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Whose Planet Is It Anyway? has moved to Blogger. To read
this article on the new site, click here.
Once upon a time, on a primitive, ignorant, prejudiced planet, it
sometimes happened that children were born who differed from the others of their species. Their thought processes tended
to be more visual, and they often had difficulty with speech. They took longer to learn certain skills. Sometimes
they needed help with their activities as adults.
Their differences did not matter in the small farming villages of
the planet's past, where every pair of hands that could make use of a plow or a hoe was needed. But this all changed
when an industrial society developed. Those who could not work efficiently in the factories were denounced as having
no place in that society.
Defective genes, the doctors proclaimed ominously. There are
institutions for children like that, the parents were told. Send them away, forget they were ever born, and try again
for a more socially acceptable child.
Some doctors went into the institutions and conducted studies on
the isolated, deprived, abused, and uneducated children who had been abandoned there. As a result of these studies,
the medical profession declared authoritatively that very few of the unfortunates stricken with this tragic affliction would
ever be able to talk, read, work, or do anything productive at all. Dead weight on society, the medical journals and
the popular press described them. A prenatal test was soon developed to rid society of that burden.
The institutions were shut down for lack of funding, and the small
number of parents who opted against abortion raised their children at home. The parents discovered that most of these
children, when raised in a loving home and properly educated, could in fact learn to talk, read, and work. Some families
even sought to adopt other such children.
But it made no difference to the prenatal testing regime, now firmly
entrenched in public opinion and in standard medical practice. The few remaining individuals of this despised minority
began to feel as if they were the last specimens of an endangered species. Some of them became civil rights activists
and protested at genetics conferences and other such events. Others wrote passionate essays calling for justice and
tolerance. Their efforts went almost unnoticed by the media and the doctors, and they continued to be described as hopeless
sufferers whose very existence was a tragedy.
Eventually, like ripples spreading across the surface of a long-stagnant
pond, a new meme began to make its way into the public consciousness. The supporters of neurodiversity, as it was called,
held the belief that differences in brain structure deserved as much respect and acceptance as other types of diversity.
They began to persuade their fellow citizens that differences of thought and perception should be celebrated, not destroyed.
And the last few survivors, as they mourned the millions lost over
so many years, could only wonder why it had taken so long...
Is this just speculative fiction? An imaginary account
of a warped future in which "charitable" efforts to eradicate autism have succeeded? Well, actually, no. It's
a completely factual description of what happened to the Down Syndrome population over the past century or so. They had the misfortune to be identified as a genetically distinct group by
Dr. Down just as the odious racist ideology of eugenics was becoming socially accepted. Because of a superficial resemblance to Asian facial characteristics, they were labeled
with the slur mongoloid, which (to a society that was strongly prejudiced against Asians) connoted racial inferiority.
They became so thoroughly despised in the 20th century, based mainly
on false assumptions and stereotypes, that our society now takes it for granted that all DS babies should be aborted because
no parents would want to endure the hideous ordeal of raising such a child. (This grossly skewed viewpoint is very far
from most parents' actual experience, by the way; there's a long waiting list for adoption of DS babies, and many of the applicants are parents who already have a DS child.)
People with Down Syndrome are very well aware that our society treats
them like vermin. A group of DS activists disrupted a conference on prenatal screening in 2003, demanding an end to eugenic abortion. Some have given interviews asserting their
pride and worth, such as artist Anya Souza, or written intense essays like Astra Milberg's haunting Letter to a Baby Who Was Thrown from a Bridge. These are cries for justice from survivors of a genocide, and they have gone largely unheard.
I am posting this article not just to show solidarity with their
struggle, but also to illustrate just how easy it is to construct a cultural myth so powerful, so insidious, that large numbers
of otherwise rational and decent people will sacrifice their children to it in lockstep, like the parents of ancient Carthage
who willingly flung their newborns into the flaming maw of the idol Ba'al.
In Constructing Autism, a professor describes how a similar process is shaping social attitudes toward today's autistic population. Instead
of the concerns about industrialization and race that led to society's brutal rejection of people with Down Syndrome, the
current mass hysteria about autism has its roots in more contemporary issues—environmental pollution, rapid technological
change, and widespread challenges to cultural taboos.
Eugenics advocates such as Cure Autism Now (CAN) are spreading primitive
propaganda reminiscent of the medieval changeling myth, in which fairies were said to have stolen young children and left demon-babies in their place. (Here's a more modern
tale from the changeling's point of view.) When autistic children are routinely portrayed by CAN and others as empty shells infested by neurological demons,
that leads inevitably to the conclusion that they are not human beings, not worthy of civil rights or even life itself.
History has made it very clear what happens to any minority group that is vilified in such a manner.
The construction of the monstrous idol on which society intends
to sacrifice our babies is nearing completion; piles of firewood are stacked nearby, well soaked with oil; and the torches
are blazing.
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