I didn't watch CNN yesterday (we get excerpts on Aussie TV) so I didn't see it. I'm glad, because my TV might not have survived being beaten soundly with my walking stick!
Of course, the more such people behave like that on TV, the more people are going think that they ought to feel the same way.
I agree with Joker, if you sling mud - you get it right back in your face.
I gather this woman (who ever she is) has been slinging mud at people with ASD's.
You don't respect her.
So if you sling mud back - why would you think anyone would want respect you.
Slinging mud isn't a way to get respect or to get what you want.
You need to let people know how you feel - in a calm way. There is another thread showing where a member of this forum took some time to educate a parent of a child with an ASD. He took the opportunity to help someone. He will have made a difference.
Mud slinging gets you nowhere, it's a game.
But sometimes fear just looks like anger when it comes out.
I agree morning after.
When people are fearful/angry they need reassurance.
I don't know too much about this woman ---- but perhaps she is looking for hope and reassurance and as a result has become deluded.
She may be determined to hold onto to her beliefs to keep alive her hope.
she needs educating - she needs to get a better understanding.
responding to her with anger - wont solve anything - responding to her with anger will create an explosion of feelings, nothing else. I can't see how anything could be gained through this sort reaction. Anger just makes people more fearful and drives them further into their corner.
My comments are not intended to make anyone angry - just my thoughts on the way I see things.
So we can agree that our concern is for the children who will suffer through ignorant / deluded attitudes. This is in itself a very emotive topic.
It's hard to watch you guys (who seem both to want what is best) disagree so strongly with each other. Be good to find some common ground ..... you both seem such good people.
Joker, that was very eloquent, but disingenuous.
The 'cure', so far, for any genetic difference has been the removal from the gene pool of the genes deemed to be 'at fault'. Genetic counselling aims to persuade 'carrier' parents to refrain from reproducing.
What cure has been developed for Down Syndrome? Yet there is a great reduction in its incidence. That is because Down Syndrome is one of the differences tested for during pregnancy, and approximately 93% of people with Down Syndrome are killed before birth. There is still no cure for people already born, despite decades of research.
Whenever the genetic cause of any difference has been isolated and identified, a pre-natal test leading to abortion has followed. Why do you think that autism would be different?
93%
Thought it was 80-something.
Caroline Mansfield, Suellen Hopfer, Theresa M. Marteau (1999). "Termination rates after prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, spina bifida, anencephaly, and Turner and Klinefelter syndromes: a systematic literature review". Prenatal Diagnosis 19 (9): 808–812. PMID 10521836
The aims of this systematic literature review are to estimate termination rates after prenatal diagnosis of one of five conditions: Down syndrome, spina bifida, anencephaly, and Turner and Klinefelter syndromes, and to determine the extent to which rates vary across conditions and with year of publication. Papers were included if they reported (i) numbers of prenatally diagnosed conditions that were terminated, (ii) at least five cases diagnosed with one of the five specified conditions, and (iii) were published between 1980 and 1998. 20 papers were found which met the inclusion criteria. Termination rates varied across conditions. They were highest following a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome (92 per cent; CI: 91 per cent to 93 per cent) and lowest following diagnosis of Klinefelter syndrome (58 per cent; CI: 50 per cent to 66 per cent). Where comparisons could be made, termination rates were similar in the 1990s to those reported in the 1980s. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Down's Syndrome is straightforward and easy to test, and you either have it or you don't. Autism is endless shades and even if we find the genetic cause it'll certainly be too complicated to terminate any fetus with impunity. I imagine the best you'd get would be 'this child has a X percent chance of having severely disabling autism and X chance of having a less serious spectrum disorder and X chance of coming out NT"
Not actually true, there are degrees of Down Syndrome just as there are for Autism. Most of the truly disabling aspects of DS is in co-morbids that can be operated on (such as heart and tongue defects). A properly supported education deals with the rest. Most people, when they hear the word "Autism" have the same reaction to it as you appear to do to DS; they imagine the worst-case scenario, because that is what is publicised by the 'charities'.
There are false positives and false negatives for all pre-natal tests.
What worries me most about pre-natal testing is the heartless language used by the researchers; e.g.
Replacement of full karyotyping with rapid testing for trisomies 13, 18, and 21 after a positive screen for Down's syndrome will result in substantial numbers of liveborn children with hitherto preventable mental or physical handicaps, and represents a substantial change in the outcome quality of prenatal testing offered to couples in the UK.
(My emphasis)
In other words, prenatal testing is not to prepare the parents for a less-than-perfect child, but to prevent the child being born at all.
By 'hitherto preventable' they mean that older, more accurate but slower tests would detect more children with genetic differences and therefore more would be killed.
But parents should not have children if they are not prepaired to have one that's challenging.
Perfect! I heartily agree.
Sadly, most people seem to think that sentiment gives them carte blanche to abort 'challenging' offspring, not (as it should) that they shouldn't conceive in the first place.
I think the more there is on the internet, the more we encounter that we don't know, and the more scared we can become.
That may be the case for some; but people on AFF come from all over the globe, and we may disagree with each other sometimes, but never because of nationality.
I have visited and lived in several different countries, but meet the same people over and over! 
Basically we are much more alike than the superficial veneers of culture would have us believe. There can be appalling lack of respect towards those whom a society deems worthless, and the kinds of people deemed worthless vary from country to country; but it is sad to relate that every culture has at least one group of humans that the rest can look down on to make themselves feel priveleged, and part of society.
Oops, dozing off - "privileged"
Tigger, the solution to that - really - is to ban abortions, except in the cases of medical emergency (a threat to the life of the mother), or in the case of a pregnancy resulting from a rape. And in the case of the latter it can only go ahead with a report to the police of the said rape, and carrying it through to conclusion.
OK, that may be extreme to some members - but that's the way I see it.
As much as I would agree, I don't think it's going to happen.
I know. This is one occasion the world can do without left wing feminists demanding freedom of choice and a touch of promiscuity - and sub it for common sense and responsibility. Per se.
Hmm... I pretty much agree. Except that I wouldn't include rape as grounds for abortion, and the termination of pregnancy to save the life of the mother should be done at the latest possible stage to maximise the chances of both parties surviving. And don't assume that it is 'left wing feminists' doing the demanding; I actually believe that abortion denigrates being female and certainly isn't a socialist ideal. In fact, I think that it has been a monstrous wrong perpetrated on the women's movement, to persuade women that we can only be regarded as true equals to men if we are prepared to kill our own children.
If feminism really is, as I believe, the premise that females are of equal value to males, then the corollary to that is that we are all of equal value regardless of any other difference. A true feminist must surely be anti-abortion, anti-capital punishment, anti-slavery, anti-eugenics, anti-discrimination, anti-euthenasia; and pro-life, pro-diversity, pro-rehabilitation, pro-freedom of thought, pro-care; anything else defies logic and gets metaphorical knickers in a twist.
On rape - I don't agree. Reason being the rapist is the father, and having to give access to the child represents additional psychological trauma for the mother. Just knowing the child is a result of a rape would be traumatic enough I would have thought.
Left wing feminists are hardly rational and are not true feminists at all. You're right with your definition of a true feminist. It is usually the moderates like that who quietly picket abortion clinics. The left wingers take the view that pregnancy gives power to the father, so to take it back (and be equal - <-said sarcastically) they abort the pregnancy. Now here's where the rape argument comes in again. A rape is when the female has no choice. That's when I'll defend an abortion because it's not the pregnancy that caused the loss of power (so to speak). But in all other cases, the female was a willing participant, and should face the consequences of THAT choice.
I agree re the other situation - and that's pretty much what I meant anyway.
I do not believe that a man who begets a child through rape of the mother has any rights of fatherhood. He should have no right whatsoever to find out the identity of the child, should be granted no access and should be required to pay maintenance into the court for them to distribute, whether the child is raised by its mother or adoptive parents.
I'm not so worried about celebrities with Botox treatments as I am about people who have cerebral palsy and NEED those treatments to prevent painful and disabling spasticity in their muscles.
Oh please Bob, at least try to find some way of telling her - is there any contact info on the website?
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