Just a Little Help from Friends

It's becoming a tale that is all too familiar these days, as Kevin Leitch wrote in his post about the murder of Ulysses Stable—one more autistic child killed by a parent who saw him as nothing but a burden. But this story, as reported by Newsday.com, has an especially revolting twist to it:


The father also told police that his friends had encouraged him to kill his son, telling him the boy had no hope for getting better, sources said.


What has our world come to when a father tells his friends that he is having problems coping, and his friends' response, instead of advising him to talk to a therapist or a support group or a social worker, is to suggest killing the child?

After committing the murder, the father calmly turned himself in to the police and declared, "I have terminated the life of my autistic child."

I wonder if he expected to get a combat medal for bravely fighting the war on autism. Or maybe a job with an autism charity.

It's not surprising that these sick attitudes have spread throughout the United States so quickly, when you consider the sort of "friends" who have been relentlessly spreading the message in their videos and interviews and PSAs that autistic children are monsters ruining their parents' lives and that it is perfectly normal for parents to think about murdering them.

Now we see, once again, where it leads. There's another child's blood on your hands, Alison Tepper Singer and Autism Speaks.

When will it end?