**WARNING, MAJOR RANT AHEAD**

Before I say anything more, Rob, I want to make it clear that I am not expressing any opinion on whether you, personally, ought to be receiving SSI payments.  I don't know you, so I can't comment on your circumstances, and I am certainly not suggesting that you ought to have chosen to remain homeless instead of applying for SSI.

But ALL of us??  What in blazes are you thinking?

Every time I look around, some pro-cure speaker or government official is describing autism as a plague, an epidemic, a horrible disabling condition, a crushing expense for society.  One man was even quoted as saying that autism is worse than cancer because a child with cancer will at least die, instead of burdening society with the cost of his care for an entire lifetime.  Do you want to prove these bigots right?

If every Aspie in the US applied for SSI tomorrow, one thing is for sure--contributions to CAN and other pro-cure groups would increase exponentially the day after tomorrow.  Prenatal testing and routine abortion would be a certainty; after all, what parents would want to raise an unfortunate child who would be doomed to spend his life on disability?

Granted, there are some autistics who genuinely cannot work, for various reasons, and they should be supported by disability payments.  But many of us are unemployed not because of any mental impairment but because of unsuitable work conditions and discrimination.  The more we allow society to classify us as mentally disabled, the less effort will be made to end discriminatory practices.  The prevailing attitude will be, "What are you complaining about, you're eligible for disability benefits, now take them and shut up and go away."

Throughout history, Aspies have always been the great scientists, the inventors, the engineers, the artists, the philosophers, the prophets and the mystics.  It would be a great loss, both to our people and to the world as a whole, if our children's dreams of great things were routinely crushed by a society that assumed them to be mentally inferior and denied them any hope of equal opportunity.  Such a future is not far away, if we do not act to prevent it.

This post was last modified: 12-29-2004 12:48 AM by Bonnie Ventura.