Persons who believe in the philosophy known as neurodiversity, that autism is not a disease or devastating disorder or in some cases state it is not even a disability, are full of nastiness and dirty tricks. They insult people they disagree with, calling them Nazis, they insult the mothers of autistic people who desire a cure, and even essentially bring back the Bettelheim era, claiming the person's disability comes from a mother who taught them to hate themselves. They even stoop to making fun of the person's disability in some instances.
One of the dirtiest tricks they play is the murder card. From time to time autistic children are murdered by their parents. In one recent instance a woman smothered her 6 month old child, believing the child was autistic and claiming she could not bear the thought of having an autistic child because of the costs to society and the inconvenience to herself. Without fail, whenever that happens, those of us who want a cure and/or state the truth about what a devastating disability autism is or present figures about the monetary costs of this disability are blamed for these murders. We are told these murders would not happen if everyone felt the same way neurodiversitites did and we just accepted autism as a natural variation of genetics and brain wiring.
Autism self-advocacy network stalwart Paula C. Durbin-Westby does not fail to disappoint. On a blog ironically titled The thinking person's guide to autism she writes a propaganda laden post at how terrible we are and how it is all our fault that these kids are murdered. She trots out some of the most ludicrous arguments imaginable, including quoting the post Joseph of the Natural variation blog wrote more than four years ago which was a pathetic attempt at debunking the costs of autism to society. He quoted employment statistics that he could not give the source to when I asked him, but assuring me he did not make it up. He also gave Vernon Smith and Bill Gates as examples of autistic persons. I have shown that Vernon Smith has no diagnosis of an ASD, but rather diagnosed himself by taking an AQ test, a nonstandardized instrument that in no way can be used to give a legitimate diagnosis. I have covered the problems with diagnosing Bill Gates in a variety of places, so I won't repeat those arguments here.
All I want to say to members of the neurodiversity movement and the autistic self advocacy network is that you're hurting your own cause by using such nasty propaganda tactics. You're only making yourselves look like the nasty people that you are. You accomplish nothing. It is an absolute disgrace that you have to insult people and use murder to bolster your positions because you have no facts to back up your deranged philosophy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I felt sick reading the blog posts that attempted to turn that tragedy into a vehicle for extremist views.
The story was a horrible case of post-natal depression, not a story about autism; the autism comment was incidental to what happened. It was a chance to discuss and better understand her sad mental state and lack of real support, but was distorted into a political piece for another agenda. It was also quite simply a story of the loss of a young and innocent life. That this was used in that fashion, to further agendas in this way, was deeply insulting to my eyes. It was not nobel to distort it and use it in that way, it was an abuse of that poor woman and her baby.
I feel very strongly about this, it really does churn my gut to see them used in that way. Thank you for speaking out against that abuse.
Post a Comment