Autistic Children Have Rights, Too

[From 7/15/08, about recurrent stories in the media regarding the mistreatment of autistic children.]

To the editor:

The other day, a small news item reported that a four-year-old girl with autism had been thrown out of a Jackson, South Carolina, restaurant—by the police chief—for being too loud. Not for throwing a fit. Just for being a little loud.

The same thing happened a few days earlier in Edmonton, Alberta.

Then there was the story about the child with autism being removed from a commercial airliner.

And let’s not forget the priest in Minnesota who filed a restraining order against an autistic boy, barring him from attending Mass. Or the kindergarten teacher in Florida who allowed her students to vote a 5-year-old autistic classmate out of his class.

If you don’t have a child with autism, or one who’s recovering from it (like I do), you probably didn’t notice these stories. Or maybe you thought, “Good. Served those bratty kids and their parents right.”

Well, raising a child with autism is tough. About 80% of families with autistic kids split up. It’s also isolating. You lose touch with many old friends. Insurance companies don’t cover most of your child’s therapies, and most doctors don’t seem to know the first thing about how to help you.

In addition to all that, when the basic institutions of society—schools, businesses, even churches—tell you that your kid isn’t wanted around, it’s like being punk-slapped over and over and over again.

Apparently, our kids are a huge problem for people who possess such delicate sensibilities that hearing a disabled child cry ruins their day.

Maybe you think it couldn’t happen to you or yours, but with revised figures of as many as 1 in 67 first-grade children currently diagnosed with autism (based on Department of Education statistics) and 1 in 6 diagnosed with some kind of developmental, learning, or behavioral disability (CDC statistics)—you’d better not be so sure.

Does our presence make you uncomfortable? Too bad. Unfortunately—tragically—there are about a million families just like mine, and more every day. We’re not going away, and we have rights too. And we have long memories. We won’t forget who treated our children well, or who hurt them or turned them away.

McCain and Flip-Flopping

[An edited version of this column appeared in the 7/8/08 edition of the Enquirer.]

I see that Charles Krauthammer has written yet another column about Barack Obama’s “flip-flops.” What fun! Can I play? Only I’ll focus on John McCain.

McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy; now he supports them. He also once believed the estate tax was fair; not anymore.

McCain once firmly opposed torturing suspected terrorists at Gitmo; now he’s not so sure. He also formerly opposed the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion a couple of weeks ago, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

At one time, McCain supported the moratorium on off-shore oil drilling; now he’s against it. He also opposes a windfall tax on oil company profits. Earlier this year, he supported such a tax.

In 2002, McCain criticized televangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance.” By 2007, he was actively courting the support of far-right religious extremists like John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Then he shifted again, denouncing the very pastors he’d previously sought out.

What’s McCain’s position on abortion? Who knows? In 1999, he told reporters that he did not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Now he does. In 2000 and again in 2007, he called for an amendment to the GOP platform on abortion to allow exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the mother’s life. Today, he opposes such an exception.

Gosh, where to stop?

He once supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.

He once supported moving toward normalizing relations with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.

He once believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas and Syria. Now he believes the opposite.

He once argued that the NRA should have no role in shaping GOP policy. Now he believes the opposite.

He once opposed a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he supports it.

I eagerly await Krauthammer’s next column, where I’m sure he’ll discuss all of this at length.