AutismSpeaks is coming to my town!! ! Please help!! !

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They will be here in Atlanta on May 22nd. If anyone else lives there, please come out and help me make them feel unwelcome.

OH NO!! !! EVERYBODY RUN AND HIDE! LOCK ALL YOUR DOORS AND WINDOWS!! ! AUTISM SPEAKS IS COMING TO TOWN!! !! !
SHOCK SHOCK HORROR!

Here in Norway, we have a foundation called "Autismeforeningen" (autism foundation) that every Easter and Christmas advertise on TV (only foundations and charities are allowed to advertise then) with slogans that scare parents, like "everyone's child can have autism" and whatchamaycallit. This fall, they will have a huge, national fundraising event with 8 hours of live TV with famous artists performing to raise money and celebrities manning phone lines you can call to donate money. In every little town and village, people enroll to go from home to home to raise money. And all this for "curing autism", which is the goal of the project. In previous years, this event has been hosted by famine relief charities, red cross and the AA. They raise about 200 million NOK (c. 40 million USD) every year.

Like most things I am of at least two minds about this. I firmly believe in a parent's right to make choices for their children that they believe will be in the child's best interest. However I do not think they are sufficiently informed by Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks seems to believe in a one size fits all cure, which I find the existence of doubtful other the same cure as can be used for Down's syndrome. Futher I doubt any genetic testing could tell the difference between a almost guaranteed low functioning individual and one that could live at large with little impairment. I do not think just shouting down Autism Speaks will be useful. I believe it would be more constructive to provide parent pamphlets about people who have overcome their autistic difficulties and let them know it that their child may improve considerably with help and therapy. That it is not a sentence to life in an institution. I think that John Elder Robinson has the right idea. Try to work from within their organization to get them to recognize others on the spectrum besides the extreme low-functioning individuals that seem to get them funding through fear. Then they may become a force for actually helping the people already born with autism, of all levels of functioning.

Agenda based interpretations of fear just like many interpretations of fear have bias. The I Am Autism video was a good example of fear based awareness. Yet it was based on emotion to overcome and defeat the obstacles of the disability. Society or members thereof view disability as a burden but not necessary the fault or intent of an individual with a disability. So the video played on the fear of the disability and costations thereof and to find a solution.

If anyone in this area is even remotely interested, they decided to hold their event on public property. You would be amazed at what is legal on public property in Atlanta. The police will not be able to stop demonstraiters.

Typically the agenda against expressions of the hardship of autism is based on the abortion agenda. To what ends will anti-abortion advocates go to re-define the image of autism as rosy and anything but what they believe is acceptable is a bigotry. I find myself fully aware of the issues and understand that forms of autism present one or more life limiting obstacles. I just do not feel secure in the extreme pride or the extreme cure modality per say but something that has parts of both and also action.

Protesting people that want to cure autism will continue to be a failure. The reason being is those protesting are very high functioning and their autism very mild. Also their rights not to receive a cure if one were to become available in their life times is held intact. Whereas they are seeking to remove that right from individuals without their choices respected. People are called curebees, pity and Nazi's by anti-cure.

Autism is horrible when it is horrible. When it is not it seems someone simply has a manifestation that is not as hindering when it is for another person. I think the injustice toward human rights is political intrusions such as abortion on both sides in context to "cure". Also let's define horrible more so appropriately. Happiness is not horrible to an individual costation to others may be a different kind of horrible. I'd like sensory integration difficulties to be cured as that is horrible.