Thoughts on having been born an autie.

I turned 26 yesterday.  I am grateful that I was born in a time before anyone could pressure my parents in myriad ways not to have me because of my genes.  By calling them irresponsible, by accusing them of bringing more suffering into the world, by telling them not to perpetuate their defective genes, by telling them horror stories, by threatening to make insurance more difficult, by overt hostility and scorn, by telling them that only the weirdo activist auties actually prefer to exist but that “real” auties live lives of constant unmitigated suffering that is surely worse than never having existed, or anything else like that.  If I have kids, I will be subjected to that pressure merely because of being autistic (in fact I’ve had people tell me I should be sterilized starting when I was a teenager, and the only doctor I dared to talk to about possible pregnancy in the future showed me a display of sheer bigotry), and if a prenatal test is developed, even non-autistic people will be subjected to that pressure.  Here’s to those who fight eugenics in all its guises.