How can society prevent stuff like this from happening?
Stigma seems like a part of the problem, in some contries babies are killed just for being girl you know.
Odd it seems when feminists will campaign that women have rights over their bodies and to have abortions for any reason and then turn around and condemn gender selective abortion in Asia as femicide. I guess they are the same feminists who think that women should have equality in the workplace yet exploit third world immigrant nannies in their own homes, using them as slaves.
Having an abortion because you don't want/can't care for a child - any child - is very different from having an abortion because you don't want that specific child because it's female/autistic/brown eyed. It's the latter that leads to only certain kinds of kids being born, and is why China is now in big trouble.
Getting back on topic, is the lack of support a factor in this - are parents with disabled children given so little help that they see this as the only way?
I think it would really help if these moms got integrated into a proper community where they'd have regular contact with adults with the same disability their child has. That would really give them hope, I think. When it's just a kid and you are worrying about developmental milestones and seeing how he doesn't measure up, it looks very dark sometimes... but then you could meet an adult who's doing fine, thanks, even if life isn't quite perfect, and figure that it's worth it to bring up that child. They really underestimate disabled people, especially disabled kids. Sometimes I think if people only knew what it was like to be disabled--that it's not as bad as they think--if they met disabled people and hung out with them and saw they were just people--they wouldn't be as likely to kill a child in the mistaken belief that it's merciful.
That's why I spend time on Autism Speaks forums. Not necessarily because I think these moms are homicidal, but because I know they benefit from hearing that it gets better, and getting a realistic picture of what it's probably going to be like for their kids when they grow up. There's other more low-functioning people there to cover the other parts of the spectrum... I think most of us are actually pretty autism-rights types, and there for the same reason I am
How can society prevent stuff like this from happening?
Stigma seems like a part of the problem, in some contries babies are killed just for being girl you know.
Good post - I agree - look to the structures within society that cause such breakdowns and disasters.
Where is the support for parents? - very often it is too sadly lacking.
Stigma is a huge problem -
Odd it seems when feminists will campaign that women have rights over their bodies and to have abortions for any reason and then turn around and condemn gender selective abortion in Asia as femicide. I guess they are the same feminists who think that women should have equality in the workplace yet exploit third world immigrant nannies in their own homes, using them as slaves.
gosh, there is a misogynistic quality to your comments...
I said that. not aprilbaker. Men can be feminists too. So why do you consider my comments misogynistic (woman hating). I certainly do not hate the slave nannies and their families.
I should have put those comments in the abortion thread anyway. sorry, no edit button. Please discuss this elsewhere.
The Peng woman was found guilty of murder and will receive an automatic life sentence after being convicted of second-degree murder. http://www.thestar.com/article/308600
Yeah, there's a difference between hating two-faced feminists and hating women.
I have heard from most people that the psychotropic drugs have very bad side effects. One of my friends was taking some drug for her schizophrenia -- she would still hear voices unless she increased her dosage so she sleep most of the time and was a zombie when awake for about 3 hrs per day. Other people she talked said they still heard the voices while on medication. So I am not sure that they even work the way they are supposed to do.
Most people complained that they gained weight -- much and very quickly, felt tired, drugged out, frozen or shakey. The drugs are also supposed to be toxic to the liver etc.
I wonder what people did hundreds of years ago. I suppose they just executed the most violent people. Anyone who just was delusional, they probably just limited them if they were rich or just left them alone and if they could not function, they would starve or freeze to death. Either they tortured them so much that they just shut up and kept their thoughts to themselves if they could.
Apparently people have begun to mistrust mainstream medicine nowadays.
The stories make it seem valid.
Antipsychotics are a huge problem. On one hand, if you have delusions they can remove those; but they may have such bad side effects that life without the delusions is just as bad as life with them, albeit safer, as you're more likely to sleep all day than end up doing something unwise. That's why so many people stop taking them. I did... Thankfully for me they were unnecessary overmedication; but if I really had had schizophrenia I'm not entirely sure I would have stayed on them.
Doctors who just prescribe antipsychotic meds without even thinking about how those side effects will affect their patients are not being conscientious. Often times, the dose can be adjusted, the type can be switched, and the side effects can be treated with other medications. But if the doctor doesn't even think about that--if he cares only about the eradication of psychosis--then he isn't helping the patient. Some degree of hallucination can even be harmless, if reality testing is intact. You simply can't overmedicate in those cases. You're playing with the patient's quality of life, and that's every bit as important as whether or not they think they're getting messages from the TV set.
Ah, so apparently I'm not that alone with my voices in my head after all.
I have one voice in my head nearly all the time but somebody told me that is normal.
Usuallly just one me too...