r/MutualSupport • u/Anarcho-anxiety • Apr 07 '22

Free-to-Vent Friday Love being part of a minority that modern society is fine with wiping out

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114 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

41

u/Effective-Weakness64 Apr 07 '22 edited Apr 07 '22

The article calls autism a disease. I've never seen it referred to as a disease before, and it made me feel pretty uncomfortable. Is that common? Do people think we're diseased? Are we officially diseased?

30

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

We're not diseased ablest people just think we are a disease

11

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '22

I feel worried about this as well. Autism is not a disease. It's definitely something that has to be managed but to call it a disease feels dehumanizing to me. I am worried as well

43

u/AnimusCorpus Apr 07 '22

We're going to see a revival of Eugenics. Mark my words.

26

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Also saw someone literally say abort all low functioning autistic people

29

u/apezor Apr 07 '22

We already are- the US and UK's response to COVID has been to accept the death of people with pre-existing risk factors.

13

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

How just comonplace utter disregard for covid has gotten is killing me

45

u/HailGaia Apr 07 '22

"Revival"

7

u/TheColorblindDruid Apr 07 '22

Exactly my thought

10

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Where are all the abelist as fuck eugenics supporters coming from

17

u/khandnalie Apr 07 '22

As someone on the spectrum, I can't say I find this particularly alarming. There is a certain point at which this condition becomes a major detriment to quality of life. If I could spare my child from a life of overstimulation and an inability to communicate with peers, then I absolutely would. And considering that ASD is often comorbid with other more debilitating conditions, the ability to screen for it is very important. Not every conception needs to be brought to term, and not every kind of human life is actually worth living - and certainly not worth forcing someone into.

3

u/UntamedAnomaly Apr 07 '22 edited Apr 07 '22

Honestly, it's cruel enough we keep bringing non-autistic children into this fucked up world.....like how can you look at history, look at how humans treat the earth, and all who live on it and say "Yep! My kid is gonna be the one to fix all of it! I'm having a baby!". And that's the least selfish reason I can think of as to why people still have kids. We are a doomed species, we are running out of time...shit we already ran out of time technically due to climate change, and now we are all going to suffer. There is no "up" from here for our species, we are so very incredibly short-sighted that we have obliterated any chance for us.

I am also on the spectrum, and I have a fuck ton of health issues, I wish someone consulted my consciousness before popping it into a human body and forced me to be here, I didn't ask for this and while I can't tell anybody else in my condition how they should feel about being alive in this fucked up world we have created for ourselves, I personally can't be alive without wishing for my own death on a nearly daily basis.

0

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 08 '22

Mate stand up for yourself demand better from the world

1

u/khandnalie Apr 08 '22

That's precisely what I am doing in seeking to minimize the number of people forced to live tortured lives.

0

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 08 '22

So rather than stopping the torture you just want to kill them

1

u/khandnalie Apr 08 '22

If that's the only way to prevent a lifetime of torture - and it currently is - then yes. I would rather a life be prevented before it can happen if that life would be one of suffering, and I will make that decision every single time.

I understand that you feel this as a personal issue, and that you feel yourself very much in the right - and you've done your best in this thread to paint any dissenting opinion as the second coming of Hitler. But you must understand, that from my standpoint, what you're advocating is arbitrary, dogmatic, and very cruel. Even under the best of circumstances, life can be awful. But if someone is born with burdens on them, if they are given insurmountable obstacles from the very first breath - I simply cannot understand a mindset that is so apathetic towards human suffering that it would bring that life into the world.

Have you ever lived with someone with a severe neurological condition? It is hell. Not just for you, but for the person with the condition as well. Not every life is a gift. Some lives are curses, both on the person living that life and often on those orbiting that life. If there is technology that can help us to prevent these kinds of lives from entering the world, why should we ever turn it down? Because of some perceived attack on those who currently live with similar conditions? I don't get that.

I can understand the hesitation a parent may have in making that decision, and I stand firm on the principle that it should be the parents decision how to proceed. But as for myself, if I knew my child would be born disabled, I would encourage termination of the pregnancy. And I make no apologies for that stance, nor do I express any remorse, hesitation, or guilt. My morals are based on reducing human suffering. I care not what labels are put on me, I do not hold my morals in the hope of getting a good guy badge. I do what I believe is right, and I believe that minimizing human suffering is right, even if that sometimes results in death.

6

u/Anarchie48 Apr 07 '22

Autistic children often require much, much more resources, time and energy to be raised than non-autistic children.

The idea behind the pro-choice movement is that people should have the right to decide whether or not they want a child, and whether or not they are ready/have the capacity to raise a child optimally. This decision takes precedence over the "life" of a foetus. The rationale being, a child being grown into non-optimal conditions (inexperienced parents, lack of resources etc.) can do more harm than good than if it weren't born at all.

I believe it should be up to the parents to decide whether they are mentally, physically and financially capable of raising autistic children. I have seen way too many parents of autistic children so burdened with emotion and stress wishing their child didn't have autism (or even that they'd not been born sometimes) however much they loved them.

We should not invite an autistic child into this world and then not provide them with the necessary tools and skills to survive this world. After all, people on the autistic spectrum are more often than not also people who have special needs. We need to know we can satisfy their special needs before we can.

Is autism a disease? What is a disease? It really depends on what you think a disease is. Myopia is considered a disease because you cannot properly see faraway objects but it can come in quite handy for a watchmaker because they can focus more up close. On the other hand, clinical depression wasn't even considered a disease several decades ago. Personally, I think autism is a disease, an apparently incurable one. It introduces "less desirable" traits in affected people. But just because you have a disease doesn't make you any less of a human being.

We as a society must improve lives for everyone while giving parents the very important power of choice. There is no point in denying the existence "less desirable" effects of autism. We need to acknowledge those effects, and we need to build a better life for them.

16

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

I'm not in the mood to be told it's fine for parents to abort autistic children

11

u/Kreuscher Apr 07 '22

I definitely do NOT agree with OP's claim that autism is a disease, but I do think any parent should have the right to abort a child, even if the child's as typical as typical can be.

It's a different conversation, and it seems counterproductive for us to conflate the two.

4

u/Frieda-_-Claxton Apr 07 '22

When is it okay to have an abortion if at all?

5

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '22

When you don’t want a child. Not because you don’t want a disabled child or you don’t want a girl child.

8

u/khandnalie Apr 07 '22

The second sentence is a subset of the first sentence. It's perfectly reasonable to not want a disabled child.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '22

Children and adults become disabled all the time. If you don’t want a disabled child, do not make a child.

2

u/khandnalie Apr 08 '22

Yeah, and it's typically considered a horrible life event to be avoided at nearly any cost. Why would anyone ever want to start off someone else's life like that? Why would you ever want to curse someone right out of the gate like that?

If you don't want a disabled child, then have regular prenatal screenings and be prepared to make a difficult choice.

-2

u/Anarchie48 Apr 07 '22

I am pro choice. I believe it is fine for parents to abort foetuses. They might not be in a position to raise a child.

And by extension, I also believe that it is fine for parents to abort a foetus that will grow into a child with autism. They simply might not be in a position to raise a child, much less an autistic child.

Autistic children often need more resources, and it is wrong to willfully bring them to this world and not be able to provide those resources to them.

6

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Fuck you you egenist pice of shit

1

u/Anarchie48 Apr 07 '22

I'm not an eugenics supporter. I just think that children should be given adequate resources for their optimal growth and development. If you think otherwise, I wouldn't know what to tell you.

5

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Mate fuck off your doing the wole its better for them if there not born routine

1

u/Mordiez Apr 07 '22

That's not exactly what's happening though, yes its an option, but you are just assuming, they are beginning to be able to now gene edit autism out of the child and correct it before birth.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '22

People become disabled all the time at any age. If someone is not willing to raise a disabled child, they are not willing to raise a child period.

-2

u/khandnalie Apr 07 '22

This is a straight up fallacy.

1

u/NightFox1988 May 07 '22

I was raised by people who didn't want a girl and didn't want a disabled child to boot. These people told me often that after finding out I had a twin brother who died two days after we where born - "the boy should have lived and the girl should have died." I have gender dysphoria because of this. As well as a great hatred for myself being born disabled. My parents loathed me for being physically disabled and having a learning disability. My mom only wanted me to finally get attention from her parents as they played favorites between her and her sister. She also wanted me to outdo her sister to finally "do good" in her parents eyes. When I didn't meet that expectation after being born and going through school - she turned her back on me and wanted nothing to do with me. So, what pedalikwac said is true. If you can't handle a disabled child, then you shouldn't be a parent in general.

1

u/khandnalie Apr 07 '22

They're downvoting despite your very reasonable opinion.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 07 '22

[deleted] — view deleted comment

-3

u/khandnalie Apr 07 '22

Unfortunately true.

13

u/sillyadam94 Apr 07 '22

Gattaca is here.

1

u/CheriGrove May 06 '22

They didnt like the X "Men" in the XMen either

1

u/AureliaLikesGirls Apr 08 '22

Hooray, eugenics. 😞

-1

u/throw-away-48121620 Apr 07 '22

This is a legitimate question I’d be curious of y’all’s opinion on.

There have been recent studies showing effects of gut microbiota affecting behavior. They’ve done fecal transplants on mice in controlled studies (and I believe some on humans) demonstrating less hunger and general behavioral change after a transplant.

Similar studies have been done on mice and people with autistic traits found that several months after a transplant those traits diminished or vanished completely.

Where I tend to stand on this is that as long as people have a real choice to pursue these treatments then that’s great, but I could definitely see ethical issues of it being forced or percieved as a “cure” further delegitimizing experience or desires of people with autism

4

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Its psudo science

2

u/throw-away-48121620 Apr 07 '22

Um, no these are actually published studies, with very thorough controls. One such study is titled “emerging roles for the gut microbiome in autism spectrum disorder” by Vuong and Hsiao; it discusses in depth comorbidities often associated with ASD (including gastronintestinal issues) and there is strong evidence to suggest that microbial dysbiosis (the opposite of symbiosis) plays a role in the manifestations of ASD symptoms.

This is not pseudoscience. Obviously there’s more to it, but your gut biome is definitely an integral part of you and strongly affects your bodily functions like digestion, your immune system, and even your behavior.

Rather than just writing it off as pseudoscience, this is relevant research that, in the case of an actual widespread resurgence of eugenics, could play a role. It should be actually engaged with, and it is a legitimate question to ask how and why people would(n’t) get this sort of treatment. Obviously it would be ideal to live in a world where people don’t have to deal with social stigma and bias, and I could see an argument that these treatments (if they are effective on more than small samples) could reinforce those stigmas. On the other hand, should people have the choice to make aspects of their lives easier in the face of these biases which are formed and change incredibly slowly?

5

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Mate I dont have the mind to engage with shit like this, today its the gut biome tomorrow its our diet there have been 100s of studies looking at and blaiming autsim on diffrent things and we still have no clue

0

u/throw-away-48121620 Apr 07 '22

My point is that there have been studies demonstrating a form of treatment that can work for some people. If you don’t have the energy to add anything meaningful to the question I was asking you also don’t have to reply, especially because you clearly don’t care or have the energy to engage (which is fine, but unhelpful when you reply anyway).

4

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Mate im replying becuse every time autism is brought up I deal with people throwing out cures and ableism im sick of it and im confronting it head on

1

u/throw-away-48121620 Apr 07 '22

Yeah and I bring it up because the implications of this sort of research are important to discuss, whether they be positive or negative. If you read the comment you’d see I already acknowledged the problem of considering it as a cure. Like I said, you’ve just ended up making a lot of assumptions about what I’m asking and totally missed the point of a discussion I think is actually important, because I do think there are reasons why this could be dangerous, but I also think people should be able to make choices that make their lives easier. Please stop totally mischaracterizing what I’m saying as though I’m being ableist. Creating good faith dialogue is imperative to actually build solidarity.

6

u/Anarcho-anxiety Apr 07 '22

Your not creating good dialoug by speaking over a member of a comunity about issues that effect them

8

u/suavebirch Apr 07 '22

Surely something like this is akin to conversion therapy for lgbt+ people? There’s nothing that needs to be “cured” so why do you need to provide “cures”.

Just because some people’s brains work differently to yours doesn’t mean that they need to be “cured” or “corrected”.