Published by Scotties Playtime
I am an older gay guy in a long-term wonderful relationship. My spouse and I are in our 33rd year together. I love politics and news. I enjoy civil discussions and have no taboo subjects. My pronouns are he / him / his and my email is scottiesplaytime@gmail.com
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While I’m a little uncomfortable with the the abortion laws in Aotearoa New Zealand which allows abortion right up to the moment of birth (if a woman can find a doctor willing to perform the procedure), I fully support the decriminalisation of abortion that has occurred here. It seems to be the trend in many US states a determined effort to return America to the Dark Ages both in terms of religion and human rights.
I’m not sure any minority can feel safe in the USA – not gays, not trans, not ethnic minorities, not autistic and other neurodivergent minorities, not atheists, not religious minorities, not the poor, not the sick, not the disabled. It seems it’s only going to get worse. And while it’s currently a state by state erosion of rights, there’s the horrifying possibility that after the mid-term elections, it will become an erosion of rights at the federal level.
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I greatly fear the potentiality of your last sentence … 😨
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Hello Nan. I do also. Hugs
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Hello Barry. I want to address the second paragraph first. I agree with you completely. You summed it up perfectly. As to the reason that abortion has to be legal right up to the point of birth is not because someone is going to have an abortion at that time unless the pregnant person’s life is in serious danger. No person who has gone 9 months suffering with everything involved in a pregnancy accepting the pain and struggles is going to at the last days just to forget the entire thing. And as you say no doctor would do it unless there was a serious reason to do so. But as is happening now in the states where abortion is so restricted pregnant people are facing death and agony because doctors are too afraid to act to save or help them. I watched a video of a doctor testifying on this and she said it simply has never happened that abortion happened just before birth. It was a boogieman made up by the same people that claim healthy children are being allowed to be born and then after birthed are killed and it being called an abortion. There are people who really believe that is happening and what the right to abortion means. It scares me how uninformed and unwilling some of the people in my country are to even try to understand the difference between reality and lies. Best wishes.
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Just to clarify: I fully endorse abortion being completely decriminalised as it is in Aotearoa New Zealand. My discomfort is in regards to abortion being used as a proxy for eugenics. How would you feel if a test was developed that could detect future sexual orientation or gender expression in the third trimester and the state offered free abortions to “prevent the suffering” that gays and trans experience? We already have the case of free abortions for Down’s Syndrome and research is currently underway to detect autism before birth. As an autistic, I can assure you we don’t suffer because we are autistic, we suffer because we are considered to be less than fully human – much the same way that slaves in 18th and 19th century America were. That is where my discomfort lies.
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Hello Barry. I did understand you. Often when I reply I have to keep in mind there are people reading along who never comment. I occasionally have to spell somethings out more than needed to make sure everyone understands a situation. In this case I understood you supported the right to abortion, but there are those who think that very late term abortions are happening far more than they are because it is something the anti-abortion groups push. Often in right wing media they talk of a baby being aborted just before it was due to be born because clearly the mother decided they did not want it anymore. I did not mean anything against you, just trying to reaffirm how rare late term abortions are and why they might be done.
To your comment about using abortion for selective birth. It is not limited to the two examples you used. There has long been talk about fetuses being aborted due to sex, especially in places were having a boy was a status enhancement while a girl was of lower status. The idea of finding the “gay gene” so it could be removed during development or the fetus aborted is the bases of many Sci-Fi books. As you say for your autism it is how you are treated in society that causes you the issues / problem you have, and it is the same for gay / trans people. But you raise an important question. I don’t know much about autism. Would you say that there is different levels of severity of autism? Again I know truly little about the subject, but I have seen videos of kids with autism unable to deal with the world around them. Can autism be so severe that a person cannot function?
That leads to the topic of aborting severely deformed fetuses. Developmental abnormalities. And it is a subject that makes me squeamish I admit. What should be the limits, and who should decide? The person giving birth or having to raise the child with the deformities or inability to function? Or should the state set the limits / criteria?
Here is what I know. I know a family who had many children. One of those children was born with the umbilical cord around their neck, depriving the brain of oxygen. They were mentally disabled with an age of 4 / 5 to maybe 6 sometimes. This person is now about 50. They lived at home until their parents advanced age couldn’t care for them. This person couldn’t bath or shower by themselves. They were care dependent. Having said that they are happy, they love their family, they love the home they live in, they love their “school”, they talk happily about going to “work” wiping tables at a chain pizza place a few hours a week. I know it was hard on the parents and family to raise this person and yet everyone will tell you they are glad they did and would do it again. Even though it is not a life I would want, if it was my life I would want it, is my thought.
Back to the developmentally disabled fetus, what should be the rules? I admit I don’t know, and like you it gives me pause. Yet at the end of the day, I have to say the choice must always be with the one whose body is being used and whose health is being affected by carrying the fetus. That is not me, and will never be me, I am a male. It will be the pregnant person. So I leave the choice to them.
Thanks for an interesting discussion, Barry. Best wishes.
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Like many autistics, I struggle reading nuances that seem to be implicitly understood by non-autistic people, so yes I failed to grasp the the intent of your previous reply. Having said that, I think I am better at detecting nuances in non-autistic language than most non-autistics are at detecting nuances in autistic language. “Officially”, we lack communication skills, but in reality we can communicate with other autistics just as well as non-autistics communicate with other non-autistics.
I dislike labels such as “mild/severe”, “high functioning/low functioning” or newer labels such as “profound autism” or “levels 1/2/3”. The problem is that autism is a spectrum of differences that make us different from non-autistics. For example I have a reasonably high IQ (140 when tested in my teens and early thirties) but I struggle finding words to communicate my ideas – hence I prefer written communication over spoken communication as it’s not so time critical. I have aphantasia and alexithymia, but I can recognise people by their voice and if I’m travelling in a car, I can hear when a wheel bearing needs attention long before a motor mechanic with all his diagnostic tools is able to. I’m hypersensitive to light, sounds and touch, but hyposensitive in other senses. I’m unable to detect when I’m hungry or thirsty or need to use the bathroom. I fail to recognise mild to medium levels of pain. I also have mild ataxia which affects my speech, and to a lesser extent, my arms (I can’t throw a ball for example – well I can, but it will not go in the direction I intend it to, nor will it travel very far). Other autistics will have a different range of differences
Autism is “diagnosed” by a non-autistic “specialist” observing the “patient” from a non-autistic perspective. The trouble is that many of the “symptoms” such as those I have also occur in the non-autistic population. What autistics have in common is how we perceive the world, experience it and respond to it and particularly how we communicate. This is not taken into account by the so called experts. The question is whether symptoms such as aphantasia, alexithymia, ataxia or aphasia are actually symptom of autism. It’s true that they are more common in the autistic community than in the general population, but most people with these symptoms are not autistic. So why should autistic people with these symptoms be treated differently from the rest of the population?
These article might help with understanding why autistics dislike functioning labels:
Autism Functioning Labels are Inaccurate and Harmful
Functioning Labels Harm Autistic People
Most autistics today would agree with the statement “if you’re more comfortable in the company of autistics than you are in the company of non-autistics, then you’re probably autistic”. Hopefully, one day in the not too distant future, diagnosticians will understand this very important fact. All they have to do is listen to us instead of dismissing our experiences as having no value.
An interesting bit of trivia for you: Did you know that autustics are less likely to be straight or cis than non-autistics? Somewhere between 20% and 40% of autistics are gender diverse and upwards of 20% are gay or bi, and a similar number are asexual.
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Hello Barry. Thank you very much. I learned more about autism and how it is described in the last hour of reading and digesting the two articles you sent than I understood before. While I find descriptive words helpful for me to understand / picture what I am talking about I can see how labels in the case of a person’s autism wouldn’t tell what specific needs or abilities of the person. This is hard for me to express but I will try to write my thoughts. I think a person might have a better ability to do one thing and a lesser ability to do another, which would cause them to actually be in two different label assignments / classifications. So just placing someone at a level may not accurately describe the situation of the person or their needs. Best wishes.
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