Petition Against Screening For Autistic Embryos!!

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It is similar to the holocaust in the sense that the holocaust was genocide and this is. You may say abortion isn't murder - Though I think that aborting a 5 months old embryo IS murder, no matter how much you want to sugar coat it changing the name - Systematically preventing the birth of a group - ANY group, mind you, whether autism is superior or inferior is UTTERLY irrelevant - is included in the definition of genocide. I have linked to such definition plenty of times, some google won't kill you.

The less chance I have to be reborn with aspergers. the better.

Look at how Palin got attacked for "not" aborting her Down Syndrome baby; it was totally ludicrous. I think she showed true character. However, I do think it would have been okay to attack her for being a conservative as that would be based on her political views and not her personal life.

My only hope is that if a couple is so predisposed to not having autistic kids that they decide to use abortion, I hope that every one of their children shows as having autism leaving them childless. Serves them right. Or I hope their abortion goes so wrong that they cannot have any more children. Give the kid a chance and a computer and you may be surprised. I think that any child is a blessing and it can sometimes be difficult for someone to get off from folklore. The folklore is that just because a kid cannot communicate in the case of autism, in the case that you may have difficulty socializing as in AS, or the difficulty you have with intelligence in MR doesn't mean that you have something to add or contribute to the world. Anyone who wants to be outraged should read the Buck v. Bell 1927 decision.

I'd much rather have a guy like Michael Savage say that autism doesn't exist than say that we should have abortion, legalized. He believes that liberalism is a mental disease. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I do think he brings up many good points. For example, all liberals say it is a stimulus bill that will create jobs. But 95% of the bill is giving money to a charity that only uses 5% of the proceeds to either expand or use for the services its provides. I cannot believe that so many liberals are being brainwashed into believing that this is a "stimulus" bill. If it was spent on roads and bridges, it would follow Keynesian economics. I'm not even making a conservative argument; it is a liberal argument because I'm not arguing about tax cuts, but instead arguing as to how the money should be spent. Not a single Congressman read the 1100 page document; it indicates that they are too incompetent to be our representatives. I think we should connect with Al Roney and vote out all of the incumbents. You can listen to him via 810 WGY; he is a pretty "interesting" individual.

No - she should have been attacked for it. She chose to have the baby for entirely the wrong reasons (namely the bible says so and to enhance her political prospects)

Have any of you people actually dealt with people with severe autism? Any of you?

I can completely understand why somebody would want an embryo screening for autism. It's extremely hard to care for a child with autism.

Screening does not equel abortion unless everyone who talks about genocide is really saying they too would have an abortion if the fetus was to be screened as autistic. There'll be people who decide to take up the challenge and there'll be people who think it'll be too much for them. It takes responsibility, patience and a strong marriage to have an autistic child and very few in this discussion adress the profound effect it can sometimes have on all members of the affected family.

The choice should be up to the parents and if they're not ready for the potential burden it can sometimes bring, that should IMHO take precedence over the autistic population's desire not to be lonely. For the kids with ASD's who ARE given birth to (which I definitely believe will happen), the pre-natal screening will ensure better support and supervision for the entire family and overall a better life.

Wow, this has been one of the most interesting things to read on WrongPlanet! It does seem to boil down to one fundamental question however. Are you pro-life or Pro-choice? I tend to agree with Abu (I believe that's his name) on most of his points, as abrasive as they were. Screening or not, Autism or not, should a woman be allowed to abort her fetus? I tend to believe that she should. Many of us tend to get touchy because we fall on the autistic spectrum; but this pre-screening is still pretty much hypothetical and all it really seems to be is a pro-life ploy when truly examined at it's core. There is no real genetic isolation that I have heard about as of yet. It really just evokes emotions about disability and our own sense of being human and wanted in our society that seems somehow jeopardized by petitions like this one.

And Gattica really sucked!

I disagree, I think that´s oversimplifying the matter. I am pro-choice, but against genetic screening. There are some valid reasons for aborting a fetus, I think, but picking and choosing which baby to have due to genetic factors opens up a whole new set of moral issues.

That's just laziness then. A mother should love and care for her child no matter what.

The problem is that "no matter what" can mean a lot of things including but not limited to agressive moodswings, self-mutilation, hurting others without even knowing it and going completely nuts for no immediately apparant reason. Sure...those are worst case scenarios and hardly applicable for every autist, but they do happen and it takes a large toll on the parents and brothers/sisters. Not just emotional, but also in terms of free time and money. Your entire family's life, in such a case, becomes centered around the autistic child. Not for everyone.

So yeah, I think immediately writing people who don't want to care for an autistic kid off as lazy a bit harsh. Not every kid with autism becomes the next Bill Gates.

Both NTs and auties (I don't like that word so I'll not use it from now on) are hard to parent and each will have their own problems that parents have to deal with.

For example, NT teenagers like to go out and cause trouble, this is true for almost every NT in my school. I, however, don't. So, I parent of a NT will have to discipline their child when they become a teenager and deal with possible legal trouble they get into where as I and other people with ASDs probably (I say probably because I can't speak for a whole group of people) won't be getting into trouble nearly as much because they wouldn't see the logic and wouldn't give in to peer pressure.

That's just one example, of course.

There's an NT boy in my class who would be the worst child ever to have to look after, he does drugs, sells cigarettes to other students, shoplifts, gets people pregnant, and once commited a burglary and got vanned. Not just aspies are difficult.

You are pro choice but against genetic screening? So you are OK with aborting a fetus for no reason at all but against it when it has a medical bias? Hmm. There is an interesting dilemma. Eye color and sex are preferential but syndromes and disorders are in an entirely different category. There are people on here that will disagree and swear up and down that Autism has brought them super powers but Autism has brought me more problems than anything else. On top of that, I am not profoundly affected. I am verbal, I am functional, but I do still have major problems. It is a fine line. No matter how I try and look at it though, it still seems like an abortion debate rather than a disability debate. I am still pro-choice. I will still be pro-choice and that means no matter what.

It is an interesting dilemma.

I have yet to see a sophisticated or convincing argument made as to why a woman's right to chose should be denied only when the child she is carrying tests postive for autism.

Many women have abortions because, for a huge variety of reasons, they feel unable to cope with a child, or another child. I can't see how anyone can say that they are pro-choice, but still insist that a woman who does not want to have a child who is autistic should be forced to have that child against her wishes.

I just said that I´m against genetic testing, not against abortion per se; they are 2 different things! You guys are twisting my words around. I´m not saying that a woman should be forced to have an autistic child against her will; obviously, if you allow genetic testing, you can´t deny a woman her right to abortion; in fact, you´re proving my point, rather than arguing against it. What if the child is blind or deaf? Has ADHD? Is left handed, or short? If you allow one kind of abortion, how can you deny another? If genetic testing does not happen, no one will know these things. If it does happen, there are a whole lot more reasons for women to have more abortions. I guess, what I´m saying is that if the problem comes from the WOMAN, that´s one thing; if the decision to abort or not to abort is based on the CHILD, and the parents´judgment about who that child is, then yes, I do have more of a problem with it. No one knows how any child will end up. As someone mentioned, an NT child may end up to be more of a problem, or even a criminal! It´s a crapshoot, basically. What if Temple Grandin didn´t exist?

I'm quoting your words directly. Actually let me understand, are you against any form of embryonic genetic testing ? I was tested for Down's Syndrome and my mother probably would have elected to have an abortion if I would have been positive for that. If there were screening for things like autism at that time and it were conclusive, my mother probably would have had me screened for that too. Maybe I would have come up positive for that and I would not be typing this today. Don't know. Frankly, it's a moot point. This discussion does evoke that old debate about Eugenics. What is OK to eliminate out of the human species and what is not. Where is it our place to do so. Is God involved? Unanswerable questions. One thing that you may be missing is that there is a quite clear divide. Syndromes, disorders, diseases, genetic maladies all fall under the category of things that are not superficial at all. Eye color, being right of left handed, male or female are all superficial. And I do agree, NT and Autistic children and Adults alike bring to the table all sorts of varying terrible behavior at times. Some NT people grow up to become serial killers. Some NT people grow up to become great geniuses and leaders in their fields as well.

I have also been seeing people mention that mothers should love what ever baby they get. Frankly as much as I love that fairy tale, most mothers here in America that wind up with a severely or even mildly Autistic child either institutionalize them or worse, neglect the hell out of them. That child's life winds up being living HELL! I have also yet to hear about the responsibility of the father in this thread. It's sad that many times the mother would have to bear the brunt of wearing the label of murderer for aborting her fetus because she had knowledge of a genetic malady. Doesn't she have the right to that knowledge? That seems fair, right? we have knowledge about what is happening in our own bodies, right? So please continue telling me that this is not an abortion debate...