lysikan:

ableist-quotes:

Debunking Eugenicists

Here are arguments I’ve seen in support of denying medical care (transplants) to what they consider low-functioning autistics. These are symptoms/ parameters being described:

1. Requires 24 HR care:

So do young children and many elderly people, particularly those with alzheimer’s. A paraplegic will require assistance bathing and feeding themselves. All of these people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

2. Soils themselves:

So do people with incontinence caused by age or neurological conditions. This is a symptom that can be managed and these people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

3. Nonverbal:

Many nonverbal autistics can communicate using other methods. Nonverbal autistics are self-aware and able to process information. They may be unable to speak some or all of the time, but so is someone with mutism. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

4. Unintelligent:

Aside from the fact that many autistics have an average to high IQ, and the fact that being nonverbal and experiencing other symptoms is NOT a sign of low intelligence… basing someone’s value on their intelligence is ableist. Most people with downs syndrome have a lower IQ and lead full lives. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

5. Meltdowns/ Screaming/ Self Injury:

Allistics (non-autistics) can also experience mental breakdowns and self-injurous behavior, even if these symptoms are triggered by different reasons. Allistics can also scream when they are upset. These behaviors do not make an autistic “unmanageable” as a patient. People with other psychiatric conditions can experience meltdowns and self-injury sometimes. These people can still have a good quality of life and they have value as people. Are you saying they too should be denied life-saving medical care?

You see… When you target one group with your ableism and try to pretend it’s limited to just these “severe” cases, you’re not talking about ALL autistics or ALL disabled people…

Yes, you are. Ableism and eugenics spreads.

If you don’t support one group of disabled people, you don’t support any of us. And I for one am standing up to say I equally value the lives of all disabled people.

It affects all of us. In every group. In every level of severity or functioning or whatever misinformed labels you try to use.

So when you say that a given group of people shouldn’t be eligible for life-saving medical care because they’ll be a waste of treatment:

YOU ARE SAYING THAT YOU VALUE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES LESS.

Some symptoms may not be as palatable to you, but you don’t get to draw a line between who deserves to live and who doesn’t.

“

Some symptoms may not be as palatable to you, but you don’t get to draw a line between who deserves to live and who doesn’t.

“

That line is gonna keep shifting until it includes you if you isn’t one of the rich, white, able, men (in the US – other countries has their own criteria for who is worthy).

Y’all know the poem that starts 
“First they came for the socialists”

You’s doing it again. 
“First they came for the autistics”

Is not the same – yet. Learn from history and make it not be the same.