Pro-cure Planet?

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In recent months, I've become more and more irritated by the negative attitudes towards Autistism displayed on this site. When I first joined, there seemed to be an equal amount of pro-cure and anti-cure members, but there has been a noticeable shift in the balance of power on WP over these past few months and it's very concerning to me.

There are still some great people here, such as Sweetleaf, CockneyRebel, thomas81 and (as far as I'm aware) all of the moderators, but I just can't tolerate all of this UNNECESSARY negativity anymore.

I mean, some people here think that AS is worse than Schizofrenia and Cancer. CANCER?! These people have clearly lost touch with reality.

Recently, I've seen:

* A rapid increase in horrible pro-cure posts

* Some idiot claim that Autistics aren't "worthwhile" members of society

* The same brain-dead b***h insinuate that we Autistics aren't human beings

Has this forum become predominantly pro-cure now? To be clear, I don't care about whether or not Alex has released an official statement on the matter, I want to know if the majority of WP's users are pro-cure. People have told me that debate is healthy, but I refuse to degrade myself by interacting with those who seek to murder my sister, my friends and I. Yeah ... murder. That's what it is.

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I'd like to speak to some of the users who actually have some self-respect, before deciding whether I should leave permanently or not.

You don't need to leave. It is okay to disagree with some people. Personally, I don't think that a cure for Autism is the right direction for charities to be going in. I believe that working towards helping people who are here is a better idea than trying to eradicate Autism entirely through genetic research. Research is important for people to learn, but developing a prenatal test for non-severely disabling Autism should not be a priority.

I have noticed a similar phenomenon with myself, that's why I was off of wrongplanet for a while.

Huh. That's interesting. I made an account there a while back, but I haven't really used it. Maybe I should. Their beliefs seem a bit more in line with mine own.

I don't think that Alex would or should say that your membership here requires you to be of any certain opinion on anything.

I'd like a cure. I'd like something to help me figure things out faster than I do sometimes. I would love it if there had been a cure (and a dx) back when I was a kid. It would have made things so much easier for me. That doesn't mean better, better is subjective, but it would have been easier in many situations.

And yes, if I had an autistic child, and a cure was available, I would get it for them. My youngest son is completely deaf in one ear from birth. Medicaid will not pay for a cochlear implant so he can hear in that ear and by the time my MIL offered to pay for it he was old enough where his opinion was something we took into consideration too. He doesn't want it. Not out of any "I'm so proud to be deaf in one ear!! !" philosophy, but because he said things will be too loud if he gets it. He will also have trouble sleeping because he lays on his good ear to fall asleep. So, it's his choice. He can get it whenever he wants it, if he ever does. There is no window of opportunity for that. If he were completely deaf, I would have gotten him at least one, no matter what he wanted, with the option of removing it later if he wanted that.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

I think that some of the high-functioning people who want a cure are the ones with the mildest autistic traits and the most neurotypical traits. For eggsample, they seem to have the neurotypical traits of wanting to fit into groups and wanting to be "normal" and wanting to be accepted and wanting to socialize, but they lack the neurotypical skills to do so, since they also have autistic traits causing some social deficits. So they are stuck in this wanna but can't area of the spectrum, so they wanna a cure for themselves, so they get all the way to the desired "normal". For autistic people lacking these neurotypical traits and having greater autistic traits that make it impossible for them to know what other people are thinking about them or who likes them or who dislikes them or whether or not they fit into a group, they don't care that they are not neurotypical, and they don't see anything wrong with themselves for not being "normal", so they don't wanna a cure.

Maybe this is also why some of these people think of those poor unfortuate lower-functioning folks as soulless mindless zombie children. Because they can't relate to them at all, so they spew the same Autism Speaks krap that most NTs do.

I think things are closer to the middle of the road than the OP paints it, I do tend to drift away when things get more negative here in the manner described.

There's nothing to be done to control who can express these views, however, nor should there be. Online communities tend to have a certain level of churn, or new people coming in and other people leaving temporarily or permanently, and this changes the kinds of discussion over time. They'll probably swing back to a balance the OP is more comfortable with.

I do get tired of people speaking for others whom they often define so that said others cannot speak for themselves. I have seen low functioning defined as people who can in no way communicate, and thus require the advocacy of people here who make assumptions about their needs and wants. That is, the definition of "low functioning" constantly gets shifted so no one who qualifies as "low functioning" could ever participate in an actual discussion about their own needs.