Angry mom sends letter to family of autistic child telling them to have him euthanized.

[SushiJaguar]

Well, it's true, so I don't really see a problem with her saying it. We're not really going to be part of society, so this kind of discrimination is something we just have to live with.

 

[Abomination]

Well, it's true, so I don't really see a problem with her saying it. We're not really going to be part of society, so this kind of discrimination is something we just have to live with.

I think she'd prefer you didn't have to live with it.

Aw yeah, double entendre.

 

[Seydaman]

...Classy. Real classy.

I really want to type a bunch of nasty insults here because I just finished sobbing, but I am at least passingly sure a Mod would give me a warning, so:
*Shakes fist at this news*

People are terrible, empathy, please.

 

[Sofus]

If that psycho ***** doesn't go to jail, then I hope she is hit by a car so hard that she ends up like a vegetable.

 

[Andrew Giarrusso]

So, because I have autism, I'm not allowed to have kids?

I'm sorry but FUCK THAT.

I'm not saying I will be a father someday, nor do I want to be one anytime soon. And I can kinda agree in the sense that if a person is unable to care for themselves, it might not be a good idea for them to have kids.

But saying that people like me should be prevented from breeding just because we may "taint the gene pool" as you say, it sorta comes off as disgusting.

Have a pleasant day mein fuhrer.

And now, mods, you are free to punish me.

Of course it comes off disgusting. We have morals of 'the right to live'. Without natural selection we're progressively making our gene pool worse and worse, because we never let anyone die with science and medicine. That also goes for the fact we keep treating minor diseases with AB's so we're forcing them to become drug resistant. I'm not saying you don't deserve to have kids, but it's better for the humans as a species. Life isn't fair, some people are rolled unlucky lives. All I can say if you want to have kids, but have a genetic disability is to adopt. There's thousands and thousands of kids suffering with no parent. No one to care for them. Adopt them, show love to them. They're suffering, and compared to making other people suffer with giving birth to someone with a disability, adopting is so much better.
POST SCRIPT: Also due note, that many people diagnosed with autism/ADHD/many other disabilities actually do not have them. Our current society(Atleast in America. Yay America) has a HUGE habbit of over diagnoses. In America 80% of males are diagnosed with ADHD, but only ten percent of them actually have it.(I don't actually have a citation to it. It was a factoid that I remember in one of my classes)

snip

As a person with asperger's, I have decided to have 4 children purely in spite of you.

As someone with Aspergers, I say, "I hope the birthing does well, and may they be happy with a fun loving family ^_^"

Thank you, you are a nice human.

 

[Korihor]

Everyone is saying that there is absolutely no way to control the kid, he just has to do it. Does it go away ever? Do you have to take care of him until you die? Will he scream and howl until he dies? I would vote in favor of euthanasia. Easier on everyone.

Thinking like this lead to the extermination of all severely disabled people by Hitler.
I am Autistic and I live in an assisted living home, (because of bad health) where I know people with severe Autism.
Early intervention with professional behavior programs and medication are the way to go not euthanasia.
However, our brilliant government thinks this is the time to cut back on such programs.
The result is Autistic children requiring more care when they become adults because they are less independent and have more behavior problems.
More care as adults means more money spent by the government.
Also people with severe Autism are usually out of it.
Autism is brain damage and punishing a severely Autistic person is like punishing someone with severe Alzheimer's disease.
Also the state takes care of the severely disabled if no family members are available.

 

[Erttheking]

People are defending eugenics? No, no, no, no, no, NO! I don't care if the mentally ill don't contribute much to society, I don't care that if people have a kid with less than pleasant DNA traits, saying that they should be killed or forbidden from breeding is INHUMAN! We are not robots! We are not pieces of machinery that are discarded when our use runs out. We are Human Beings! We are people! Lives are not just numbers on a piece of paper that need to be managed to make things more convenient for the privileged! Every life is a Human being that has the rights! I don't want the world to end up like this!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca

No! Just no!

 

[testing123123]

My stance on this incident is that the author of the letter could've handled it more civilly, but ultimately I understand where she's coming from. Who wants to deal with incessant noise like that? Regardless of whether or not the child can help it, it is still the responsibility of the parents to subdue the noise.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Spoiler: snip

ye lets vote for state sanctioned euthanasia.

no potential problems with that...

lets give a g-man with a clipboard the power over live and death.

its not like 60% of the US is officially mentally ill or something crazy like that...

let's kick that door right open.

with any luck maybe we'll save at least sixty thousand reichsmarks per person.

captcha says "watch c-beams glitter" [small]holy shit...[/small]

This post starts off strong and gets better.

Even the captcha is spot on.

 

[Tenkage]

So, because I have autism, I'm not allowed to have kids?

I'm sorry but FUCK THAT.

I'm not saying I will be a father someday, nor do I want to be one anytime soon. And I can kinda agree in the sense that if a person is unable to care for themselves, it might not be a good idea for them to have kids.

But saying that people like me should be prevented from breeding just because we may "taint the gene pool" as you say, it sorta comes off as disgusting.

Have a pleasant day mein fuhrer.

And now, mods, you are free to punish me.

Of course it comes off disgusting. We have morals of 'the right to live'. Without natural selection we're progressively making our gene pool worse and worse, because we never let anyone die with science and medicine. That also goes for the fact we keep treating minor diseases with AB's so we're forcing them to become drug resistant. I'm not saying you don't deserve to have kids, but it's better for the humans as a species. Life isn't fair, some people are rolled unlucky lives. All I can say if you want to have kids, but have a genetic disability is to adopt. There's thousands and thousands of kids suffering with no parent. No one to care for them. Adopt them, show love to them. They're suffering, and compared to making other people suffer with giving birth to someone with a disability, adopting is so much better.
POST SCRIPT: Also due note, that many people diagnosed with autism/ADHD/many other disabilities actually do not have them. Our current society(Atleast in America. Yay America) has a HUGE habbit of over diagnoses. In America 80% of males are diagnosed with ADHD, but only ten percent of them actually have it.(I don't actually have a citation to it. It was a factoid that I remember in one of my classes)

snip

As a person with asperger's, I have decided to have 4 children purely in spite of you.

As someone with Aspergers, I say, "I hope the birthing does well, and may they be happy with a fun loving family ^_^"

Thank you, you are a nice human.

^_^ I try to be, I try to be

 

[Erttheking]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate and wonder why nobody has called out the authenticity of this now viral letter? I dunno, I just felt like it was TOO crazy and hostile to possibly be real. But I don't know. People can be crazy.

You'd think that guns in Call of Duty taking .1 seconds longer to reload wouldn't result in legions of fans telling the guy responsible to kill himself either.

 

[EdwardOrchard]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate and wonder why nobody has called out the authenticity of this now viral letter? I dunno, I just felt like it was TOO crazy and hostile to possibly be real. But I don't know. People can be crazy.

That's sort of what I was thinking... After reading the letter, I highly doubt that any adult (a mother even) could write something like that. It looks extremely juvenile and my first thought was that some neighbourhood kid/s put that up.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate and wonder why nobody has called out the authenticity of this now viral letter? I dunno, I just felt like it was TOO crazy and hostile to possibly be real. But I don't know. People can be crazy.

Er...given the amount of people just in this thread supporting the writer, doesn't seem outlandish at all.

 

[EdwardOrchard]

Er...given the amount of people just in this thread supporting the writer, doesn't seem outlandish at all.

Woah there. I don't see a whole lot of people around here supporting the writer. In fact, I see none. What I do see are people sympathetic to the writer. There's a big difference. In my apartment, I'm a couple doors down from a family with a boy with severe autism. Do I understand what would compel somebody to feel the way this person does? Absolutely. Do I support her acting upon those feelings in the way she did? Don't be stupid.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm going to play the devil's advocate and wonder why nobody has called out the authenticity of this now viral letter? I dunno, I just felt like it was TOO crazy and hostile to possibly be real.

I dunno. Google "Crazy Rhubarb Lady". Never underestimate the human capacity for "crazy and hostile".

 

[CandyBabyPrincess]

To everyone who doesn't seem to understand what you're arguing about, just read the story and come back to it, please.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/19/read-the-unbelievably-hateful-letter-sent-to-family-with-autistic-child-do-the-right-thing-and-move-or-euthanize-him/

The 'child' is not exactly a 'little kid'; he's a teen with severe autism. I'm sure he can make a LOT of noise, but he likes to play outside in his FENCED IN backyard where he's supposed to be safe. Why would his parents deny him that? They can't take him to a park because he's a runner (autism speak meaning he takes off so much faster than you would expect and keeps running for much longer than anyone who tries to catch him). It's dangerous. It's nearly impossible to control a child anywhere on the autism spectrum but especially a teenage boy with severe autism. They don't understand 'little talks'. I have a 4 year old son with autism and if he's screaming, I can't even hear what I'm saying to him, let alone get him to stop and listen and even when he stops screaming, he's talking 90 to nothing 24/7 and he wouldn't even understand that I'm trying to have a serious talk with him. Nothing is serious to him. He's not bad, just full of energy and excited about everything and, like any 'normal' person (whatever that is), he gets frustrated, but unlike you or me, he doesn't have the words to express it or the self control to express it in a way that 'normal' people would find acceptable. Read the story, watch the boy in the video, how sweet he seems; He's no 'animal'. Notice how enthusiastically the community supports him. No 'petition' would be signed by enough people to make a difference. It's just one ***** who likes to bark. Now that's a nuisance.

 

[Avaholic03]

Euthanasia is just inherently wrong. The very idea of it is just twisted.

Even in the case of avoiding terminal pain or agony? That's a very selfish attitude. My sister worked in hospice, and on more than a few occasions, family unnecessarily prolonged someone's suffering because they selfishly couldn't let go. Euthanasia is, in many cases, the far more humane option.

EDIT: whether or not that applies to this story, I really can't say. As usual, sensationalist media reporting doesn't really give an accurate portrayal of the situation.

All I did was state my opinion, so I'm interested as to how your reached the conclusion that I'm "selfish". Calm down.

Because you made a sweeping generalization about euthanasia being "inherently wrong" and "twisted", without regard to the many situations in which it is perfectly reasonable. You certainly didn't state it as an opinion, you stated it as if it was fact, as if anyone considering it was wrong or twisted somehow.

 

[fenrizz]

Everyone's autistic nowadays.

Just the fact I have been diagnosed despite me doing perfectly fine in school and even having a couple friends since elementary amazes me.

Ain't that the truth!

The range of autism is now so broad it has lost (in my own humble opinion) all meaning.
And apparently half the population has Aspergers nowadays...

 

[Nalikill]

@OP: I disagree with what she said- and believe it is disgusting that she could suggest such a thing- but I would defend to the death her right to say it. Free speech means free. But she's using it in a pretty disgusting fashion.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

That kind of letter is not okay. Sure, I understand that she's been dealing with the noise for a while now, and once you snap you've got a lot of anger that's been bottled up, but there are some things you just don't say to someone.

Sorry if what I'm about to say now is a tad controversial, but to be honest I actually sympathize with the author of the letter to a large degree. The fact that the kid can't help having autism doesn't do anything to make the noise less annoying to hear, and if having the kid there is so annoying to the neighbors then that needs to be taken into account. But once a woman writes something like this, I lose all sympathy for her.

Yeah, I know I'd be annoyed at the situation. But extremely hateful death threats (death wishes, whatever) are about as much of an appropriate response as a nuclear strike to counter two people robbing a corner store.

I don't really sympathise to any degree with anyone who would handle their frustration in such an inane matter. Oh yes SURELY the child will suddenly shut up if you act like a complete *****, such a great solution. You could also try the arcane and ancient communication method commonly referred to as TALKING.