Aspies For Freedom

Pfft. This is pure propaganda. Both you and I know that disability programmes are nothing like Nazi death camps and they do not actively kill off their patients and clients.

The "people" killed by abortion are not, in my and many other people's views, people at all; they're simply simple organisms that, in time, may develop into people. They aren't like people killed in death camps at all. A more fair comparison would be killing pigs or cows.

I realize that not everyone shares this view, but in the western world, the majority seems to be in favor of free abortion up to a certain stage. Truth to be told, there's not much of a human in these embryos at all: none of the features we connect with human value are present any more than they are in cows or pigs. If you want to argue that abortion is murder, you've got to make a strong argument, and refute a lot of strong arguments, and I don't think it can be done. And if you do, then it's not related to autism in particular, because abortion happens for a whole slew of reasons and the embryos could have been NT, autists, down's, murderers, saints or geniuses; we'll never know.

In any case, it's not the same to kill an embryo that is barely human, has a lower developed consciousness than a cow or pig, and has no family, no friends, no accomplishments, no anything.

Actually, you do, because if you give the fetus the rights of a person, you can no longer abort it, since it has the right to life. You also cannot justify giving it rights without referring to some base set of cognitive abilities, without also justifying giving those same rights to cows, sheep, pigs and other animals that we kill for profit and pleasure but that are capable of suffering and thinking at least on the level of a early stage embryo.

Also, an embryo in a later stage of development, at a time when most would agree it would be immoral to abort it, is still a parasite, in that it will often not survive outside the mother's body.

No one says they aren't human. Sure they're human. No one says that we shouldn't grant them people status. But remember, lots of animals are capable of suffering. Most are, in fact.

Irrelevant.

Indeed, it was.

No.

No (hint: no one is killing off people with Down's, and anyone who aborts based on prenatal tests, does so personally; they're not responsible for what others do, and their intent is not to kill of everyone with Down's, just their (potential) child).

Perhaps. Personally, I don't think things have gone so far it's necessary to get all worked up about it. Somewhere between here and parents consciously designing their children like you'd design a car, there's cause for concern, though.

No.

Is that supposed to be a threat?

I don't appreciate that, you know. Neither does anyone else, from what I gather. If all you can do is resort to personal attacks, you're doing nothing but diluting a discussion.

This is a freakin' discussion forum. It's for discussing stuff. Please adjust yourself to that.

(If you consider that to be rude, you should read your posts to me before posting them, seeing as they're written in the exact same tone.)

Further, just because a view is unpopular, does not mean it's wrong. Further yet, this is a minority group, and many of my views are actually the majority view outside of this group. In any event, if you think they're wrong, you should challenge them, not just declare them to be rude, or inappropriate, or unpopular, or whatever. Neither of those constitute a rebuttal.

So I won't apologize for disagreeing with you. We've been through this before (and before, and before...). If this board is supposed to be an echo chamber, a place where you can go and have all your preconceptions validated, then it's not a proper discussion forum and not a place I'd want to be; in that case, you'll get rid of me and my "offending" opinions, but at the expense of admitting how shallow you are.

So far, no one has admitted as much, and with good reason: I don't really think it's what this place is supposed to be nor exactly what you want it to be. But this leads to the following dilemma: if you admit that this place must allow for discussion, then you must allow me and others who have unpopular opinions to continue to state them. If not, you must admit that you're only looking for validation, not discussion, and hence are a shallow bunch.

It's getting tiring to repeat this over and over, but there you have it. Now, I would really appreciate if some of you could try to draw a line between opinions and people, and get on with discussing my opinions, and your opinions, instead of constantly discussing my person. This is a very important difference to make, especially on a discussion forum, yet there are so many here who seem unable to ever draw it.

Tigger_the_Wing, this kind of hand-waving is useless, and again, only dilutes any reasonable discussion we might have had. Some people have been honest and decent enough to discuss my viewpoints, as is proper on a forum (e.g., EvilZakkie), and I've consequently come to respect them, however much I agree or disagree with them. Now, if I said I had no respect for you or Batman55 or others, you'd just turn it around and use it to attack me further, so I won't say that. Let's just say my respect is falling by the minute. You may or may not care about my respect, but I cannot see how you can fool yourself into thinking that heaping personal attacks on someone is the way to show them civilized debate. Please be on-topic.

Let me close by quoting the old Stoic philosopher Epitectetus: "Remember that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away." Which doesn't mean you're never right to be offended, but it's food for thought.

Of course I'm not! Why aren't you apologizing for your opinions?

Who's the troll, did you say?

First, I didn't write any of the above. It's a complete misrepresentation of anything I've written.

Second, I have made no verbal abuse or racist remarks.

The truth is somewhere in between.

I don't think anyone would be banned for respectfully pointing out an alternative viewpoint, but at the same time, this is supposed to be a haven from the "autism is bad" stereotypes that are found everywhere else.

I think that from what you've seen, "controversial" viewpoints are not censored (i.e. you have not been banned), but they will cause many people here to become angry, and express this anger.

I will say that with debates involving eugenics, I don't believe there can be a real debate, as the facts available for both sides are fairly obvious.

If you're for eugenics, you believe that the most important thing is that a fetus is not a human, and the ramifications for the human race are unimportant, or that there are only positive ramifications for the human race.

If you're against eugenics, you believe that tampering with diversity would be a huge detriment to the human race.

From what you've said earlier, you're opinion is somewhere in the middle - "Somewhere between here and parents consciously designing their children like you'd design a car".

When you get down to a certain level, ethics becomes "atomic" - in that it cannot be split up into smaller and smaller facts. Eugenics is usually one of these ethically "atomic" concepts, which is why a debate on eugenics will usually end up in name-calling.

I would have thought that by now, it would be obvious that I'm not one of those.

Well, I would prefer if they channeled their anger towards something other than personal attacks.

Very much agreed--except I still have faith that it doesn't have to devolve into name calling. I think it would be too easy to say that it inevitably leads to shouting matches. That sort of lets those who resort to personal attacks off the hook, as if they couldn't help themselves. C'mon, we're all mature enough to at least respectfully disagree, I hope.

Indeed. To clarify, I do believe that too much tampering can be damaging to the human race. I simply don't think there's cause for concern at the moment.

Preaching-to-the-choir-ism is very much a problem, yes. We need to realize that no matter how good arguments you have, it's very hard to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. You gotta wrap the content in a container the receiver will swallow, because very few people will change opinion based on rational arguments alone.

I wonder, what is it about humans that's so special that we ought to give them special rights independent of their actual properties? This isn't a rhetorical question. I suppose we're all guilty of giving higher value to those that are like us.

But I wonder what the point of your long post was. What are you trying to say wrt. abortion?

You do not refer to whom you reply, therefore you haven't made it clear who it is you wish to hear challenge Simen?
Perhaps we could hear your views on the subject instead of random sentences?

AFF does include freedom of expression....from all members.
Freedom of expression gives everyone the right to agree or disagree with any post made by anyone, this is called debate or discussion which hopefully leads to understanding if not agreement of both sides.

Debate / discussion of some issues may often cause offense to some & agreement may never be reached.
This does not mean that any of us needs to be reminded about freedom of speech, in fact the very reminder is an act of oppression / bullying.

Some issues are very provocative & sensitive in their nature, since we are all humans most with strongly held beliefs, it is inevitable that there will be dissent & emotions will run high.

Abortion is a very emotive issue, fortunately I am too old for it to have been ever considered legally when I was a foetus, however there are members who could have been aborted & possibly potential parents who are upset & appalled.

I am personally affronted at Simen's likening of an "embryo that is barely human, has a lower developed consciousness than a cow or pig, and has no family"....also what are parents if not family?

I believe a little tact & forethought before posting goes a long way towards conducive debate.

The only thing I will say on this count, is, "that's a bit ironic...."

Yes, they would. Now, there's the option of aborting based on any reason whatsoever--as long as it's inside the legal window, early in the pregnancy, you can abort for any reason you'd like, including reasons that are nothing short of spectacularly stupid (using abortion as prevention, for instance). This is how it works now, and how it must work.

But I can see your point. Since there aren't any prenatal tests for autism, I don't know how many would abort based on it, but we can find similar numbers for Down's. In Norway, 2005 numbers indicate that 84.6% of those who knew their child would have (or be likely to have) Down's Syndrome before birth, chose abortion (source).

Clearly, we gotta be careful. On the other hand, we must be careful not to rely too much on the "natural order" of things, and appeal to nature, because then we have the plain fact that many people who would otherwise be left to die and thus be removed from the gene-pool now survive, and this clearly isn't natural, and this kind of thinking leads to social darwinism, which is the last thing we'd want.

In any case, you simply cannot focus on the achievements of (alleged) autists when arguing against selective abortion, because this encourages the sort of thinking that says our value is entirely dependent on our achievements in life, and people could use this in a cost/benefit analysis and come up with the idea that we can afford to scrap all autists, since their benefits are outweighed by their costs, and their value is entirely dependent on this balance. Frankly, it's a quite inhuman view, IMO, to connect our value with our achievements in this way. Most people never do much to propel the human race any more forward than it was when they were born. Most of us, regardless of our native neurology, simply aren't extraordinary and won't have any extraordinary achievements to point to at the end of our life. By definition, not everyone can be extraordinary, because then the extraordinary becomes the mundane.