https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/unspeakable-conversations.htmlThis article was one of my favorite class readings in my undergrad Communication Ethics class way back in 2013. When I read it Peter Singer's ideas at the time outraged me, but living through my own experience as an autistic adult, and seeing my mom martyr herself to be a slave for my even more disabled brother has changed my perspective. My argument is simple: pre-natal testing for disabilities should be mandatory, and any fetus found to be possibly disabled should be subjected to a state mandated abortion.
My brother lives with Level 2 autism and severe mental illness. At the height of his illness he was a zombie and couldn't even wipe his own ass he had gained so much weight. While he is thankfully now living his best life, my mom continues to infantilize him, washing and wiping his ass and balls daily. She is at the point where she feels like she will have a heart attack if things don't change, but she also refuses to put him in a group home or even just re-teach him to be more independent. She thinks if she doesn't do everything for him that he will literally die.
Now these are consequences of capitalism, but even in a perfect socialist society that was compassionate to the disabled, we would still have a lower quality of life and be at a disadvantage than our neurotypical and/or able bodied peers. Severe OCD, anxiety, and ASD led me to give up on a lot of my career goals and dreams. I now work a simple wfh job doing the same daily repetitive tasks. If I didn't have these disabilities, I would be able to live on my own and probably could have become a filmmaker, public historian, archivist, etc. I'm really sick of disability activists saying we shouldn't try to cure disability, and hysterically claiming pre-natal testing is eugenics.
I support this. Not even comrades want to be caregivers for intellectually disabled people. No one under socialism or communism is going to want to be changing adult diapers and holding back downies and level 3 autists when they start having violent meltdowns. If comrades cared so much about preserving “disabled identities” they’d start dedicating their time to volunteering at group homes.
>>727339Agreed. To be fair, pretty much all abortions are good, but these ones are particularly good.
Ok so what constitutes a disability exactly?
>>727362Do you want to work with the disabled to prove how anti-eugenics you are? Because group homes are short-staffed and in need of help.
Wow, so much for the tolerant left
>>727368I already do disability care work and I'm disabled too. This has nothing to do with the question though. What is the criterion where we decide to mandatorily abort a baby based on disability?
>>727374Abortion isn’t killing.
>>727375Didnt answer anything in my post and by definition wrong.
>>727374>>727378Autism and ADHD are real disabilities. They aren’t symptoms of capitalist alienation.
>>727339Trvth nuke.
Disability is, by definition, bad. Anyone who makes "disabled" the basis of their identity or the thing worthy of protection is basically a "mu-ha-ha-ha look how evil am I" cartoon villain, but in real life. (That doesn't mean all disabled people are subhuman, of course. It's just that all disabled people worthy of respect see their disability as a problem to be overcome.)
Sourse: I may have a low degree of autism
>>727380Compared to kleinfelters disease? Are you fucking tone deaf or fucking evil? No fucking asshole. Im not aborting a kid because they have anxiety or a little slow in education. Im aborting a kid if I see they’re literally going to die in agony before they even learn to walk
>>727383Would you abort for a heart defect?
>>727374This is a good point and I agree with OP too. Compromise could be that its up to parents to decide if they want to take care of a disabled person rest of his/her life.
>>727384Depends on context. There’s a lot of kids coming in that deal with that or fetal alcohol syndrome or some other defect/disorder that grow up with that issue either fixed spontaneously as their bodies mature and heal or receive treatment later in life. As harsh as a heart defect could be, it’s survivable and many kids do end up living normal lives despite them.
Once again, if you’re going to abort a kid over a defect
CHECK THAT THAT DEFECT IS A CLEAR AND DIRECT HAZARD TO THE CHILDS LIFESPAN AND SAFETY
>>727375Abortion IS killing it's just not killing a PERSON
This is absolutely disgusting and horrifying! What kind of nihilistic psychopath sees their own disabled brother (Who didn’t do anything wrong within the context provided) and thinks “My mom should have prevented him from being born.” Obviously a fetus is not a human life and there is nothing wrong with aborting it and I have no problem with aborting fetuses that would grow up disabled but forcing someone to abort it even when they want to is fucked up. This is the exact same shit the Nazi’s believed only without the killing them after they are born part.
>>727387So you’d be okay with having a kid that could potentially need multiple surgeries throughout childhood? You’d be willing to subjugate your child to that? Why?
I grew up in the same town as my cousin who is severely autistic (level 3). We’re the same age but we were only allowed to see each other at family gatherings. When I would go to the playground with my friends on play dates my cousin wasn’t allowed to come with us, because if he did there was a very high chance he’d injure himself on the playground equipment or run off (elope) and potentially get lost or killed. His parents never let him leave the house unless it was for school or the doctor’s (he also suffers from seizures), not because they were ableist but because of safety issues. I can’t imagine having no childhood like that. Why bring a child into the world knowing that child has a disability and will live such a closed-off life?
>>727383People abort for intersex conditions too, retard. Most of these “grey” diagnoses are not actually “grey” but either 1. cause other medical issues that don’t show up until later or 2. are only grey because medical technology has advanced so much we let those people survive. Most people with Down’s, for instance, used to die in their teens or early 20s due to all their medical issues. Now their average lifespan is 40-50 only because technology keeps them alive. Same thing with level 3 autism. Most level 3 autists used to die in childhood but are now living into adulthood only because of tech.
Damn this is a great thread.
Yes, CRISPR is based.
Yes, we will abort the retard baby.
>>727399I just hope your parents won’t force you to be your cousin’s caregiver when your aunt and uncle get too old.
Bases thread and ableist mods
>>727410Prenatal testing should be mandatory still, that doesn't violate bodily autonomy
>>727418Mandatory is the wrong word, what you meant to say was included in prenatal care.
>>727419Ok thx, english is my second language
I unironically support this.
If we decide we want intellectually disabled/retarded people to exist, who provides care for them? Even if we abolish the nuclear family they will still need caregivers. With an already declining birthrate there’s not going to be enough younger people being born to provide care for all the Autists and Downies that currently exist. Plus, most young people don’t want to work any job anymore, much less spend their days changing adult diapers.
>>727362How would society have to change for high needs autism to not be a disability anymore?
>>727445Can you answer the question directly instead of deflecting?
>>727438not the ones making legislation to keep them alive that's for sure.
have you seen anyone vooting for war back in the day actually going to the front ? hell no
>>727452“The commune” won’t provide care, because communism means a fuckton of leisure time. No one will sacrifice their leisure time to wipe a retard’s ass.
>>727339>I'm really sick of disability activists saying we shouldn't try to cure disability, A socialist society cures the blind.
A liberal society makes the entire community blind so the blind man feels less alone.
>>727410>>727381>>727394From what I've experienced, the people who choose to keep a pregnancy with a prenatal diagnosis like T21 or Fragile X (which usually causes autism) aren't doing so out of love for that child, but because certain values that they hold outweigh their fear of uncertainty. Those could be: religion (almost always the case), virtue signalling, the belief in living at whatever cost, willingness to take a risk, or some vague idea of disability justice or "anti-eugenics". It has nothing to do with "I will love my baby no matter what" as they try to portray it.
On the flip side, people who choose to terminate for a prenatal diagnosis didn't do so out of demand for a "perfect" child but because they were highly averse to risk. Or because their ethical compass wouldn't allow them to bring a child into the world that was GUARANTEED to be disabled and require a ton of medical care and special care for the rest of their life. If prenatal testing for autism is ever developed, you can be sure people will terminate on that exact basis as well. In fact, nearly all the mothers of level 3 autistic kids that I've spoken to IRL and online have said that the biggest problem with raising a level 3 autistic kid is the extreme amount of uncertainty. Uncertainty about this kid's future and what will happen to them after the parents get too old or die. Uncertainty about this kid's health since the kid can't tell their parents what's wrong with them. Uncertainty about whether or not this kid is okay enough to go out in public without having a meltdown from sensory overload. Uncertainty if they can let this kid walk outside without them running into traffic. Uncertainty about this kid's education and what kinds of special ed options exist. Will my level 3 autistic kid ever learn how to read and write or do basic math? There's loads more but that's the gist of it. These parents never get a full night of sleep, because if their kid's screaming in the middle of the night doesn't keep them up, the intense amount of worrying about their kid's future will.
>>727374>>727383>>727445>>727447People greatly misunderstand and misuse the social model of disability. It never says: "disabilities are only disabling because of society/capitalism" but rather that society/capitalism makes (certain) disabilities MORE disabling than they need to be.
And let's face it: if we lived in a society that was centred around wheelchair users, the person who could walk would still be at an advantage. In a world with no arms the one-armed man is king, as they say.
>>727393Abortion isn't murder
People ITT opposed to OP clearly don’t understand the difference between living and merely existing.
I have level 1 autism. I live alone. I have a grad school degree. I used to travel the world in my youth. I now teach kids philosophy and work as a journalist part-time. I have many intellectual and creative interests that I fulfill. I’m in a romantic relationship. I speak multiple languages (English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew). I’m very politically active in my city and do a lot of community solidarity work. That’s living.
The vast majority of level 3 autists merely exist. They have the minds of toddlers and will never live fulfilling or creative lives. They will depend on 24-7 care until the day they die. They will never learn to do the things we take for granted. That’s not a life worth living at all.
>>727579It’s also worth pointing out that the main reason level 3 autists become aggressive is because they’re in pain. A lot of them suffer from seizures and other health issues that they can’t articulate to their caregivers and doctors so they become aggressive and violent out of irritation.
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