Autism, Eugenics, and RFK Jr.

 In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia. 

Elster, N., Parsi, K., & Caplan, A. (2026). Laundering Public Health: Using Autism to Revive Eugenics. The American Journal of Bioethics, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2026.2659519.

“Better babies.” “Fitter families.” “Survival of the fittest.” “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” These phrases are not merely historical reminders of the United States’ regrettable eugenic past but are appearing in an increasingly eugenic present. Eugenics may have seemed dormant, but has recently been reawakened by the alt-right, tech billionaires, and figures such as Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), Jr., Stephen Miller, and President Trump. Autism has become the most recent target of eugenic ideology.

The administration’s stoking fear of and offering feigned support for autistic children and their families has bolstered MAHA’s ongoing eugenic rhetoric about the “scourge” of autism. This harmful language continues despite scientific evidence supporting MAHA’s misplaced (and scientifically refuted) views about the causal roles of vaccines and Tylenol. Disastrous political ideologies of the 19th century dominate this administration’s policies, but none so perniciously as the ideology of eugenics as applied to autism.

...

Historically, those promoting eugenics have often couched their agenda in terms of public health, which is precisely what RFK, Jr. and his MAHA cronies have been doing through their rhetoric around autism. They are utilizing a public health rationale to peel back decades of laws and regulations aimed at increasing vaccination rates to reduce communicable disease globally with one narrow and bogus goal: eliminating autism. This is problematic because reducing vaccination rates will not eliminate autism. It will, however, greatly harm many individuals while endangering public health. And it will ultimately lead to an increase rather than decrease in morbidity and mortality—exactly what MAHA claims it wants to prevent.

Reactions to Trump's Hatred of People with Disabilities

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.   In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.  He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people should "just die."

At The Kansas City Star, Nathaniel Ross Kelly recalls a teen with Down Syndrome who cheered up stranded passengers at the Kansas City airport. 

Propaganda by Germany’s Third Reich depicted people with disabilities as “useless eaters” who threatened the economic stability of the nation and the so-called purity of the “Aryan race.” When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they began sterilizing people with disabilities. Later, they began killing them en masse. To our country’s great shame, the Third Reich was inspired by the despicable policies that spread across the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century. More than 30 states passed compulsory sterilization laws for anyone deemed to have genetic illnesses or conditions. Missouri legislators tried and failed to pass such laws. Kansas, on the other hand, successfully passed a law in 1913 that legalized the forced sterilization of anyone thought to be “mentally deficient.”

Tragically, 31 states and Washington, D.C., still permit their courts to order the sterilization of people with disabilities. The process is far more complicated today, but the outcome is the same: the denial of reproductive freedom to marginalized people. How much further might the rights of people with disabilities erode under the leadership of a president who is incapable of seeing their innate humanity?

There’s an endless torrent of questions about what a second Trump term would entail. Mass deportations, weakened environmental regulations, and increased tax breaks for the ultrarich are just some of the many possibilities. Maybe you wholeheartedly agree with these potential policies and you’re looking forward to voting for Trump in November.

But when you’re alone and on the verge of casting your ballot, I urge you to remember that kid at KCI Airport, bringing joy to weary travelers. And I urge you to seriously consider the implications of giving power to someone who doesn’t care whether that young man — and millions of others like him — live or die.

Senator Maggie Hassan, whose son is severely disabled, at The Boston Globe:

Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, understands what empathy looks like. We served together in the Senate, and she never fails to ask about Ben. She understands that finding common ground starts with learning about the challenges and aspirations of all people, not just the people you know or socialize with. She knows that real leaders love people for who they are, for who they can become, and for what they can accomplish.

Compare this to Trump. In addition to what he said about his grandnephew, recall that he mocked and mimicked a reporter with disabilities on the campaign trail in 2015. He seems unable and uninterested in learning about people whose experiences and challenges might be different from his own. And he has never exhibited the empathy necessary to absorb the hopes and the hurts that Americans who are different from him carry.

Our country is founded on the vision set out in the Declaration of Independence — that all of us are created equal and are endowed with the same rights. America has become stronger when our country has expanded its promise to marginalized Americans, including, yes, Americans with disabilities.

Making progress requires us to embrace each other’s intrinsic humanity. Our American mission is to bring out the best in each other — when we have, our country has flourished. Trump has proven that he is incapable of the generosity of spirit that has defined our country at its best. America deserves better.

 Martin Mutsch at NJ.com:

Does my 22-year-old autistic son, who has severe behavioral limitations, have the same “value” as his brother – an Eagle Scout with stellar grades, a college degree earned in just three years, and success as a Science Olympiad national finalist?

Or is he, as Donald Trump sees it, just one of “those kinds of people. . . (who) should just die,” and cease being a burden to my family and future generations?

CA Lags in Compensating Sterilization Victims

 In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia.  Though it is hard to know for sure, it seems likely that some of those subjected to forced sterilization were autistic.

Phil Barter at The Press-Democrat:

On the final day of 2021, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a program meant to soothe some of the harm the state had inflicted on its wards over the span of a century.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2022, and continuing through the end of 2023, California would work to identify and compensate survivors among the 20,000-plus victims of involuntary sterilization in state institutions and prisons.

Well over a year later, the agency responsible for administering the program is reporting minimal gains.

By April 28, according to data furnished to The Press Democrat, the California Victim Compensation Board had approved just 80 applications, less than 20% of the number it had received.

More relevant to Sonoma County — where the former Sonoma State Home in Glen Ellen became the American epicenter of forced sterilizations in the first half of the 20th century — only three applicants from the so-called “eugenics era” had been approved. All three of those people had been sterilized at Sonoma State Home, later known as Sonoma Developmental Center.

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How to apply for compensation as a victim of involuntary sterilization


Applications will be accepted through Dec. 31, 2023, and are completely confidential. Compensation paid to any claimant or claimant’s trust will not impact a survivor’s Medicaid or Social Security status or benefits, and will not be considered income for state tax purposes or for community property, child support, restitution or a money judgment.

There are four ways to get connected.

Online: www.victims.ca.gov/fiscp

Call the California Victim Compensation Board: 800-777-9229

Email: fiscp@victims.ca.gov

Mail: P.O. Box 591, Sacramento, CA 95812-0591

Controversy Over a DNA Study

In The Politics of Autism, I explain:

When a pregnancy is under way, doctors can detect certain kinds of disorders, but neither amniocentesis nor any other prenatal test can currently tell us whether a fetus will become autistic. Suppose that such a test did exist. “The best case use of a prenatal test at the moment would be if you could say to a parent, your child has got an 80 percent likelihood of autism and so once the baby's born, we would like to keep a close eye on that child in case they need extra support like speech therapy or social skills training or some sort of behavioral approach,” says leading autism scientist Simon Baron-Cohen. But would the “best case use” be the most common? When amniocentesis indicates Down Syndrome, most mothers choose abortion. A study of autism parents in Taiwan found that just over half would abort if a prenatal test indicated that their next child would be autistic. We cannot be sure what the figures would be if such tests were available in the United States, but it seems likely that a large share of autism pregnancies would end in abortion.

Liam O'Dell at The Independent:

Autistic advocates have expressed concerns over a University of Cambridge study, over fears that the research into “genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the wellbeing of autistic individuals and their families” amounts to “eugenics”.

Branded “the largest study of autism in the UK”, Spectrum 10K – which also involves researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) – looks to collect questionnaire responses and DNA samples from 10,000 autistic people.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of Cambridge’s Autism Research Centre and project leader, said there is an “urgent need” to “better understand” the needs of autistic people.

...

However, while the team behind Spectrum 10K repeatedly insist that they are “not searching for a cure” for the condition and that they are “ethically opposed to any form of eugenics”, concerns have been raised over the security of genetic information and the views of those involved.

Speaking in April 2019, Baron-Cohen told Spectrum News that “there’s no way we can ever say that a future political leader or a scientist won’t use the research for eugenics”.

The "eugenics" fear is that if DNA testing shows that a couple with a high probability of having an autistic child, they will decide not to have children at all.  And more specifically, there is concern that it could lead to selective abortion

Genetic Testing and Autism

In The Politics of Autism, I explain:

When a pregnancy is under way, doctors can detect certain kinds of disorders, but neither amniocentesis nor any other prenatal test can currently tell us whether a fetus will become autistic. Suppose that such a test did exist. “The best case use of a prenatal test at the moment would be if you could say to a parent, your child has got an 80 percent likelihood of autism and so once the baby's born, we would like to keep a close eye on that child in case they need extra support like speech therapy or social skills training or some sort of behavioral approach,” says leading autism scientist Simon Baron-Cohen. But would the “best case use” be the most common? When amniocentesis indicates Down Syndrome, most mothers choose abortion. A study of autism parents in Taiwan found that just over half would abort if a prenatal test indicated that their next child would be autistic. We cannot be sure what the figures would be if such tests were available in the United States, but it seems likely that a large share of autism pregnancies would end in abortion.

Sarah Zhang at The Atlantic:

For those with the money, the possibilities of genetic selection are expanding. The leading edge is preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) of embryos created through in vitro fertilization, which altogether can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Labs now offer testing for a menu of genetic conditions—most of them rare and severe conditions such as Tay-Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, and phenylketonuria—allowing parents to select healthy embryos for implantation in the womb. Scientists have also started trying to understand more common conditions that are influenced by hundreds or even thousands of genes: diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, cancer, and—much more controversially—mental illness and autism. In late 2018, Genomic Prediction, a company in New Jersey, began offering to screen embryos for risk of hundreds of conditions, including schizophrenia and intellectual disability, though it has since quietly backtracked on the latter. The one test customers keep asking for, the company’s chief scientific officer told me, is for autism. The science isn’t there yet, but the demand is.

The politics of prenatal testing for Down syndrome and abortion are currently yoked together by necessity: The only intervention offered for a prenatal test that finds Down syndrome is an abortion. But modern reproduction is opening up more ways for parents to choose what kind of child to have. PGT is one example. Sperm banks, too, now offer detailed donor profiles delineating eye color, hair color, education; they also screen donors for genetic disorders. Several parents have sued sperm banks after discovering that their donor may have undesirable genes, in cases where their children developed conditions such as autism or a degenerative nerve disease. In September, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that one such case, in which a sperm donor had hidden his history of mental illness, could move forward. The “deceptive trade practices” of a sperm bank that misrepresented its donor-screening process, the court ruled, could “essentially amount to ordinary consumer fraud.”

RBG and Disabilities

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities. 

The Arc on the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Often lost in the day to day of life are the big moments in history that make today possible. Today, a life in the community for millions of people with disabilities is possible because of the actions of those who came before them, that led to justice. We mourn the loss of one of those champions, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the opinion in the landmark ruling affirming that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is discrimination.

“Thirty years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act transformed the country in important ways, changing expectations for the lives of people with disabilities. Thanks to the work of countless committed advocates, we have taken meaningful steps toward the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Two advocates that carried the promise of the law all the way to the Supreme Court were Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson. Their bravery and refusal to live behind the dark walls of institutions led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead v. L.C. decision in 1999. The case established that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act – and that people with disabilities have a right to live in the community rather than institutions.

“In the opinion, Justice Ginsburg focused on the fact that ‘institutional placement of persons who can handle and benefit from community settings perpetuates unwarranted assumptions that persons so isolated are incapable of or unworthy of participating in community life.’

“This big moment, and her staunch affirmation of the human dignity of people with disabilities and their rightful place in the community of their choice, fundamentally changed the course of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities. With this history in our hearts, we will carry on our fight for inclusion and justice for all people with disabilities,” said Peter Berns, CEO, The Arc.

From Ginsburg's concurrence in Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004) (h/t Robyn Powell)

 Including individuals with disabilities among people who count in composing “We the People,” Congress understood in shaping the ADA, would sometimes require not blindfolded equality, but responsiveness to difference; not indifference, but accommodation. Central to the Act’s primary objective, Congress extended the statute’s range to reach all government activities, §12132 (Title II), and required “reasonable modifications to [public actors’] rules, policies, or practices,” §§12131(2)–12132 (Title II). See also §12112(b)(5) (defining discrimination to include the failure to provide “reasonable accommodations”) (Title I); §12182(b)(2)(A)(ii) (requiring “reasonable modifications in [public accommodations’] policies, practices, or procedures”) (Title III); Bagenstos, supra, at 435 (ADA supporters sought “to eliminate the practices that combine with physical and mental conditions to create what we call ‘disability.’ The society-wide universal access rules serve this function on the macro level, and the requirements of individualized accommodation and modification fill in the gaps on the micro level.” 

Ria Tabacco Mar at WP:

Apart from her legendary dissents on the Supreme Court of the United States, Ginsburg is perhaps best known for the six cases she argued before the court as director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, a position I’m privileged to hold now. In 1973, the year Ginsburg had her first argument before the high court, she and the Women’s Rights Project co-founder, Brenda Feigen, filed a federal lawsuit in North Carolina on behalf of Nial Ruth Cox, a Black woman who had been forcibly sterilized in 1965 as part of a gruesome state eugenics program targeted at people with mental disabilities.

 

Triage

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families. Those challenges get far more intense during disasters.  And coronavirus is proving to be the biggest disaster of all.

People with autism and other disabilities have faced discrimination in organ transplants.  Now they face discrimination in the availability of ventilators.

Amy Silverman at Pro Publica:

Advocates for people with intellectual disabilities are concerned that those with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other such conditions will be denied access to lifesaving medical treatment as the COVID-19 outbreak spreads across the country.

Several disability advocacy organizations filed complaints this week with the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, asking the federal government to clarify provisions of the disaster preparedness plans for the states of Washington and Alabama.

The advocates say the plans discriminate against people with intellectual disabilities by deprioritizing this group in the event of rationing of medical care — specifically, access to ventilators, which are in high demand in treating COVID-19 cases. More than 7 million people in the U.S. have some form of cognitive disability.

Some state plans make clear that people with cognitive issues are a lower priority for lifesaving treatment. For instance, Alabama’s plan says that “persons with severe mental retardation, advanced dementia or severe traumatic brain injury may be poor candidates for ventilator support.” Another part says that “persons with severe or profound mental retardation, moderate to severe dementia, or catastrophic neurological complications such as persistent vegetative state are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.”

...
“What we’re seeing here is a clash between disability rights law and ruthless utilitarian logic,” said Ari Ne’eman, a visiting scholar at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University. “What this is really about at the end of the day is whether our civil rights laws still apply in a pandemic. I think that’s a pretty core question as to who we are as a country.”

Changing the Name of Asperger's Syndrome

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia.

In A Different Key, John Donvan and Caren Zucker found that Dr. Hans Asperger worked with Nazis in Austria.  We are now learning more details. 

Edith Sheffer, author of Asperger's Children, spoke to NPR's Michel Martin:

I came to this research because my son was diagnosed with autism and Asperger's syndrome. That's one of the reasons it's so complicated because the diagnostic criteria are overlapping. And like any parent, I read what I could about the diagnosis. And the blurbs that I found in parent manuals or online or on his Wikipedia page, as you said, described him in these heroic terms. My very first file that I looked at in the archives, however, was his district Nazi Party file that was reporting on his political reliability. And there were about 20 documents, and they're commenting on his support for the regime's racial hygiene measures, for his support for sterilization policy, racial policy. There was a document written by an SS officer saying that while Asperger was in a position to expose activities that were happening, he chose not to. So really, from the very first file. And to me, it's very surprising that this history has not come out yet.
...
There are a few reasons why I think we should get rid of the name. One has to do with medical ethics. Eponymous diagnoses are granted to honor individuals who are describing a condition for the first time and to commend their work as human beings. And in my opinion, Asperger merits neither. The second reason to rename the diagnosis is that it no longer exists as an official diagnosis according to the American Psychiatric Association. In 2013, it was reclassified as autism spectrum disorder. And so today, you can't receive a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome in the United States. It remains an official diagnosis in other countries that go by the World Health Organization's standard, but even that is being reclassified because it's seen as indistinct from other criteria for autism.

Eugenics and Forced Sterilization

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia.  Though it is hard to know for sure, it seems likely that some of those subjected to forced sterilization were autistic.

A release from CA State Senator Nancy Skinner:

Reflecting a recently released study in the American Journal of Public Health on the history of forced sterilizations in California and the disproportionate impact on women and Latinas, Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) has introduced legislation that would fund a state program to compensate survivors who were involuntarily sterilized during their institutionalization at a state mental hospital.

“We can never fully make up for California’s forced sterilizations—since so many who were hurt are no longer with us,” said Skinner. “But for those still alive, we can do better by finally providing restitution.”

SB 1190 requires California to identify and compensate survivors who were sterilized as a result of their being a ward of a state mental hospital, comparable to programs now established in both North Carolina and Virginia. Sterilization victims still alive would be allowed to submit claims; if the claimant passed away before authentication of the application, restitution would be provided to a designated beneficiary. Additionally, the bill requires commemorative plaques to be placed at the locations of state hospitals where sterilizations took place.

California’s “Eugenics” law was passed in 1909 and authorized sterilization surgery for people deemed to have a "mental disease, which may have been inherited." The law was not confined to mental illness as defined today, but rather was applied to people the state deemed as not ‘conforming to societal norms’ including people who were gay, poor, physically disabled, or didn't speak sufficient English. Records show that over 20,000 people were forcibly sterilized from the time the law passed until 1979 when it was repealed, more than any other state and roughly a third of all such sterilizations in the U.S. Most, but not all, of California’s forced sterilizations were done on people held in state mental hospitals, with the sterilization often required as a precondition for release.

While forced sterilization affected people of all genders and ethnicities, women and Latinas were especially impacted. Archived records show that Latinas were 59 percent more likely to be sterilized; and of the estimated 700 forcibly sterilized Californians who are still alive, 62 percent are women.

“For 70 years California sterilized individuals the State deemed unfit to have children,” said Skinner. “With this program, we can shed light on something that should never have happened, and offer some small solace to the people affected.”

More on Asperger and Nazism

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia.

In A Different Key, John Donvan and Caren Zucker found that Dr. Hans Asperger worked with Nazis in Austria.  We are now learning more details. 

Herwig Czech has an article at Molecular Biology titled "Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and “Race Hygiene” in Nazi-era Vienna." The abstract:

Background

Hans Asperger (1906–1980) first designated a group of children with distinct psychological characteristics as ‘autistic psychopaths’ in 1938, several years before Leo Kanner’s famous 1943 paper on autism. In 1944, Asperger published a comprehensive study on the topic (submitted to Vienna University in 1942 as his postdoctoral thesis), which would only find international acknowledgement in the 1980s. From then on, the eponym ‘Asperger’s syndrome’ increasingly gained currency in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the conceptualization of the condition. At the time, the fact that Asperger had spent pivotal years of his career in Nazi Vienna caused some controversy regarding his potential ties to National Socialism and its race hygiene policies. Documentary evidence was scarce, however, and over time a narrative of Asperger as an active opponent of National Socialism took hold. The main goal of this paper is to re-evaluate this narrative, which is based to a large extent on statements made by Asperger himself and on a small segment of his published work.

Methods

Drawing on a vast array of contemporary publications and previously unexplored archival documents (including Asperger’s personnel files and the clinical assessments he wrote on his patients), this paper offers a critical examination of Asperger’s life, politics, and career before and during the Nazi period in Austria.

Results

Asperger managed to accommodate himself to the Nazi regime and was rewarded for his affirmations of loyalty with career opportunities. He joined several organizations affiliated with the NSDAP (although not the Nazi party itself), publicly legitimized race hygiene policies including forced sterilizations and, on several occasions, actively cooperated with the child ‘euthanasia’ program. The language he employed to diagnose his patients was often remarkably harsh (even in comparison with assessments written by the staff at Vienna’s notorious Spiegelgrund ‘euthanasia’ institution), belying the notion that he tried to protect the children under his care by embellishing their diagnoses.

Conclusion

The narrative of Asperger as a principled opponent of National Socialism and a courageous defender of his patients against Nazi ‘euthanasia’ and other race hygiene measures does not hold up in the face of the historical evidence. What emerges is a much more problematic role played by this pioneer of autism research. Future use of the eponym should reflect the troubling context of its origins in Nazi-era Vienna.

Reporting Offensive Tweets

 In The Politics of Autism, I examine the role of social media in the development of the issue.

Melissa Blake at CNN:

The next time you report a Twitter troll for polluting your timeline, you might notice an additional word on the reporting form.

Disability.

It's just one word. One we've seen thousands of times before. In fact, if you weren't looking closely at the form in the frenetic moments of reporting a tweet, you might not even notice it.

But make no mistake: This change is no small feat. It's a long overdue win in what seemed like a never-ending battle, one that people with disabilities like myself have been fighting online for years. Thankfully, Twitter joined that fight earlier this month when it revised its reporting form to include hate directed at people with disabilities.

"It's against our rules to directly attack or threaten someone based on their protected category, including disability," Twitter said in a tweet posted April 2. "You asked us to clarify this in our reporting flow, and we've updated it to be more specific."

The change is thanks to Natalie Weaver, who called on Twitter to revise its reporting form after her daughter's photo was used in an offensive tweet promoting eugenics. Her daughter, Sophia, has Rett syndrome, a genetic brain disorder that affects such things as language, walking and coordination. At first, Weaver told the website The Mighty, Twitter refused to take down the tweet, but eventually changed course, removing the offending account entirely.

Dr. Hans Asperger's Nazi Connection

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia.

In A Different Key, John Donvan and Caren Zucker found that Dr. Hans Asperger worked with Nazis in Austria.  We are now learning more details.

Edith Sheffer writes at The New York Times:

Child “euthanasia” was the Reich’s first program of mass extermination, begun by Hitler in July 1939 to get rid of children regarded as a drain on the state and a danger to its gene pool. Most of the victims were physically healthy, neither suffering nor terminally ill. They were simply deemed to have physical, mental or behavioral defects.

At least 5,000 children perished in around 37 “special wards.” Am Spiegelgrund, in Vienna, was one of the deadliest. Killings were done in the youths’ own beds, as nurses issued overdoses of sedatives until the children grew ill and died, usually of pneumonia.

Asperger worked closely with the top figures in Vienna’s euthanasia program, including Erwin Jekelius, the director of Am Spiegelgrund, who was engaged to Hitler’s sister. My archival research, along with that of other scholars of euthanasia like Herwig Czech, the author of a forthcoming paper on this subject in the journal Molecular Autism, show that Asperger recommended the transfer of children to Spiegelgrund. Dozens of them were killed there.

One of his patients, 5-year-old Elisabeth Schreiber, could speak only one word, “mama.” A nurse reported that she was “very affectionate” and, “if treated strictly, cries and hugs the nurse.” Elisabeth was killed, and her brain kept in a collection of over 400 children’s brains for research in Spiegelgrund’s cellar.

Professor Sheffer is the author of the forthcoming book  Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna.

The Pope v. Eugenics

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia.

Elise Harris at the Catholic News Agency:

While great strides have been made in recent years in terms of recognizing the dignity of every person, especially the weakest and most vulnerable, “at the cultural level there are still expressions that undermine the dignity of these people due to the prevalence of a false conception of life,” the Pope said Oct. 21.

“An often narcissistic and utilitarian vision unfortunately leads not a few to consider people with disabilities as marginal, without perceiving in them the multifaceted human and spiritual wealth,” he said.

Far too prevalent in common thought is also “an attitude of rejection” toward people with disabilities, as if their handicap “impedes them from being happy and fully realizing themselves,” he said.

“This is proven by the eugenic tendency to suppress the unborn who have some form of imperfection.”

An example of this “eugenics” mentality is a recent article in CBS News claiming that Iceland has come close to being the first country to “eradicate” Down syndrome, meaning they are aborting every unborn child found to have the condition.

Pope Francis offered his comments to participants in a Vatican-sponsored conference dedicated to catechesis for those with intellectual disabilities, titled “Catechesis and Persons with Disabilities: A Necessary Engagement in the Daily Pastoral Life of the Church.”

Charlotte Fien

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss eugenics.

This happened a few months ago, but in light of recent events in Charlottesville, it is timely.

Charlotte Helene Fien, 21, has Down Syndrome and autism. She sent her speech to the British House of Lords, from where it was forwarded to the United Nations Human Rights Committee at the United Nations, Geneva. where she delivered it in person on March 20.


The text:

Good afternoon my name is Charlotte Helene Fien.
I am 21 years old and have Down's syndrome and Autism.
In the 1930's and 1940's the Nazis decided to get rid of all disabled people.
More than 200,000 disabled people were murdered including many children with Down's syndrome.
Today, the same thing is happening.
A test that checks for Down's syndrome is being used to kill all babies with Down's syndrome.
In Iceland, Denmark and China not a single baby with Downs Syndrome has been born for 7 years, SEVEN YEARS!
The goal is to eradicate Down's syndrome in future.
This makes me angry and very sad.
I have Down's syndrome.
I am not suffering.
I am not ill.
None of my friends who have Down's syndrome are suffering either.
We all live happy lives.
We go out to the pub,
have dinner parties at my friend Aimee's house,
have boyfriends and
have plans and goals for the future!
We just have an extra chromosome we are still human beings.
We are human beings.
We are not monsters
don't be afraid of us.
We are people with different abilities and strengths.
Don't feel sorry for me,
my life is great!
My goals are to find a job I love.
I love golf and would like to teach children to play.
I've been playing golf since I was 6 years old.
I want to live independently one day and support myself with my job.
I already travel on my own to different places even abroad.
Don't be afraid of me or feel sorry for me.
I'm just like you
I'm just like you but different.
I have an extra chromosome
it's not stopping me from enjoying my life.
Please do not try to kill us all off.
Do not allow this test.
If you do allow it you are no better than the Nazis
who killed 200,000 disabled people.
I have a right to live
and so do other people
like me"
YouTube link to hear her speak - https://youtu.be/1Xqku6RwaAY

Buck v. Bell

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenics and euthanasia.

Ross Pomeroy writes at RealClearScience about the infamous case of Buck v. Bell:

By the 1920s, eugenics was a genuine movement. As author and pediatrician Paul Offit describes in his new book, Pandora's Lab, Hundreds of colleges taught courses on the subject. It appeared in the majority of high school biology textbooks. There were fairs, meetings, and advertisements. The nationwide campaign convinced citizens and legislatures – forty-one states eventually prohibited marriage by those deemed feeble-minded or insane, and a few states even instituted policies of forced sterilization.

It was Virginia's law on forced sterilization that eventually reached the Supreme Court. The case, Buck v. Bell, argued ninety years ago, pitted the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded against one of its patients, Carrie Buck. The colony's superintendent, Dr. John Hendren Bell, wanted to sterilize Buck. His lawyers argued that Buck was a "genetic threat" to society. Buck's lawyer argued that she had a right to procreate which was being violated.

The Court sided 8 - 1 with the colony. The majority opinion, penned by the legendary justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, seems like it originated from a dystopian work of science fiction:

"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence... The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes."

"Carrie Buck is a feeble-minded white woman. She is the daughter of a feeble-minded mother in the same institution, and the mother of an illegitimate feeble-minded child. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crimes, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Unfortunately, Holmes' opinion was very real and far-reaching. Not only did it result in the sterilization of Buck, it also led to the sterilization of as many as 70,000 people over the next fifty years. Equally clear evidence of the decision's warped sense of justice came during the Nuremburg Trials after World War II, when Nazi war criminals utilized it for their defense.

Autism, Eugenics, and Euthanasia

In The Politics of Autism, I write about the dangers of eugenic solutions.

At The Independent, Mathieu Vaillancourt writes of forbidding autistic people to donate to sperm banks.

The other problem is the whole concept of eugenics behind this. It's indeed true that autism is a complex and umbrella-like condition which may seems scary at first glance. Many with autism face massive challenges - but others who have dyslexia, autism (or any other neurological disorder) are able to have great, fulfilling lives and possess a sense of responsibility, loyalty and precision that lots of people would do anything to have. To label people with dyslexia or Asperger Syndrome as impure makes this look like a dodgy remake of an era not so long ago, when some governments wanted a ''purer'' race and sought to sterilize people against their will, or even ''euthanize'' them.

He is not exaggerating.  In Buck v. Bell (274 US 200), the US Supreme Court upheld involuntary sterilization. Writing for the majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared:

It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

And "respectable" thought leaders wanted to go even farther, to the killing of defectives.   A 1942 debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry focused on on whether the government should eliminate the  "feebleminded." Neurologist Foster Kennedy argued in the affirmative.Leo Kanner, who would soon publish the landmark article launching the study of aut ism, argued against killing.  An anonymous editorial sided with Kennedy’s position.

This debate was hardly a "one-off."

Consider William G. Lennox.  He was not some random nut, but a distinguished neurologist who did important work on epilepsy.  (To this day, the American Epilepsy Society bestows an annual William G. Lennox Award.)  In an article in autumn 1938 issue of The American Scholar, the official publication of Phi Beta Kappa, Dr. Lennox wrote of people "confined in institutions where they are never seen by the public."

They are the congenital idiots or monsters, the result of some slip of the hand of Him who made them; lumps of matter in human form but without human mind. What should be done with these? Of many defectives it can be said that human judgment is subject to error and that cures sometimes occur when least expected, but for this lowest group there can be no such plea. A clockcase without works can never tell time. Physicians are bound by inherited ethical standards and the motto "They shall not die." Raymond Pearl, the biologist, has this to say:

These unfit organisms are kept alive by the rest of society for no realistically demonstrable reason other than that they were once born, and by being born, somehow placed upon the rest of mankind what has gradually come to be regarded as a permanently binding obligation to see that they do not die. It is difficult to convince a biologist that a social philosophy will endure for any great length of time that deliberately and complacently loads upon the already weary backs of the able and fit an evergrowing burden. . . . No species or variety of plant or animal has long survived that was intrinsically incapable of making its own living. There is somewhere a biological limit to altruism, even for man.3

"Very well for another person's child," says the objector, "but what if it's your own? " Memory flicks past rows of writhing, incontinent, vacant-eyed, speechless bodies, distressing to the point of nausea, and I answer "I should rather see a child of mine in its coffin."

Dr. Lennox proposed actual death panels:

Decisions involving life and death are, however, reached daily by legal processes. The selection of the congenitally and hopelessly mindless for elimination would offer no more difficulties than their selection for lifelong incarceration. A court-appointed medical committee would be sufficient. Laws would of course need to be revised, and prior to this public opinion would need to be awakened. The essential prerequisite to human progress in any field is willingness to face realities and to work out fundamental rather than temporary solutions of problems.

The Danger of Eugenics

At The Guardian, Ari Ne'eman writes:

Britain’s largest sperm bank has a policy of turning away autistic donors and those diagnosed with other neurological disabilities, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], dyslexia and obsessive compulsive disorder.

The London Sperm Bank’s policies are deeply concerning. But to those of us who have been monitoring the ways in which genetic knowledge is being misused across the globe, they are not surprising. In egg donations (as in sperm donations) similar genetic screening of a diagnosis and a family history of autism, dyslexia and and obsessive compulsive disorder is not uncommon. There is considerable evidence to support that these are all conditions with strong genetic components.

He points out that the effectiveness of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) sex selection to avoid autism is up for debate.

Nonetheless, the intent of IVF sex selection is clear: reproductive technologies are being used to remove autistic people from future generations, not just to create “designer babies”. Privately run sperm and egg donation programmes, IVF clinics and laboratories around the world are making decisions that could eventually change the human race.

Last month, I joined more than 180 progressive academics, scientists, activists and public intellectuals in an open letter expressing concern over how new gene editing techniques allow for heritable human genetic modification: changes to the human genome that could irrevocably alter the future generations of humanity. New technology is emerging that will allow for “designer generations”.

He concludes by calling for greater regulation to curb eugenic practices.

In The Politics of Autism, I write:

Consider the next possible step for in-vitro fertilization. Suppose that scientists refine pre-implantation screening so that they could tell whether a particular embryo’s genetic make-up entails a high probability of autism.  If so, then doctors would presumably discard it in favor of another embryo that they would implant in the mother’s womb.  Some say that we need to debate the use of such techniques to screen for autism.   Ethicist Wesley J. Smith disagrees: “That is like saying allowing eugenic cleansing for racial features is a debate we need have: Both are invidiously discriminatory and have no place in an enlightened, equality-believing society.”