Another group that wants to "cure" Autism

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http://www.myspace.com/atheistsforautismresearch

I feel disgusted and appalled.

I see nothing wrong with the link at all. It's another person trying to find answers for situations or events in their life. There is nothing wrong with that.

Why do people do this when we are perfectly fine?

I understand your concern. I don't think the "we must find the cause/cure now!" approach is helpful in engendering tolerance towards people with autism. it also doesn't help legitimate research. I'm all for autism research. Knowledge is power, and so I welcome any insight science can offer. But I'm not for autism research that caters to special interest groups or caves to their pressure. That's not science - that's hysteria.

I love that "I also want to prove to the world that atheists give to charity too. While I know that we all do give to charity, it is time that we start to do so in the name of atheism and reason." And atheists say they're not religious. Sorry, but when you start basing your motivation for acting morally on spreading your gospel and doing it "in the name of" your beliefs, you're grade-A religious.

Getting money from atheists seems like a good thing to me. Unfortunately I doubt the effort will actually raise very much.

why not? If someone wants a cure, who are we to deny them? At least make the choice possible.

Once it is possible there's little chance it will be left to someone's choice. There will be pressure from all sides, that people on the Autism spectrum should be cured, and if they refuse, they'll just claim something is wrong with us again.

I understand why people want to cure it but why so many? Autism can be a good thing.

You better believe it sister. Once the 'official' thing is that there is some weird wachko 'cure' then nobody will be safe and I mean nobody who thinks differently in any respect.
I've been talking about the 'normalization procedure' for years and people think that I'm paranoid and that all doctors are well meaning. It just ain't so folks.

[quote="Staks"]This is an illness which we know very little about and it is starting to become an epidemic. We need to find treatments and cures and scientific research is the way. [/Staks]

Illness it is not. Epidemic it is not. Sorry Mr. Atheist man but I will not give you money until you get your facts right.

You know, what keeps coming through to me about these cure groups is how completely freaked out they are by someone who has a different life path. "My niece is 5 and hasn't started talking yet, how bizarre, how awful, we must stop this terrible illness before it drives us all mad!! !" I just want to scream, "Get a life, will ya, and leave us the hell alone."

I think they want to cure themselves of their fears, which is a cause I could support, actually. Is there a cure for projecting your fears onto people who see life differently than you do? Therapy can help. Medication is good. Maybe a stress management course: "When you think about your autistic niece, breathe in, breathe out, imagine yourself on a beach, and the sun is shining, and your little niece is playing in the sand..."

Actually, the only valid response to these people is to arrive at their door, en masse, and drool all over them. When we leave laughing our heads off, they will be so confused that a few synapses will snap and they'll go home and find some useful pursuit, like ending poverty or injustice or war.

Check the page

The site's probably defunct--don't worry about it.

It seems basically like someone who's underinformed about autism, and whose primary information is a single five year old child... not a realistic picture of autism at all. (And she's learning language, too. She'll probably be on WP in another ten years.)

is that speaking for the whole spectrum? autism varies...a lot,not all ASDers are fine,many have a level of autism which gives a low quality of life,high complex needs and little or no improvement with a lot of specialist intervention and support.


agreed pakled,the choice of those who want/need a cure or treatment [likely what it probably will be,not an actual cure],should be respected to.


original topic..
am sure the font used in their logo is the same used for the national autistic societies campaigns,if it is,
they might want to copy the rest of it to,so they will give a lot of that funding to supporting autistics.

That's a little vague to me, KoR. How do you define "fine"? You seem to be saying "non-impaired", and that makes sense because plenty of people with autism (the majority, probably) are impaired to some degree, and a few are very impaired. The problem with just saying "not fine" is that it implies that curing autism is universally positive if somebody is impaired enough... I don't know about you, but I'm not happy about people having their personalities and minds messed with, however badly they're functioning.

Callista: While I am anti-cure, I still think there is need for some way of helping auties to function better in society. Therapy could help many. We shouldn't conflate all honest attempts to help people on the spectrum with the genocidal abort-all-autie-and-aspie-fetuses mentality that would be called a "cure."

I believe the reason why this exists, is because the Rational Response Squad made an initiative to support a charity and one of the members has a classically autistic son. They probably don't know much about the higher functioning end of the spectrum, even though someone once sent them a letter, commenting on how many atheists likely have "social autism"(aka Asperger's). Mind you, the letter was from a Christian who was using it as an insult, and they (sadly) interpreted it as such. A few members of the RRS actually DO have AS, but not any of the higher-ups, and they certainly don't make any of the decisions regarding the charity initiative.