Sunday, November 19, 2006

The non-autistics only fountain in Canada's Senate














jypsy said...

"The Committee (the Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology)also believes that further discussions absolutely require the input of people living with autism"

From a letter to me from Senator Catherine Callbeck

Brackets and emphasis is mine.

jypsy said...

..*are* mine..

kristina said...

Have you sent this post to all the organizations mentioned?

Michelle Dawson said...

Hi Kristina, I've already lost battles with ASC, the CIHR, as well as all the government people (health minister, ODI, etc), about this issue. A lot of this is documented on my website. Also, CAIRN's administrator told me (over the phone) that I sounded too intelligent to be autistic.

Anonymous said...


That person sounds too ignorant of autism to be an administrator of CAIRN.

Anonymous said...

I do not live in Canada and cannot speak on laws or views or expectations in Canada. But here in the states, I do not see trying to help these children through medical or behavioral protocols, or searching for the cause and cure, as genocide. And to say so is so totally stupid, for lack of a better word. You may be able to function, obviously you do, you can write on this blog and you can take parents to court when they are trying to help their children (if I understood that correctly). But what about these 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13,etc. year old's, who, at this point will NEVER be able to that without some sort of intervention. You are totally blowing this words out of the water by adding your own little screwy spin to them. I think it is insulting to all people with ASD that you would insist that a gov't trying to provide services, help, medical care, whatever, as the gov't trying to make autistic absolete. That is just so far fetched, I mean really. As I read this and re-read this I tried to figure out where you were getting some of these words from what you quote. And I finally gathered, you aren't getting them from the words you quoted, you are getting them from your messed up head based on how you preceive those words to be.

The fact that the gov't is trying to help these children, and maybe some adults, does not under any circumstances mean that the gov't is trying to find a cure or make all austistics NT by medical or ABA ways at all. It doesn't mean that the gov't is trying to do away with autistic people.

Come on, you surely have better sense than that. The gov't is trying to better the lives of the autistic kids so that they can function in this society. Yes, I believe that society should be held accountable for some of that chagne too.

But you are just so off with what you claim the Canadian gov't is trying to do, based on what you have cited above. You show me some citations where the gov't is saying they are practicing genocide of autistic people, or they are striving for the perfect society and then maybe I'll believe you. But based on what you have provided, I can only conclude that you are getting off on spinning the words of the gov't. Only my opinion, but I so disagree with you.

Michelle Dawson said...

I'm arriving late (because I didn't notice this message before), but Anonymous is going to have to show me where I've used the word "genocide".

Also, I don't know why Anonymous believes that it's good for autistics to be excluded, and why s/he's so opposed to my effort to have autistics included as equals.

Anonymous also seems to believe that it's wrong for me to oppose Jim Munson's anti-scientific and unethical view that autistics are sick and just naturally belong in institutions.

My position is that no autistic person belongs in institutions. Institutions harm us, and those who demand that we be put in institutions are harming us. Also, I think that autistics deserve high standards of science, ethics and advocacy. I don't think basing decisions about us on anti-scientific and pejorative statments like Senator Munson's is good for us.

More generally, spreading false, anti-scientific and pejorative information about autistic people does not help autistic people, of any age. Making public policy decisions about autistics based on this false, anti-scientific and pejorative information does not help autistic people, of any age.

There's a way to guarantee that a group of people has poor outcomes, regardless of their abilities. You spread a lot of false, pejorative information about them, as has been done to autistics by autism advocates (including political leaders). And you exclude them from having any influence on the major decisions made about them, as has been done to autistics by autism advocates (including political leaders).

The current Conservative government directly states their goal that autism should be prevented. This is on the official Health Canada autism webpage which was introduced with great fanfare (press release, press conference, media stories, etc). The other major federal political parties have also stated their ideal that autism should be prevented, including on the record in the House of Commons. I've provided the links and direct quotes elsewhere on this blog.