Murder, not Mercy

Trigger Warning: Murder/Abuse of autistic people

xkcd.com/386. Go ahead. Look it up.

Read it. Laugh. Agree.

It doesn't matter that someone is wrong on the internet.

It happens all the time.

Most of the time, I'd agree.

Most of the time, I don't care if someone is wrong on the internet.

But this time, this kind of wrong, I have to care.

If your wrongness on the internet didn't endanger the lives of a whole group, I wouldn't care as much.

If your wrongness on the internet didn't endanger the lives of my friends, I wouldn't care as much.

If your wrongness on the internet didn't endanger MY life, I wouldn't care as much.

But it does.

You might say I'm being over-dramatic.

George Hodgins begs to differ.

Daniel Corby begs to differ.

Every one of us killed by our caretakers while you called it mercy begs to differ.

Every one of us allowed to die while it was recorded as an accident begs to differ.

But they are dead, and I still live. So I will beg to differ.

If you call us tragedies, if you call ending our lives mercy, then one by one, we die.

I don't want to die.

I want to live.

You might still say I'm being over-dramatic.

You might say no one will try to kill me. I function.

You might say I don't know what it's like to be as disabled as George was.

You might say I don't know what it's like to have a child as disabled as Daniel was.

And I don't.

But it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if I specifically know these people wanted to live.

It matters that you didn't specifically know they wanted to die.

It doesn't matter if I don't know what it's like to be so disabled.

It matters that the killer didn't know.

It doesn't matter that I don't know what it's like to have such a child.

It matters that a parents job is to protect their child.

Killing someone to protect them makes as much sense as silencing someone to give them a voice.

Both are our reality.

You might say I have no empathy for the parents who made that choice.

I don't. I have no clue how they felt.

You might say I have no sympathy for the parents who made that choice.

I don't. I got the part where they murdered their children, which you apparently missed.

You might say that it's wrong to judge when I don't know their lives.

It might be. I still know they murdered, and that can't happen again.

I'm not asking you to call the lives of those parents easy.

I'm not asking you to personally run the schools those children went to.

I'm asking you recognize the victims were human.

I'm asking you to react as you would to the murders that these were.

I'm asking you to stop mistaking murder for mercy.

I ask because if the wrong person hears you call it mercy, another one of us dies.

I ask because if the wrong person hears you call it mercy, and if that wrong person knows too much,

that next one of us could be me.