Autism and Choices

I hate hypothetical questions. While contemplating their answers can be an interesting exercise in creative speculation, there is no way to definitively state what really coulda, shoulda, woulda, mighta been via process of imagination. Can any of us actually know what we would do or how we would react if any of our cocktail party contemplated theoretical scenarios were to ever pragmatically occur?

Kim Stagliano, in a May 15, 2007 Huffington Post article entitled, “The Appalled Voice of An Autism Mom,” collaterally raises the rather unpleasant, yet ubiquitous, hypothetical question of what some might or might not do — or would have or would not have done — if a pre-natal test for autism was available. Ms. Stagliano, who is mother to three autistic daughters, was apparently inspired to write her article after becoming disconcerted by a New York Times article about a new pre-natal test for Down syndrome.

The article goes on to state, “About 90% of women given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion.” Could that possibly be a true statistic? I suppose the OB’s would know.

So according to the New York Times, there is a PR campaign underway by parents of kids with Down syndrome, trying to tell people that having a child with Down syndrome is OK. In short, “selling” Down syndrome to a nation that turns in its cars every 3 years, demands women never look a day older than 35, and that men dye their hair and beard to attract the older women who are trying to look younger.

Of course 90% seems like a shocking figure when it’s printed in black and white, but it is not terribly surprising considering the rampant epidemic of perfectionism that has plagued humanity ever since our ancient ancestors first endeavored to effect improvements upon the club and the spear.

Ms. Stagliano asks the not-so-hypothetical question, “Is a prenatal test for autism what Autism Speaks/NAAR has in mind with its unrelenting search for the genetics behind autism?”

Well, yes, that is probably a motivating factor. Appalling, indeed, but not astonishing. Of course that is not the only reason for research into the genetics of autism, but it is the scariest and most sensationalist, even if it is unrealistic.

Down syndrome was discovered over a century ago because it is caused by a specific chromosomal abnormality that was detectable using the tools and technology of that era. However, the vast majority of autistic people do not have any chromosomal abnormalities.

Genetic research into autism thus far suggests that there is no single “autism gene;” just like there is no “gay gene,” or a specific gene that determines the physical characteristics that were once thought to comprise different “races” of humans, so the specter of eugenics is probably not going to be materializing anytime soon.

Nonetheless, many current subscribers to the belief that autism is caused by childhood vaccines seem to have become enthralled by oblique projections about “a test to weed out the perceived undesirables so that Mummy and Daddy can have a perfect baby,” as Ms. Stagliano describes it.

This is probably because such scaremongering provides opportunities to denigrate and demonize the promising genetic research that is fast making those old 1990s notions about a connection between autism, vaccines, and mercury into an urban legend, but I could be wrong as that particular line of “reasoning” is far more puzzling to me than autism.

Now, as far as abortion is concerned, I’m pro-choice like I’m pro-free speech for neo-nazis, KKKers, and other anachronistic kooks (and nobody’s gonna stick a needle into any part of my abdomen unless I will die without it), so this hypothetical is a pretty much a no-brainer for me, regardless of what other people think they might or might not do.

In the closing line of her article, Ms. Stagliano expresses her position rather eloquently, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll abort this piece. I need to go hug my kids. My perfectly imperfect perfect children.”

Amen, to that.

America is the land of the free and the home of the brave because, in a free country, we must have the courage to accept that we, the people, frequently exercise our rights to do all sorts of awful things for all manner and depth of reasoning, and that we get away with it when we do so without violating the rights of others.

Because a majority of we, the people, assert that we would hypothetically terminate a pregnancy in the event that laboratory tests show the fetus is somehow defective, the controversy over the right to choose abortion — be it supported by our not yet officially recognized right to self-determination, or the legal fiction which created some ambiguous “right to privacy” out of whole cloth — could be turned inside out to one day to become a debate about the right to choose against it in the event of some potentially inconvenient abnormality.