Bullying, Ashley X, Eugenics, and One Celebrity Reference
May 11, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
The many sides of autism is the title of the most recent PedMed article about autism; reporter Lidia Wasowicz notes that parents and practitioners alike are starting “to aggressively treat and study the relevance to autism of medical conditions.” Aside from a reference to the Autism Treatment Network which is described on the webpage for Cure Autism Now (CAN), some treatments are somewhat vaguely described.
Regarding those “many sides of autism,” though: Sometimes when I mention that I am writing about autism, I receive a response to the effect of “interesting, but isn’t that too narrow a topic?”. A recent post on Slate’s Human Nature column—-entitled Bully Crap: The certified epidemic of childhood cruelty—suggests the opposite. In the Slate article, William Saletan points out the following:
- further attests to the overuse of the word “epidemic” in regard to the challenges potentially faced by children today (while indicating the seriousness of bullying);
- notes that doctors at a Seattle hospital have admitted that they broke the law (see ABCNews.com) in “treating” a 6-year-old developmentally disabled girl (”Ashley X“) by performing a hysterectomy on her—see also a disability community’s response;
- comments on embryo eugenics in regard to Britain ordering a clinic to weed out embryos with a squint (see Telegraph.co.ul) and also in regard to families of children with Down syndrome advocating against abortion;
- notes that one can now purchase home test kits to predict a child’s gender (on the reliability of such tests, see this post at Genetics and Health).
Slate’s Human Nature discusses all of these from multiple viewpoints, and with a little cynicism (which might be of use in considering one more autism-related topic, whether John Travolta “abuses” his perhaps-autistic son).
