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Autism May Someday Be Detected In The Womb
New York, 8:33 AM
Tue Dec 22
55 posts in the last 24 hours
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Autism May Someday Be Detected In The Womb |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
01/12/09
Autism is like living in your own personal jail and other people are the bars. No one should be condemned to that, and no family should have to see someone else suffer. This is not a disease to be romanticised or debated over, it's debilitating and if it can be eliminated, it should be.
01/13/09
Autism is NOT like a jail cell, what on earth would cause you to suggest that having a developmental disorder - which frequently affects social interactions and little else - is a jail cell and society is its bars? It is not a disease, it's a disorder. And it's not always debilitating - the percentage of the population with autism so severe that it's debilitating is tiny. It's there, certainly, but it's certainly not the majority of diagnoses. People with all sorts of abilities and differences have a place in this world, and I'm more than a little upset that you're suggesting we "eliminate" people who don't fit the perfect ideal (do any of us?) to make the world a better place.
01/12/09
Prior to the 80s, most people with autism were diagnosed as having mental retardation and institutionalized (I recommend reading up on the Willowbrook Wars). While autism diagnosis rates have gone up, mental retardation has decreased- correlationally, more and more individuals are falling on the spectrum. Now with early intervention and treatment therapy, depending on the individual- anything is possible.
This whole topic is so complex and there really is no right or wrong answer.
01/12/09
01/12/09
For all those who say they couldn't cope with a severely disabled child, what would you do if the child you had suffered severe injuries in a car accident? Or suffered major burns?
In most children I've met with complex disabilities, there was and is, no way of finding out before birth that there is a problem. This is especially true of some of the more rare genetic disorders.
01/12/09
I have to go drink myself into oblivion now. My brain hurts.
01/12/09
It is the responsibility of society to decide and legislate on which are the ethical and unethical uses of new discoveries. There needs to be a better education for people of all ages on what do these tests mean and whatnot.
In this *still theoretical* case, people that know that they might be carrying a child with Asperger's or autism might be able to start treating their children sooner, modify their diets if necessary, they might be able to search for resources and help sooner. It could potentially also increase the quality of life and prospects for the future of kids born with these conditions.
01/12/09
01/12/09
Exactly. Normally-developing children are aborted because of these circumstances, too.
01/12/09
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01/12/09
As for the talent and gift argument, I would counter that many Down Syndrome children have gifts too -- gifts that are being eliminated with over 90% of Down identified pregnancies ending in termination. I am more or less pro-life, but I do think picking and choosing talents and gifts to perpetuate is very dangerous. Smacks a bit of Hitler, don't you think? Where do we draw the line?
01/12/09
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01/12/09
every child needs love.
01/12/09
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01/12/09
My son is almost 9 years old and has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum. Autism is a neurological disorder that manifests it's self in a number of ways and varying degrees of impairment. My wonder is will the test for autism tell parents how impacted their child might be by autism? My son is in a regular classroom, plays soccer, and is a cub scout. He also gets @ 17 hrs. a week of therapy and collaborative help in school. I think of him as a cantankerous old man who is very opinionated and set in his ways. I love him heart, soul, and mind. I just want him to be happy. Now, as for the pregnancy I terminated at 22 weeks, we saw her impairment clearly on a screen..her head stopped at her eyebrows. It was very clear that she would never live outside my body.
What scares me is this idea of parents ending a pregnancy for unclear reasons. Yes, your child will be autisitc, but we don't know if he will be nonverbal..a rocker or a flapper ( my son is both ), or late talker who knows everything about John Deere tractors. I feel blessed that I was chosen to be Jake's mom.
01/12/09
01/12/09
For the record, I like the idea of being able to screen so one can adequately prepare and make choices that are right for them, but since some people with these conditions are able to function fine, I would hate to think of a world where some people's loved ones might not exist because of they were terminated out of fear when everything could've been fine. I hope that makes sense.
01/12/09
01/12/09
Plus, if it were something as easy as "testosterone in the womb", one would think we'd just develop "womb testosterone blockers" and call it a day.
01/12/09
FUCK THAT FUCKING SHIT OF FUCK!
Why are we still doing this? Why are we still trying to find a cure for a "problem" that does not exist? Are we going to start looking for ways to detect if a baby will be born left handed, so we can decide if we want to terminate based on something as stupid as that too?
I just fucking hate how all I ever hear is how people are looking to cure autism in the future, but no one is helping the people who have it now. For a lot of people who have low functioning autism, they can't have a job, and their caregivers often have to leave work to take care of them FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. And the compensastion they get from the government is not much either.
Sometimes these people end up in homes too because the parents can't, or just refuse to deal with them. When they graduate from high school, that's it, their education is done, and they can't continue to grow. There's no post secondary education for these people.
So instead of trying to "cure" the children of the future, why the FUCK is no one doing anything about the people already around? Oh, right, because that would require setting up programs, hiring teachers, and all around, putting in some actual god damn fucking effort!
/rant
01/12/09
01/12/09
"So instead of trying to "cure" the children of the future, why the FUCK is no one doing anything about the people already around?"
I don't know what country you're in or your circumstances, but I'm sorry that you think that. Is what we have ever going to be enough? No. But don't discourage the people who ARE working to make a difference by denying that they exist or refusing to give them credit.
01/12/09
At any rate, this is definitely a choice that would not be easy for anyone to make. But it's still important to me to actually have that choice and be able to decide for myself. Gah I'm going out to smoke now because I've just stressed myself the fuck out.
01/12/09
Me too. I can remember few times in my life when I've been more relieved than when I got my quad marker screening back clean. (We had no risk factors; I just knew I couldn't live with the stress of not knowing.) And we knew that we would not terminate unless the fetus was totally nonviable and termination was medically required. These fears are very, very common, and your ob/gyn can talk to you some about them, although at a certain point, all you can do is close your eyes and jump and hope for the best -- children, whether born by you or adopted, whether designer fetuses or luck of the draw -- are ALWAYS a crapshoot. Everyone knows the story of the good-looking, smart, football-team captain golden boy who threw his life away on crime/drugs/bad women; and everyone knows the story of the kid with a disability who struggled to the top. Luckily, your parenting, which you DO have control over, seems to matter a lot more than genes.
"Plus if/when I do get pregnant, I will stop taking my meds because I don't want to poison the baby or impede it's development in any way."
Talk to your ob/gyn or GP, and seriously this is a conversation you can have NOW while you're just loosely pondering the issue. You're not the first person with epilepsy to go through pregnancy, and you may be surprised how much info is available out there. When my husband and I started considering pregnancy (a couple years before we were ready to start trying), we talked to my GP, who helped me think about what I needed to do to be healthy for the baby, AND helped me find an ob/gyn with expertise in treating serious depression during pregnancy. She and my ob/gyn also helped me find good resources and information (as opposed to random shrill web page) on depression in pregnancy so I could make informed decisions in partnership with my husband and my doctors.
This was the thing I was probably most worried about -- would my problems affect my baby? -- and I feel very comfortable and very good about my decisions, and my depression has been well-managed throughout the pregnancy so far. (I'm 4 1/2 months.) And of course we've had the same discussions about breastfeeding and early parenting, so I feel much more comfortable knowing my options, knowing I'm in control of my problem (rather than vice versa), and knowing I have a team of back-ups who get it.
01/12/09