I recently found myself in a conversation with a woman who called neurological disorders “a burden on parents and society”. I would like to say that I was dumbfounded, but I was not. Unfortunately, this sort of rhetoric is all too common in society.
I hear so many people share the opinion that neurodivergent people should not exist.
It comes from anti-vax moms who want to protect their children from developing Autism, Tourette Syndrome, etc. (Autism is the main disorder you hear about in conjunction with vaccines, but if you dig into anti-vaxxer rhetoric - or simply exist while having a neurological disorder - you find plentiful statements about all sorts of disorders.) It comes from abortion activists who want to prevent disabled children from being born into what will surely, in their mind, be a sad and painful life. It comes from people who want to find a cure for neurological disorders without paying a single shred of attention or concern to the needs of those living with the same conditions day in and day out.
Generally speaking, these opinions come from people who think that they are doing a good thing. They think they are fighting for the oppressed, or championing a necessary cause, or working to prevent suffering. But they are not.
Because when your rhetoric includes the excision of neurological disorders from society, what you are really doing is saying that we should excise PEOPLE with neurological disorders from society. And so in saying this, you are saying that people like me should not exist.
You might think that rhetoric like this doesn’t matter, but it does.
Discriminatory speech against neurodivergent people leads to discriminatory action. We only need to study history in order to see this.
In the 1920s, people began to ponder eugenics, or human capability to self-direct towards greater genetic health by excluding from society or suppressing the fertility of certain genetic groups judged to be less desirable, and by promoting the status and/or reproduction of genetic groups judged to be superior. This seemed to be a sound idea at first - why wouldn’t anyone want their children and neighbors to be as healthy as possible? But the events which quickly followed were so horrible that it left a permanent scar on human history and the downfall of an empire.
You see, the horrors of Nazi Germany didn’t come from a vacuum. Their ideas - mass murder, horrific medical experimentation, torture, child abduction, forced breeding programs - all stemmed from eugenics.
And do you know who the first targeted group of people was? It wasn’t jews, or black people, or homosexual people.
It was disabled people - specifically, those with severe neurological disabilities.
Back then, in the days before the horrors of war, genocide, and mass graves, people spoke about “eliminating” disability; how it was a burden on families; a burden on healthy productive society; a life not worth living anyway - isn’t it kinder to put them out of their misery?
And so it was that the disabled members of German society were burned up in the nation’s incinerators well before the Jewish population was targeted. One could argue that it was that act which sparked the entire chain of events which followed and tore the world apart. After all, if you can learn to stomach putting your own disabled relatives to death, who knows what other horrors you are capable of committing against others?
I considered writing this article from the perspective of demonstrating the tangible value which neurodivergent people add to society. We can and do work, invent, create, nurture, love, and do anything and everything that neurotypical people do. Counted among us are some of the great names of history.
But if I have to convince you via a demonstration of productivity that my life has value, that in of itself demonstrates everything that needs to be known.
While I could convince you that I deserve to exist, I shouldn’t have to.
No one should ever have to convince another person that their life has value.
The next time that you find yourself talking about neurodivergence, or disability, or any group that is different from yourself, check your rhetoric. If anything that you’re about to say implies that the world would be better off without a group of people who could not exist without that defining characteristic, stop.
If you’re the anti-vax parent who thinks that it’s better for children to be at risk of death via preventable diseases than turn out like me, stop.
If you’re the pro-choice advocate who thinks that a life with disability isn’t worth living, stop.
If you’re the “advocate” who cares so much more about eradicating the disorder than caring for those with it, stop.
The only person who moral society doesn't have room for is the eugenicist.
So just stop.
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