Autistic and Proud or the American Dream?
What is the future of autism?
Does the future of autism lie in the hands of biomedical doctors who want to “cure” autism, who want to treat every aspect of autism, who want to do research on autism and find ways to defeat it?
Or does the future lie in the hands of parents of children with autism and in the hands of people who are autistic and who are proud of who they are?
There is a new voice out there now that is starting to make noise and finally starting to get attention. Their message is that they want people to stop research on autism and begin celebrating people with autism for who they really are, what their differences are, and what they can do for society.
On the contrary, some parents are angry with this message because they want their children “cured”.
Ari Ne’eman of Autistic Self Advocacy Network and Kristina Chew of Autism Vox believe that people with autism are important parts of the culture and the “wide diversity present in human genetics”.
My son is who he is. He’s not going to change; he’s always going to be Charlie. And at the same time, I loved him just for what he was,” Chew said.
However, many parents are “protesting” this group because they don’t represent the whole, they represent a small piece of the autism puzzle, a small piece of the autism community.
Ne’euman still believes that most of the community will rally to his side and that history will be on his side in the end.
Unfortunately, I believe that there are too many parents out there searching for the American Dream of perfect children, perfect spouse, perfect life to make this reform happen. In my opinion, there will always be autism research, there will always be people who will fight for Green Vaccines, and there will always be parents who will blame others for their children’s disabilities.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:41 am
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