You know, whenever treatment for autism comes up, we get a lot of comments heavily suggesting curing autism is basically eugenics.

Why is it that some things are seen as a disability we should try to fix in our children, and others - which are in many ways just as debilitating - seen as some kind of beautiful part of humanity?

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joefourier 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Autism is a spectrum disorder and I don’t think it should be controversial to cure low functioning autism. However, high functioning autists can be argued to be more of a personality variant than a disability, with different strengths and weaknesses compared to neurotypical people. Society benefits greatly from supporting high functioning autistic people in say, technical fields where hyperfocus, narrow obsessions and systemising thinking are an advantage.

Meanwhile, having a genetic condition like haemophilia doesn’t give you any conceivable advantage.

	▲	iteria 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't even think there should be a conversation around high functioning autistics. My kid suffers from autistic catatonia. She's also extremely high functioning. I'm sorry, there is no world where I'm going to say no thanks to a cure for my daughter's body suddenly locking into place for an unknown period of time or losing the ability to speak or function randomly or hell just understand human expression without intense intervention. We can argue about their special brain powers or whatever, but all I'm seeing is that high functioning autistic have a much higher rate of self-harm and suicide. It can't be that great.
	▲	squigz 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Society benefits greatly from supporting high functioning autistic people in say, technical fields where hyperfocus, narrow obsessions and systemising thinking are an advantage. At the expense of those people having to live with all the unmentioned negative aspects of autism. (To say nothing of whether those are actually positives or not. Personally, I don't see how hyperfixating on something for a few weeks at a time at the expense of all my other responsibilities is a superpower, but hey)
	▲	guerrilla 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Meanwhile, having a genetic condition like haemophilia doesn’t give you any conceivable advantage. Sickle-cell anemia does though. I wonder if some day there could be a survival advantage for haemophilia. What if we erase the genetic code that ends up saving us from some alien virus, you know? I'm not saying this is a good argument, just something interesting to think about.

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jeroenhd a day ago | parent | prev [-]

While I'm probably considered high-functioning autistic, I have seen the devastating effects autism can have on people less lucky than me. I don't know if I'd go for an autism cure myself, but if autism can be corrected for in the womb or right after birth, I would definitely be in favour. How necessary such a cure would be, depends on how extreme someone's autism is, and if the cure can be administered before their disability helps form and solidify their personality.

However, I think mental disorders like autism and physical ailments like deafness don't have the same ethical impact. One changes who a person is, the other changes what a person is capable of. It also depends on how bad the disability is; in this case, the kids showing most promise could already hear, though badly, and the treatment let them hear much better. I'm not even deaf but I'd happily take a treatment to fix whatever hearing damage I've collected over the years.

And for what it's worth, eugenics is already with us and that's actually not so evil. People carrying certain genetic diseases choose not to have (biological) kids all the time. Others still choose to risk it. As long as there isn't some large conspiracy about perfecting the human race behind it, eugenics can be helpful.