ASAN New England Testimony on Aversives

Stephanie Lynn Keil reprinted the ASAN New England testimony on aversives, and I just have to link to it as well. It is very unfortunate that Sara Willig was unable to say what she wanted to say at the hearing. I hope her testimony comes to the eyes of legislators anyway. They need to know [...]

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Could Autism Be the Next Step in Human Evolution?

I stumbled upon a blog post by Jessica Ruvinsky autism as the next step in evolution. First of all, I want to say that I can’t stand what I call neurelitism, that is, the view that autistics are somehow superior to neurotypicals. This view dismisses the fact that autistics actually do have serious problems. Some [...]

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It’s Not All About Autism “Core Symptoms”

I have never taken the DSM, the Bible of psychiatry, to be God’s word on mental disorders. I know that it is created by a group of mostly white, male, American psychiatrists who may even have voted on controversies. I also know that, even if these white, male, American psychiatrists had been the world’s most [...]

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What Makes Us “Institutionalized”?

Institutionalization, in the context of this post, refers to the overreliance on the institutional structure, that some mental patients are described as displaying, and which is often viewed as a problem by the staff. Cellar_Door of “Not Another Nursing Student Blog…” describes it here and uses two seemingly strange examples, where patients start protesting when [...]

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Euthanasia and the “Burden Meme”

I just found out that a man suffering from cancer killed his demented wife and then himself to prevent her from being a “burden” on their children after his death. Wesley J. Smith comments on the case over at Secondhand Smoke. He writes: The message that it is worse to be a burden than dead [...]

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Should Forensic Psychiatric Inmates Have Sex?

Today, a new documentary film came out, entitled Longstay. Longstay refers to long-term care units in forensic psychiatric institutions, where criminals with severe, chronic mental illness are detained, sometimes for life. The film stirred controversy, because it asks the question whether inmates of longstay units should be offered visits from a sex care worker, ie. [...]

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Who Decides What “Quality of Life” Means?

Over the last few days, I’ve come across a few blog posts on the subject of quality of life, as it relates to euthanasia and assisted suicide. Note here, that my opinion about assisted suicide and euthanasia is not based on some kind of mantra that says that everyone has an obligation to live until [...]

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Proper Care Isn’t “Sitting on Patients”

People are locked up in isolation rooms, restrained, or otherwise severely restricted in their freedom of movement, on a daily basis. A study a few months ago found that, in the Netherlands, between 2004 and 2008, about 150 people have been secluded for a year or longer at a time. For comparison: our country has [...]

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Is Institutionalization Necessary?

Stephanie Lynn Keil commented on my previous post at her own blog. The issue she raises is the one I failed to address properly in that post: whether you’d actually rather starve or be institutionalized. Stephanie writes that she’d rather starve. It is not something that surprises me. In fact, I’d not be surprised if [...]

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People May Starve

There’s a comment on this post, which raises an unrelated but valid concern – why is ASAN not campaigning actively against the bullying of autistics (or why do autism advocates not see it?)? -, that upset me to a significant degree. This is not meant as an attack on Stephanie Lynn Keril, who posted the [...]

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