Aspies For Freedom

Was that LFA in the videos?

Is that a quote from the video?




I've seen the first three minutes or so.

A selection of quotes...

"I didn't choose to do this; I'm not a therapist. I was drafted; I have an Autistic child"

"I really had to give up my entire life, as I knew it"

"I lost a job that I never intended to leave"

"Your heart is breaking every day"

I'm slightly uncomfortable with the way in which the video uses the term "meltdown".

I've watched another few sections. I'm not comfortable with the line of "We're expected to do things that no human being should be expected to do". Should that continue with "So abort and you won't have to do it"?

Then we have a woman claiming that she is with a child whom she has no idea how to teach, incidentally in front of a sign displaying the phrase "DEAD END". Soon, another woman recounts her fear of the school principal contacting her about the child's bad behaviour.

I switched it off after the comment about how a suicidal drive off the George Washington Bridge would be preferable to putting her in one of those schools (12 kids per teacher is less than in most schools, isn't it?). Was this, by any chance, made just after the similar incident in Northern England?

I'm half expecting an advertising campaign for the prenatal test to follow.

My own correctness there disturbs me slightly.

The second half is just wrong. Here are some of the worst bits...

Autism is blamed for various things, including breakdown of marriages, financial problems, loss of sleep and depression.

One woman essentially claims that her son is doomed to a lonely, wifeless, childless life. This will hit hard with mums!

Another hopes that a cure will be found for Autism, and that we will understand more about how to prevent it (laying the foundations for the prenatal test). What she doesn't mention is that "prevention" is synonymous with "termination".

I would be interested to find out exactly what this "Combating Autism Act" entails. By the look of it, it isn't what Autism Speaks wants it to become, and they want to transform it into that form.

EDIT: There's some information on last year's version of it at www. combatautism .org.

My brother has autism and I could relate to the video, as well as my mom. I think that the video will positively influence those who do not understand austim.

Good morning,

I just came to this forum after reading a "did you know" on wikipedia. This will thus be my first post so a short introduction, though this doesn't seem to be the right place, seems to be in order.

I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS a few years ago after a depression i had in my late teens. Even though PDD-NOS is on the autistic spectrum I clearly didn't show any of the "severe" symptoms the mothers in the video are talking about. On the contrary as an neurodivergent I seemed to the ideal child, quiet, wise only slightly socially inept.

My point being: If this movie is indeed, as I suspect, propaganda for the prenatal test and subsequent abortion, would I have been aborted because there was a one in a hundred chance that I turned out as an extreme case?

My second point: Seeing as autism spans such a broad range of personal characteristics, shouldn't every child be aborted because there is about a one in a hundred chance they might have their "rough edges"?

Hearing those mothers talk almost makes you think they have multiple sclerosis or some other chronic disease. The monologues are filled with self pity and seem to lack any empathy for their children. It seems to me that even if they had normal children they would have blamed them for everything they perceive as being wrong in their lives.

Lastly: "Combat autism"? Sounds like you have some severe epedemic of a life threatening disease over there in the US... Here in the Netherlands the public is taught that though autistics are different they lead equally interesting and worhwile lives...

That will be all for now, Stefan

Surely Autism Speaks will want some autistics to remain around - if we're all wiped out, who will they blame for their lives not being perfect.

I was doing some searching around on the web earlier and spotted the biography of Dame Steve Shirley the Chair of UK Autism Speaks.  On that site she says:

"My late son Giles was autistic, so I have personal experience of the day-to-day experiences of families with an autistic member."

Yeah, so much day-to-day that according to the Telegraph:

"For a woman who is wearing a pale pink suit, and works from a flat in Henley, decorated entirely in pastels, it must have been hell having a child who wrecked everything, head−butted her, and threw his food on the floor."

"As Giles grew older, he lost what little speech he once had. "He was a distraught, unhappy child who knew only pain,'' she says and, by the time he was 13, she was so worn down by looking after him during the day and working − mostly at night − that she had a breakdown. For the next 11 years, he lived in a hospital. "It was him or me,'' she says, but she doesn't feel guilty because she did all she could, including starting a therapeutic home in which he lived for the last 11 years of his life."

How dare she say how she knows anything about living with an autistic child when from 1976, she made sure that she had as little to do with him as possible.  Also how many 35 year olds die of an epileptic fit anyway, sounds like Dame Steve wasn't that affected having not shared his life for 22 years.

How can Dame Steve claim to "Speak" for us?

Oh yes. Considering that I have visited numerous Web-Sites other than Aspies For Freedom on which the general view of the video is characterised by such words as "sick" and everyone is absolutely horrified at "THAT BRIDGE BIT", is it not strange that out of nine responses, all nine of them support the video?

Here is an interesting article from Wikipedia...

hee ;)
that's really smart!
i enjoyed seeing it as i read this page.