they are currently actually doing, backed up by evidence, that could reasonably be considered "horrifying".

I do agree that chelation of children as a direct cure for Autism, rather than heavy metal poisoning determined necessary by a doctor would indeed be horrifying, since it's not FDA approved and can cause children harm; If anyone can provide actual evidence that Autism Speaks actually promotes and funds chelation for children, I agree they are doing something I agree is horrifying, but I have researched it thoroughly and can find no evidence of it.

Potential funding for a research project by a reputable organization like the National Institute of Health in to whether or not chelation is an effective means of treating autism, that was never carried out, is certainly not funding of chemical chelation of children.

There is a horror, the government.

Government regulates, and takes bribes. The largest was over Tetra Ethel Lead, which was well known to cause all sorts of problems, but it did allow gas to be less refined, to use a larger percentage of things like Benzine, also harmful, so it was slightly cheaper for oil companies, which added to profits.

We did not discover that lead causes mental development problems in 1972, it was long known, but the government allowed it, under a standard that was based on excess deaths. Since death from lead was rare, they allowed it. The same is known of medicines and vaccines, A small percentage will just die, or have development problems. This is accepted.

Shellfish and peanuts kill, No way of telling beforehand, so it is accepted that some will die. Vaccines do have a government fund that pays for excess deaths caused, and it happens, and they pay. No one would produce vaccines knowing they would be held liable. It is a known risk, X out of a million will die from vaccines, but a lot more will not die because of vaccines.

The whole vaccines story is lawyers seeking government payouts for one in a hundred. All studies have shown no connection. Asperger knew autism, and Aspergers before vaccines were common. It is nothing new.

Autism Speaks faced the problem head on, did investigate everything, and did disprove it. Vaccines do cause some deaths, some developmental problems, but not autism.

They also investigated genetic defect. If it had been found that one marker proved autism, it would have lead to abortions. Their research proved that many genes were involved, and beyond that, those genes were common. Many people had the same without autism.

Freaking out over abortions that never happened and going on and on after proof has been provided that it will never happen, it just pushing hot buttons. There were 40,000.000 abortions of normal babies, a few known to be defective, identified birth defects, some Downes, most in fact, but that was a very small percentage, compared to normal humans aborted.

Most abortions do not start with genetic screening, because we are still not good at it and it is expensive. Abortion is elected because of other reasons.

Since no one has ever been aborted because of autism, it is not a good place to go on the anti abortion band wagon. It is a hot button, being played where there has never been a case.

Like vaccines, the case for abortion has been fully investigated, and proven that no genetic test could be devised, thanks to grants from Autism Speaks.

Along the way, the twins study, with Autism Speaks grants, proved that autism could not be only genetic. If it was, identical twins would have identical outcomes, but it often was only one twin. Genetics at most might be part of the problem. There is something else still unknown.

As for being over paid, a Chief Science Officer overseeing $50,000,000 in grants, could likely make more working for the drug companies, or teaching. If you want top talent, you have to pay for it. I think it was a wise hire. Doing the same for a drug company would come with stock options, so taking the Autism Speaks job was giving up potential long term income.

Autism Speaks comes along long after Roe vs Wade. It was the law of the land before they started. Nothing they have done has lead to a single abortion. Nothing they have done is likely to lead to a single abortion.

Back to the Lead, Industry was happy, the Government was happy, some dogooders proved it was causing mental retardation, and all lead was pulled from the market overnight. Industry knew, Government knew, but continued till someone else exposed it.

The Government will not fund anything but genetic study, Autism Speaks is alone seeking an enviormental cause. If they find it, products will be pulled off the market over night and a profitable business will end.

It was people like Ralph Nader that forced the Government to regulate autos. Auto deaths per mile are way down thanks to some extra expense in building cars, that the companies already knew about, but did not use because profits were higher without them. It was not minor, your chances of living through a crash have more than doubled.

Government and industry accepted excess deaths, do you?

Birth control has stopped more people being born than abortion ever thought of. Taking it back a step, sex is the problem. Sex should be regulated, made impossible, till married people want a child, and have been approved by their church.

The Abortion story is about regulating the sex lives of others. Birth control lead to more sex, and no accountability. Holding them to being baby farms when birth control fails is the same story. They should pay for their sins.

The same people against abortion, have no problem with killing 100,000 in Iraq. Who knows how many in Afganistan, and other places we bomb in secret, drones and Hellfire missiles. Hellfire does seem a Christian name. All life is not sacred, like our wars it is optional.

Now there are a few that are against us killing people proven to have murdered many just for fun. It gives them something to do. Often they marry them, and spend some quality time together. Others come here to claim people are trying to kill us, in the future, with cyborgs. So they have come back in time to warn us.

There is more strange stuff than autism going around.

Have I missed something here? Is there some other use for prenatal testing? They want to identify the cause so they can stop the disorder.

Treatment and therapy does not necessarily need this information to be successful.

Autism Speaks talked directly to that point last year per email response to a member here as linked here:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt134955.html

Their ideology is clearly stated as the development of a definiive prenatal test might lead to temper or correct developmental problems during gestation.

There's not much they could do if others decided to use the prenatal test for other uses.

Anyway, the genetic and environmental research they have helped fund to this point, make the likelyhood of a definitive test extremely unlikely because of the over 100 genetic markers found and the evidence that environment plays a larger role that previously thought in the past.

Actually Autism Speaks has done more to ensure there won't be a definitive test than they have to ensure there will be a prenatal test. The major research precluding the development of a prenatal test has occured over the last year. It's almost a moot point now.

I never feared that it would lead to genetic testing. A disorder labelled as a 'spectrum' because it does not have a single set of clear, consistent characteristics across the board never seemed a likely candidate for easily identifiable single gene expression.

And this 'tempering and correction' prenatally. Is there some precedence for this? Have other developmental disorders been treated prenatally? I'm aware of of certain physical afflictions being treated in utero but developmental disorders? Has there been some huge leap in understanding that I have missed? Have they learned something that points to this as even a possibility?

I would personally prefer to see research money going towards therapy and treatment with some hope of reasonable effectiveness.

With a developmental disorder, it starts in the womb. Just looking at families with autism, there might be some clues. If a turning point was found, chemical, it might be blocked, and this is still a study of unknowns, so look at everything. Study to date has ruled out everything studied.

There is really no precedence for autism, it's unique and becomes more complex the more that is learned. There is definitely a precedence though for prenatal intervention, when something is detected wrong developmentally, even if it is a developmental abormality detected by ultrasound doctors can understand better what to do to correct a developmental problem like a heart defect as soon as a child is born.

Part of the idea of tempering the condition of autism through a prenatal test was understanding prenatally that the child was autistic to provide the best intervention for positive outcomes soon after the child was born. While indirect, this was money invested for the potential of better treatment outcomes.

The research was to find out if anything could be done during gestation, and the current research regarding environmental factors may lead to prevention of environmental rather than genetic factors that are problems during gestation or during the birth process.

They wouldn't have got to this point though, without the research. Autism is going to be around for centuries to come, the scientific community and government would be foolhardy not to pursue every avenue they can to prevent the more debilitating symptoms of autism; it could mean the quality of life for someone for a lifetime. The ability to speak as opposed to the ability not to speak.

This is the way that many people that support the efforts of organizations like autism look at it, not just from the perspective of their child that has autism but from the empathy that one gains from having a child with a serious disability, and the desire to ensure that another child born has a better opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Inventor said it better, I think, in fewer words.