About the whole "she's high functioning and doesn't understand that my kid isn't toilet trained" bit

[conuly]

Well, kinda about that!

Aside from the truly hysterical irony of the whole thread, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom the same day I posted that CNN article about euthanasia. You know, the one which involved infants with, in one case, "severe spina bifida".

Me: What I don't get is the spina bifida thing. Isn't spina bifida, like, nonfatal?
Mommy: Yes, but the thing is...
Me: *eager anticipation*
Mommy: Well, it's a lack of proper development, so for instance a lot of them are incontinent...
Me: Um, yeah?
Mommy: ...and so they're in diapers their whole lives...
Me: *thinking about that autistics.org article* Yeah, and?
Mommy: ...and they walk strangely....
Me: ...
Me: You've got to be kidding me.

I'm still not sure if she meant that seriously or was just paraphrasing the ideas of people who worry about their poor crippled children, but I was *very* freaked out.

Comments

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

My own basic take on this is that anything used for eugenic purposes (the elimination of a specific group of people, possibly based on the idea that said group of people is not really quite human or cannot have a "good" life as defined by people outside the person, which includes because they're disabled) is wrong. Things can be okay that are not used for eugenic purposes, though. Just as knives can be okay as long as you're not stabbing people with them.

That's oversimplified of course, but it's part of what I believe anyway.