Trigger Warning: I'm talking about discrimination based in ableism.
It's a thing. I know it's a thing. Amanda and her family know it's a thing. Lief of Life for Lief knows it's a thing. The 23 year old who was denied a heart transplant knows. Robert of Save Our Precious Son's Life knows it's a thing.
There's a petition aiming to stop it. This shouldn't even be needed, considering that the ADA and Rehabilitation Act both say that healthcare providers aren't allowed to discriminate based on disability, but it is. We are legitimately petitioning the government to make people follow anti-discrimination laws. Really. We actually have to make and sign and share petitions to make people follow anti-discrimination laws on a regular basis. Remember the whole I Stand WITH Henry business? That was a case of telling people to follow the ADA too. Or Neurodivergent K filing an ADA lawsuit in order to take a gym class at her community college? It's a pretty common issue, and it shouldn't be. The whole attitude of society seeing Autistic people as somehow incapable not-quite-people needs to change, and it needs to change now.
If it were already changed, we wouldn't need this petition. Doctors often think that the quality of life that an Autistic person has means that their life is not worth saving, and that's not OK. They are not mind-readers. In other cases, they let the patient decide if the quality of life they would have with a transplant is such that they want to try, barring issues that would mean the transplant is likely to fail/be rejected by the body. In the case of Autistic people, they make this decision for us. People hear autism and think tragic burden. That needs to change.
But change in the eyes of the world is slow. It is too slow to save the people who are looking to be on transplant lists now, and it is too slow to save the people who will need transplants before these attitudes change. These lives are worth saving. These are the lives of people. Autistic people are people, with lives and with families and with goals and aspirations and everything else neurotypical people have.
That's where the petition comes in. That's where making doctors obey the law comes in, really, and that's what the petition is asking for. Sign it. Share it. Blog about it. Like the Facebook page. Share it on Facebook. Tweet it. Retweet it. Write on walls about it. Tumblr it. Reblog it. Email it to your friends. Email it to your family. Bug the psychology department or the special education department or any department of any school or hospital or anything that could possibly be relevant. Just make sure it gets the 25,000 signatures by December 14 that it needs in order to get a presidential response. Yeah, I know, it's a long shot that he'll do anything besides repeat that it's illegal, but maybe, just maybe, they'll do something about the fact that doctors do it anyways. That's what needs fixing. It's not the law, in this case. It's the people ignoring it.
So go SIGN. And here's the short link if you want it: http://wh.gov/X4yM
It's a thing. I know it's a thing. Amanda and her family know it's a thing. Lief of Life for Lief knows it's a thing. The 23 year old who was denied a heart transplant knows. Robert of Save Our Precious Son's Life knows it's a thing.
There's a petition aiming to stop it. This shouldn't even be needed, considering that the ADA and Rehabilitation Act both say that healthcare providers aren't allowed to discriminate based on disability, but it is. We are legitimately petitioning the government to make people follow anti-discrimination laws. Really. We actually have to make and sign and share petitions to make people follow anti-discrimination laws on a regular basis. Remember the whole I Stand WITH Henry business? That was a case of telling people to follow the ADA too. Or Neurodivergent K filing an ADA lawsuit in order to take a gym class at her community college? It's a pretty common issue, and it shouldn't be. The whole attitude of society seeing Autistic people as somehow incapable not-quite-people needs to change, and it needs to change now.
If it were already changed, we wouldn't need this petition. Doctors often think that the quality of life that an Autistic person has means that their life is not worth saving, and that's not OK. They are not mind-readers. In other cases, they let the patient decide if the quality of life they would have with a transplant is such that they want to try, barring issues that would mean the transplant is likely to fail/be rejected by the body. In the case of Autistic people, they make this decision for us. People hear autism and think tragic burden. That needs to change.
But change in the eyes of the world is slow. It is too slow to save the people who are looking to be on transplant lists now, and it is too slow to save the people who will need transplants before these attitudes change. These lives are worth saving. These are the lives of people. Autistic people are people, with lives and with families and with goals and aspirations and everything else neurotypical people have.
That's where the petition comes in. That's where making doctors obey the law comes in, really, and that's what the petition is asking for. Sign it. Share it. Blog about it. Like the Facebook page. Share it on Facebook. Tweet it. Retweet it. Write on walls about it. Tumblr it. Reblog it. Email it to your friends. Email it to your family. Bug the psychology department or the special education department or any department of any school or hospital or anything that could possibly be relevant. Just make sure it gets the 25,000 signatures by December 14 that it needs in order to get a presidential response. Yeah, I know, it's a long shot that he'll do anything besides repeat that it's illegal, but maybe, just maybe, they'll do something about the fact that doctors do it anyways. That's what needs fixing. It's not the law, in this case. It's the people ignoring it.
So go SIGN. And here's the short link if you want it: http://wh.gov/X4yM
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