Autism on NPR: Baggs, Sinclair, Carley
June 26, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
The full text of the NPR broadcast Autism Movement Seeks Acceptance, Not Cures is now available online. Michael John Carley’s interview frames comments by Amanda Baggs and Jim Sinclair (author of Don’t Mourn For Us). A few of Sinclair’s words:
“What the rest of the world needs to know about autism is that it’s not something that can be separated out from the person, it’s part of the person,” explains Sinclair. “And so you cannot meaningfully say I love my child but I hate the autism.
“That’s like saying I love my child, but I hate that she’s a girl and I’d like her to be a boy instead. So when you’re saying all of these things about how terrible it is that you’ve lost a child and how much your child is a disappointment to you, and how much that you wish you had a different kind of child, we’re hearing that. And what we’re hearing is that you don’t want us and you want someone else instead.”
If I may add: Imagine if someone said “I love the autism, but hate the child.”
It’s the hate we need to get rid of.
Not autism.
Oh absolutley Kristina! If as much time and energy went in to ridding hate as ridding autism, just think of how the world might change!
That would be a topic for some NPR programming….