‘By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.’
When I heard Robert F Kennedy Jr peddle what I can only describe as eugenic narratives about autism in his first press conference as Health and Human Services Secretary of the United States, I felt both anger and fear for my community.
As someone with autism, I know firsthand how damaging this stigma can be.
Growing up, I witnessed classmates making fun of peers with clear autistic or neurodivergent traits, which fuelled an internalised ableism that prevented me from accepting my autism until early adulthood.
It was only after finding supportive autistic communities online that I felt comfortable broaching the subject with medical professionals.
But even now, it’s something I’m often hesitant to mention, fearing that it will negatively affect how people perceive me.
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s wider remarks this week intended to share the findings of the recently released CDC Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring survey.
According to the survey, autism is becoming increasingly prevalent, rising from one in 150 in 2000 to one in 31 in 2022.
For Kennedy, this increase is ‘alarming’, and indicative of an ‘epidemic’ destroying America’s ‘greatest resource, which are our children’.
He insisted that this increase must be caused by ‘environmental toxins’, and pledged to launch new studies to investigate.
Much of Kennedy’s rhetoric has been thoroughly debunked by scientists and autism advocates.
I have ADHD and my partner is autistic — we’re better together because of it
I’m an autistic trucker with 700,000 miles clocked up in a job I wasn’t meant to have
As an autistic woman, I’ve found mental health support lacking
My son’s ADHD and tics caused distress. Then I clipped electrodes to his ears
My child didn’t want to put his shoes on – teachers restrained him
The report itself suggests that the increase in prevalence is due to improved access and quality of screening services, which many autism advocates corroborate.
Furthermore, Kennedy showed a complete lack of understanding of the diverse experiences of autistic people.
He claimed that most cases are severe, which he described as being non-verbal, not toilet-trained, and displaying stereotypical behaviours, such as head-banging, stimming, and light sensitivities.
But autism is well-known to be a spectrum, and the CDC actually found that far from most cases being severe, around a quarter fall into the ‘profound’ autism category.
And in fact, many of the behaviours RFK Jr listed as ‘severe’, are generally harmless and often reflect autistic people’s way of expressing themselves, especially in the case of stimming.
The barrier is often not autism itself, but neurotypical reactions to this behaviour that police autistic expression and force them to conform to rigid neurotypical social norms.
Kennedy added that autistic children would never pay taxes, hold a job, play baseball, write a poem, or go on a date.This is a sweeping generalisation. Yes, there are autistic people who cannot do these things, but many can.
Autistic people are in work, there’s a wealth of autistic poets, and Love on the Spectrum (a dating reality TV show for autistic people) is literally an Emmy award-winning show.
It seems to me that Kennedy paints all autistic people as inherently tragic, or in his words, an ‘epidemic’.
He refers to autism as a ‘disease’, comparing it to diabetes and measles – the latter of which Kennedy is skeptical about being prevented with vaccines.
This gives the implication that autism is something to be eradicated or cured, rather than accommodated.
In my mind, this echoes the eugenicist assertion that disabled lives are not worth living.
In 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of disabilities specifically warned that scientific developments allowing elimination of supposedly undesirable characteristics ‘could result in new eugenic practices and further undermine social acceptance and solidarity towards disability – and more broadly, towards human diversity’.
While Kennedy didn’t specifically mention vaccines as a potential cause of autism during the press conference, he’s peddled the widely-debunked conspiracy theory in the past. In my opinion, this is one of the most insidious ableist conspiracy theories.
When deciding not to vaccinate their children, parents are putting them at risk for multiple fatal illnesses. It’s chilling to see how many people would seemingly rather their child be dead than autistic like me.
Ableism has dire consequences.
Today, disabled people are still subjected to forced sterilisation, marriage inequality, and shock ‘therapies’ akin to torture due to ableist beliefs that our lives are not worth living. These are issues the Government should be focusing on rather than elusive ‘environmental toxins’.
Since Donald Trump took office, he and his allies have shown a strong enthusiasm for escalating violence against communities such as migrants, trans people, and pro-Palestine activists.
In my view, Kennedy’s comments will likely fuel violence towards autistic communities by reinforcing stigmas and potentially increasing the desire to eradicate the disability.
The rise of the far-right across the world puts marginalised communities, including disabled people, at risk of extreme harm. At the same time, even centrist governments such as the UK have shown a willingness to disregard disabled lives by cutting life-saving benefits.
It’s crucial that the media, civil society, and politicians take a stand against this injustice before it’s too late.
Disabled people have always been here and will always exist. Instead of trying to eradicate disability, we must build a world where disabled needs are prioritised, allowing disabled people to live full lives unburdened by ableism.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@usnewsrank.com.
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