Is it ethical for us to have children?

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It was mentioned in the OP about the fear of passing on the "bad" genes. Bad? Is Asperger's bad? I suppose it depends on the individual with Asperger's as to whether or not they view it as bad. For me, and as it is with others here, I view Asperger's as a gift. I am extremely happy to have been born and lived the life I have lived so far. I have enjoyed it. Challenges? Yes. But everyone has challenges, autistic or not.

Kids? I have two. One was formally diagnosed with Asperger's, the other probably has it too. Are they happy? Yes ... extremely happy. And they have been successful so far. As compared to the NT kids of people I know, I can say that the raising of my kids has been quite easy.

Imagine the world without Asperger's. Think of all the people with Asperger's who have made valuable contributions to the world. The absence of this form of autism would have had a negative impact on the history of civilization. It has taken autistics and NTs together to make the advances of this world.

To be born again on this earth, I would want to be born with Asperger's again. And I am happy with my children. I cannot imagine them any other way.

That's hard to say. What importance do ethics have in this situation? Since when is the world an ethical place? That's just stuff that people made up, mostly to control or use against each other. If most people really cared about ethics and applied them to their own behavior, would people like us be cast out and bullied for their differences? Everywhere you go, you see hypocrites who talk a good game but participate in this process without even thinking about it. So is the whole concept of ethics really important here? I'm not going to say that an autistic person having children is or is not ethical. That's putting a burden solely on them, that the rest of the society should also be responsible for. If people treated each other fairly, we wouldn't even have to ask this question.

Understanding and acceptance of autistic people is coming along very slowly in my country, and the accommodations for them are inadequate. Until that situation improves, I won't even consider having children, nor would I in good conscience recommend it to anyone else with ASD. And that advice isn't ethical--it's practical.

I have a daughter.
Right now, I'm fairly certain she, too, is autistic to some extent.

I got married really young.
The pregnancy just kind of happened and eventually, we decided to keep the child.
This was long before I was diagnosed; she was born 16.5.2011, whereas I wasn't diagnosed until November 2014. Obviously, people (myself included) were aware there was something "off" about me.

Yeah, it's taxing.
But to be honest, I'd much prefer the way things were.
At the moment, I'm not even allowed to see her without supervision.
It's especially frustrating since I know I understand her better than most people.

Anyway.
If we say autistic people shouldn't have kids, then where do we draw the line?
What about schizophrenics? Or those afflicted with cerebral palsy? Obese people? Asthma can kill you, y'know.
And the whole "b-but they can't take care of the child"-argument doesn't really stand, as the most horrible parents I've ever had the misfortune of knowing were not diagnosed with anything at all. Alcoholics often actively make things worse for everyone by, well, getting drunk. Alcoholics are everywhere. People might look down at them when they're staggering past with their kid, smelling like a booze-drenched corpse, but I've never heard anyone say they shouldn't be allowed to have kids at all, specifically because of their problem.

I'd rather be raised by an Aspie mother than a drug-addict for a mother like so many children are these days. Most of them just pop out one kid after another by different men. My friend who works in a school said that a lot of 4 and 5-year-olds are still in nappies because their parents don't potty-train them properly, because of being too wrapped up in their own lives. I know there has always been kids not raised properly, but it seems to have gotten more common now than ever. I don't know what's happened to today's generation. And no, not ALL kids born in the 80's, 90's and 2000's are like it, but I'm just saying it's become more common now than before.

My theory is that Aspie children will continue to be born whether Aspies choose to become a parent or not. The reason is that it seems that the autistic genes seem to be able to skip generations and show up in some family members and not in others. For instance, I am completely NT. However, my husband, not diagnosed as an Aspie, has very strong Aspie tendencies. I knew nothing about Asperger's when we were dating. I knew that he seemed a little uptight about certain things, but I loved him anyway and we ended up marrying. Well, our son was born with full blown Asperger's. Once I started doing research and realized that autism has a genetic component to it, I started noticing that a few of my husband's family members seemed to fit the Aspie label although none of them had ever been diagnosed. I still don't think my husband has full blown Asperger's, but he is definitely borderline.

Also, I have read that Aspies can have NT children as well. So, I think the main question is are you up to being a parent no matter what? It is not a responsibility to be taken lightly, but so fulfilling.

OF COURSE ASD people have NT children. There are many such parents here!

Autism is not "heritable" in the Mendelian sense. Its causation is a variety of things: heredity, epigenetic, environmental.

There are many ASD people who make excellent parents. There are many NT people who make poor parents.

You should read the Parents' subforum.

To be truthful, I DO NOT think it is ethical to have children, but for another reason: There are 7 Billion of us already. Earth really cannot handle that many. The future is going to be awful with wars, shortages and environmental disaster and most of those problems are cause by too much human overpopulation.

As a single, older man with aspergers, I am grateful I never had any kids because there is no way I could handle the mess, noise, and crying of children. Also, with the employment problems most of us have, how are we going to support children at all? One thing I have found is most people on the autistic spectrum (with notable exceptions like Bill Gates) are on the working poor to poor classes.

At least you are asking the question. I think most people breed because they are careless with having unprotected sex and that's how the children "just come".

Also, Nagalis, if you have your daughter, please use birth control and don't have any more kids. Believe me, being aspie in a large family can be hell.

I'm on the Spectrum. I've had a decent job for 34 years. I just never felt an impending need to have a baby (though I regret that I do not have a son/daughter).

There are many people on this Site who have an ASD, have kids, and are able to support them well in a financial and emotional--whether they are the primary breadwinner or not.

Sorry about the multiple posts, is there any way to delete 4 of them?