Cure, Again
In response to:
http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-the-c-word-what-it-means-to-cure-autism
I am autistic, I am disabled, and I do not want a cure. I’ve lived my whole life autistic. The way I think and feel and see the world is built on a developmental scaffold that includes autism. A total "cure" for autism would be like having your personality and skills erased, and having to re-learn everything, like an infant. It would be very much like death, I think.
I have been told, "You can communicate. That means you do not have the right to speak for anyone who cannot communicate, because you cannot know what it is like to be non-verbal." But do non-autistic people have any more right to presume what those people want than I do? How do they know what an autistic person would want; and why would they have any more insight than me? Nobody knows what it is like to be somebody else. I may not be able to tell whether non-verbal people want a cure; but neither can you.
The idea that people who cannot speak must want to be cured comes from a fundamental misconception: The idea that non-disabled is intrinsically better than disabled, in all cases, for everyone.
But having a disability isn't the most important factor here. There are many more important things--the right not to have your brain modified against your will; the right not to have your behavior modified just to make other people more comfortable; the right to have education that makes you more functional rather than more "normal-appearing". (In many cases, autism therapy will focus on normality at the exclusion of all else. This is a great mistake. Autistic people were not meant to do things the typical way. It is as bad as forcing a left-handed child to use his right hand.)
I have no problem with education and therapy and in some cases even medication for autistic people. I have benefited from them myself (though sometimes, was mistreated and hurt by them). It stands to reason that a child with a different mind must need a different sort of education. I think it very important to give every autistic person the education he needs to reach his potential. But I think it is very wrong to presume that the best possible state for an autistic person is to be non-autistic.
The Internet allows many people who have difficulty with speech, or no speech at all, to communicate through writing. I have communicated with many people, at all levels of the autism spectrum from those who live independently with families and careers to those who require twenty-four-hour assistance with everything from eating to diaper changes. I have met people with what would be considered very mild Asperger's who are desperate for a cure; I have met people who depend completely on aides for very simple tasks who would rather die than be subjected to a cure. I’ve never seen any relationship between how independent they are and whether they want to be “normal”.
Most of the distress in autism, at all levels of independence, seems to come not from autism itself but from the way autistic individuals are treated. When I talk to someone who is sad to be autistic, I often encounter the idea that, "If only I were normal, I wouldn't be treated this way. I could have a job. I could have a family. People would stop excluding me." But nobody should have to think that way! Nobody should have to say, "I am not acceptable; to be acceptable I must change. To be disabled is shameful. I am to blame for the way people treat me." Nobody should have to justify his existence with, "Yes, I'm autistic, but look at my talents or my intelligence." He should be acknowledged to be valuable, intrinsically, without having to be good at anything at all.
The biggest problem with being autistic isn't being autistic--it's the way people look at autism. They think of it as a horrible disease that steals the "real child" away. But it isn't like that. We're here; we're real people. It’s not a wasted life or an empty existence. We want to be part of your world, if only you would let us. We don't want pity; we want the opportunity to live our lives and follow our dreams, just like anybody does. Just because sometimes it's hard to communicate doesn't mean that we have nothing to say. Listen to us. It might mean reading what we write or looking at what we sign or trying to understand our behavior; but just because we're clumsy at communicating doesn't mean there's nothing there to get through.
We don't need people to speak for us; we are already speaking for ourselves. Our opinions are diverse and our personalities are different, but we have one thing in common: We're human. We have the same rights as anyone else; we have dreams and desires; we love and grieve just like you do. Difference in the way we experience and express those things doesn't change those fundamental facts. Being autistic doesn't make us changelings or walking tragedies. We're just human--just different.