Aspies For Freedom

The remnants of this legacy exist.  

Psychiatry is far from perfect today.  In the case of pedophiles.  It is required to report people who seek treatment for their attraction to children even if they never have committed a crime.  Because it has been declared there is no competent treatment nor a cure for pedophilia, these people are afraid to even ask for help.  Their treatment for crimes is very harsh as is how they are treated by society once they are identified.  There are other helpless victims in society and their predators are no better:  men who attach women less than half their size, people who commit fraud against the elderly etc.  Yet, they are not treated so badly as pedophiles.  

The "no cure" thing is really the worst label that psychiatry can give.  

There is huge difference between someone with autism and someone who is pedophile and CHOOSES to commit a crime.  I am not excusing criminals but it should not be crime for someone to be themselves and ask for help and want to live their life.  

The eugenics still exists and is just as bad as the nazis.  Instead of openly rounding up people in public and sending them away, it is happening behind closed doors in doctor's offices.  Just like the gas chambers were developed to kill people since the firing squads in front of the huge pits were determined to have a negative effect on the executing soldiers "mental hygiene".  Who escapes that is left to "disability programmes" and general shunning by society.

Okay... good grief... "psychopathy" at that time and in that situation did not mean "sociopath", it meant "psychological pathology".

Disability programmes do not kill people.  I never said exactly that disability programmes kill people.  I meant that the people killed by abortion are like the people killed by the Nazi death camps.  

If people were treated equally and without prejudice, they would not disability programmes to help people with disabilities get jobs.

This really is a terrible argument in favor of abortion rights.  It is entirely possible to argue in favor of a pro-choice position without referring to conditions that can easily be the result of disabilities in a born person.  

The statement about having no family depends on your definition of the term.  Some people do form familial bonds with unborn fetuses, it is not necessary to demean those bonds in order to be pro-choice.  

A fetus is a foreign organism, using someone else's body for sustenance, causing hardship.  If the hardship is greater than the person is willing to undertake then of course they should have a say in the matter.  You don't need to establish a basement set of cognitive abilities and say anyone who doesn't meet them is a non-person.

The features YOU connect with human value.  That many people in society connect with human value.  The problem here is that people see born persons without these qualities and treat them like dirt.  Whatever value judgements you or anyone else might make of them, they are still full human beings who have graduated from the womb and are capable of suffering just as much as you are.

How does an unvalued fetus with autism genes become a valued person with autism genes? Or when?   People with autism, adults or children are not valued as much as people who do not have autism genes and express them as autistic traits.  

Genocide is defined as "deliberate extermination of a race of people".  If you want to stick closely to this definition then the killing of Jews and Roma by the Nazi was genocide.  The killing of cripples and the mentally ill or retarded by the Nazi was not genocide?  The selective abortions of female fetuses in Asian countries are not genocide?  The selective abortions of fetuses with Down's syndrome and other genetic disorders is not genocide?  Do we need a new word for these new types of eugenics?  Or do you reject these actions as eugenics since the definition of that word is "the science of developing human or animal populations using controlled breeding."?

So what do you define as genocide? and as eugenics?

Thank you Batman. I am starting to believe that Simen is a very rare example of a nearly mythical beast - a subtle troll.

I would like to hear which view points you take issue with - and I would like to hear you challenge Simen on these points.

Not again Lucie1!

Do you really enjoy poking at people from the sidelines? Pouring burning oil on troubled waters?

Please read all the challenges Simen has had to his viewpoints in this and other threads. Read his replies which fail to take into account anything that has been posted but insist on re-iterations of previous posts of his. Even if it has been pointed out that he has distorted things.

Please put away your stirring-stick and join the human race.

Well, go on then - join one side or the other and put in your views. And be prepared to have them challenged. Or do you only "prefer to hear issues debated" because you like to light the blue touchpaper, stand well back, and enjoy the fireworks at a distance?

Some of the criticisms leveled against Simen (such as that he must adjust his opinions to the norm of the forums) are indeed those which promote the "echo chamber" atmosphere that Simen described. Although I disagree tremendously with his idea that to abort based upon the fact of a fetus being female or having a disability is okay and just a personal choice, I myself would feel ashamed to say, "Well if you want to express your opinion, either change your opinion or go elsewhere." This is the sort of tactic that authoritarian governments use, the tactics that the cure organizations use.

Besides, as Simen pointed out, his view is a lot more mainstream than many of our views. So if we plan to be effective adovcates for these issues, why not begin by debating with someone on this forum? For many people, the issue of selective abortion is not so obvious as it may seem to many of us. For me, it seems obvious that same-sex marriage should be legal. But many people are opposed to it, and it is not any use to go publicly and proclaim, "Well, it's so obvious that it should be legal, we shouldn't even have a debate on it." How is that effective advocacy?

When did I say give non-born humans full human rights?  I said that the presence or absence of cognitive abilities must not influence our decision on whether or not someone deserves full adult human rights, because it encourages discrimination.

Most animals are capable of thinking on a higher level than a human infant, otherwise they would not survive in the wild.  Other primates come especially close to human abilities.  If we agree that it's okay to kill such creatures for food or whatnot, then the same must be true of toddlers.  I find this view abhorrent.  

As for killing for pleasure, that is mere blood sport.  It's absolutely disgusting to take joy in ending something else's life; we survive on death and death serves this purpose--to bring about more life.  Blood sport is wrong.  

There are many people who think it's immoral to abort even when the mother's life is threatened.  I wouldn't turn women's rights over to them.  Isn't the whole point of abortion rights that it is a personal decision?  

In addition, most people make exceptions from the "too far developed" rule for disabled fetuses, rape victims, and consentual incest (the reasoning of the last being pretty much the same as that for the disabled fetus), so obviously no, most do not agree that it is immoral at this point, they're just indulging their squeamishness under the guise of ethics and morality.  

No one says they aren't human. Sure they're human. No one says that we shouldn't grant them people status. [/quote]

That's not true.  People are often completely indifferent to the suffering or lack of education of persons with cognitive impairments because "they're just retards anyway."  No one needs to state specifically that they are less than human in order to treat them as such; the word "retard" is often enough to convey this viewpoint.  Do some reading on Anne McDonald and how she has been treated, not to mention Amanda Baggs; people continue to make statements like "I've seen people with William's Syndrome and they don't count" or "people with down syndrome are not as human as we are." Peter Singer defines self-awareness as "full awareness of the self as separate from surroundings and existing through time."  He does not believe that normal persons below a certain age have this, and it is acceptable for them to be killed at this stage if they have a disability.  He's spoken at universities and has had public debates with Anne MacDonald.  Can you imagine arguing with somebody who is paid to say that you and others like you should have been killed at a very young age?  People are murdered and tortured in many places for being the wrong kind of human, witness the autism speaks video and the rise in hatecrimes against autistics that followed it.  

Which is why I consider hunting for fun and recreation immoral.  You kill it, you eat it.  We're not talking about animal rights here, but most agree that abuse of animals is immoral.  But when it comes to cognitively disabled people with behavior problems, the JRC is standing ready.  It seems that many consider us to be below animals in this regard, and this is because they have had it shoved down their throats that our intellectual abilities somehow distinguish us from the "lower animals."  So a human being who lacks the right qualities is generally consigned either to this category of "lower beings" or to a new category that is alleged to be somewhere in between--and considering how animals are treated most of the time, one wonders how this could be seen as that much better, and actual life-experience shows that in fact it can be much worse.

As for practicing debate -- I believe it is better to hone your skills of tactful and effective debate PRIOR to trying to tackle the issues in the public forum where most readers will have a preconceived view contrary to the argument you're trying to put forth.

If the argument is weak, or not tactful enough, then people are likely to blow off the whole opinion rather than just the single arguer. Unfair, but true. First impressions are (overly, IMO) taken to be representative of the whole.

And what an opportunity exists here: on a forum where many have similar beliefs regarding cure, selective abortion, etc., there is someone who disagrees with you, a chance to hone those debating skills and explore the issues -- perhaps discover some counterarguments you hadn't previously considered?

Any counterargument overlooked, or one which the arguer has no way to respond to, will be used as evidence that we have no idea what we're talking about - a very common attack leveled against autistic self-advocates.

So why not take advantage of the fact that the opposing views are not censored here as they are frequently at Autism Speaks to explore the other side, and to develop effective appeals (emotional, logical, and ethical) to further fortify one's own stance and so to be better equipped to hold one's one in future debates where the audience won't be so forgiving.

While I don't think they'll come up with a prenatal test for autism soon, I have even less confidence that society will become significantly informed that autism is not a death sentence any sooner than such a test would be developed.

This is the pessimistic end of the view, but as it cannot be ruled out as a possibility, but considering the seriousness of the repercussions of ignoring it, I feel that it is an important issue.

Well, aside from the people who are completely against abortion no matter what wouldn't support it. But from what I've heard, most people outside the autistic community who support abortion would find this situation understandable and think it okay.