Remembering Katie

The grove is quiet in winter.
Bare twigs on tiny saplings,
a sky like a cold grey blanket
left behind by a child long ago.

Somewhere within its silent core
each tree remembers the essence of its being,
the patterns of leaf and flower and seed.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly,
the little trees continue growing,
their innate structure unfolding as it should.
Nature knows the rightness of her creations.

One day, the trees will be tall and strong.
Children will run laughing through the grove,
each thriving in her own vibrant pattern
as branches arch overhead into eternity,
protecting, nurturing, affirming.

The trees will remember.

Ashes to Ashes

I got an e-mail from a mother who supports Autism Speaks. She argued that a prenatal test for autism might not be a bad thing because parents who couldn't deal with raising special needs children would have the option to abort them, rather than potentially abusing them after they were born. Here's an excerpt from what she wrote:


My son has Down Syndrome and Autism and is loved beyond measure by me and his sister and the close friends I surround ourselves with. HOWEVER, when looking at abuse cases JUST in the family unit sense toward those with special needs, I can't help but wonder if women should be given the choice to bring a child with special needs into this cruel world.

Personally, I'd adopt a dozen more special needs kids if I had the means! But for the families that mistreat, abuse, neglect and even kill their children with special needs - I'm thinking the option of terminating their pregnancy before the cruelty begins could actually be a better choice. Again, I am PRO-LIFE for my own body and life. But who am I to tell another woman what to do with her body and unborn baby, especially if they feel the environment would not be anything but cruel or neglectful to that child with special needs?


There's a lot of cruelty in the world—no doubt about that. But when society dehumanizes a group of people so thoroughly that they are seen as nothing more than garbage to be thrown away before birth, that doesn't prevent abuse; to the contrary, that makes it a certainty that the small number of survivors will be victims of lifelong abuse. Perhaps not from their parents—but from schools where they are treated as if they're not worth teaching, from doctors who make ignorant predictions that they will never accomplish anything, from bullies who see nothing wrong with taunting and assaulting "retards" (or whatever the wastebasket word of the day is), from employers who refuse to hire them, from landlords who refuse to rent to them, and from the majority of otherwise decent and well-meaning people who avert their eyes and hurry away without speaking.

Cruelty toward autistics, or any other stigmatized minority group, is not a natural state of affairs. It exists because society has chosen to allow it to exist. There is nothing intrinsic to the development of special needs children that makes parents more likely to want to abuse them. Even the idea that their needs are "special" is a cultural construct. What we have here is a mismatch between modern society's narrow, unrealistic expectations and the actual diversity of human experience. In multigenerational autistic families (such as mine) where many of the children have autistic traits, the parents don't see anything strange or wrong when a kid lines up his toys or climbs on the furniture. That's just ordinary childhood behavior, as far as they're concerned.

At various times and places in history, different groups of people have been singled out as so incapable and so vulnerable to abuse that they would be better off dead. In India, until the 19th century, a widow could be burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre. This practice was called sati, also spelled suttee. Because widows often were abused in Indian society, their death was thought to be a merciful way of preventing the beatings, rape, and starvation that otherwise might have awaited them. Often they were drugged so that they would not suffer.

Like euthanasia and eugenic abortion of people with disabilities in today's society, the practice of sati strongly reinforced the prevailing cultural view that widows were useless parasites, unworthy of decent treatment or even life itself. It was because of this attitude that widows were mistreated, not because their existence was too much of a burden on their families and communities.

We're seeing the same social dynamic with autism and other neurological differences, as well as with the concept of disability in general. The more our society declares the lives of certain kinds of human beings to be an intolerable burden, the more abuse and prejudice—and sometimes murder—we find.





Katherine "Katie" McCarron
July 22, 2002 — May 13, 2006
Never Forgotten

Murderous Thoughts

Autism Diva has a post about the memorial grove for Katie McCarron, who was killed by her mother in May. Katie, who loved to play outdoors, would have been four years old this summer.

Sadly, there are still many people who do not understand that irresponsible news articles, such as the one I mentioned in my previous post, can lead directly to actual murders by depicting parents who fantasize about killing an autistic child in a sympathetic light. I got a comment yesterday that defended the article as follows:

"In no way was the author of the article condoning the parent's impulsive thoughts, but rather she was illustrating the incredible depth of the frustration and pain that loved ones feel for their family member... It was a horrific event, and it hurt me to read it, knowing the intense emotional pain that the parent had to be experiencing in order to be driven to that point of desperate thinking."

What the author of that comment (and probably the author of the article, as well) doesn't get is that such "desperate thinking" is not a rare, isolated occurrence. It's part of a broad social pattern of devaluing the lives of autistics and people with disabilities. Although people who have strong feelings of emotional pain may indeed have a need to talk about their feelings, that doesn't justify shooting them off like the proverbial loose cannon, with no regard for their effects on society. If you are a parent who has thought about murdering your child, then you should be talking about those feelings with a therapist, a support group, and perhaps a minister or other member of the clergy. You may need to ask a psychiatrist for medication or consult with a lawyer or social worker about placing your child in someone else's custody for his protection. But for God's sake, don't give an interview telling the world that you think it would be easier for both you and your child if you killed him. Real people are dying because of attitudes like that.

And if you are a journalist writing about autism, be careful how you frame your story. You have an ethical responsibility to avoid inciting prejudice and violence against a minority group. A century ago, many journalists contributed to the lynch mob mentality by writing lurid stories about lynching that described the feelings of the participants. Don't write the modern-day equivalent of those stories.

Speaking Truth to Power

Several bloggers in the autistic community have been in contact with Mike McCarron since the horrifying murder of his granddaughter Katie last month. Mr. McCarron has spoken out strongly against those in the media and elsewhere who have characterized Katie's death as resulting from a lack of services, or who have attributed the murder to desperation felt by parents of autistic children, or who have suggested that Katie was in pain or a burden. To show the truth—that Katie was a joyful and loving child—the McCarron family has invited those who wish to honor Katie's memory to post images of her on websites and blogs.





This is a picture of a child. Not a soulless empty shell, not a devastating tragedy, not an intolerable burden to society, not an abomination. A three-year-old child who was, in her grandfather's words, "a beautiful, precious and happy little girl. Each day she was showered with love and returned that love with hugs, kisses and laughter."

Yes, there was an abomination here, but it was not Katie's autism. It was her murder and the attempted rationalization of that murder by hate groups in the guise of autism charities.



(Image created by Aspies for Freedom)


This is what Mike McCarron has to say to the hate groups that treat autistic children as less than human and that express sympathy for their murderers:

"I can assure you that no one will describe her murder as 'understandable' or devalue her in any way without my personal challenge to them and the organizations they represent."

Mr. McCarron, there are many of us who share your outrage, and we will stand with you until the organizations that exploit and dehumanize autistic people have crumbled to dust. Until the bigotry that brought these groups into existence has ended. Until we live in a world where no child will ever be murdered for being autistic, and where no one would dream of calling such an atrocity 'understandable.'

We will stand with you to speak truth to power.

For as long as it takes.

Never Again

At the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, each visitor to the Holocaust exhibit receives a "passport" that depicts a child. During an interactive tour, the visitor learns more about what happened to that child during the Holocaust. This emotional experience allows the visitor to see more than just the statistics and to gain a better understanding of what the survivors meant when they vowed "Never again."

Although there are some Internet sites that discuss murder of autistics, I have not seen any site that gives the reader an interactive experience similar to that presented at the Museum of Tolerance. I'm going to remedy that lack by describing what it would have been like for you, the reader, to be a young autistic child from Illinois, three-year-old Katherine McCarron:


If your mother had not been a doctor, she might not have seen any cause for concern when you did not talk much as a toddler. Indeed, she might have thought you were a clever baby for lining up your toys neatly. But she was familiar with today's autism awareness campaigns, and she promptly took you to get a diagnosis and enrolled you in a school for autistic children. She joined an autism support group and became obsessed with finding the best treatments for you.

One of her friends was quoted as saying that your mother's life was "all about autism" and that she "couldn't break away from the dark stuff." The friend didn't elaborate on what the dark stuff was, but we can make a reasonable guess. Maybe it was the statements from Cure Autism Now to the effect that an autistic child is nothing but "a shell, a ghost of all the dreams and hopes you ever had." It could have been the fundraising solicitations of the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR) and other groups that describe autism as a devastating disorder. Perhaps she saw the remarks by Rick Rollens of the MIND Institute, who compared autistic people to train wrecks and their existence to a tsunami. Wherever she looked, your mother found websites, press releases, and posters calling for the demise of autism. It's possible that she watched a recent video by Autism Speaks, which implied that "every day" mothers think about murdering their autistic children.

You were an innocent three-year-old, and you didn't know that so many strident voices had declared your life and the existence of millions of people like you to be a burden on society. You just enjoyed playing with your toys, watching the bees in the clover, and feeling the soft grass beneath your feet and the wind in your hair on a warm spring day.

Until your mother put a plastic bag over your head and suffocated you on Mother's Day weekend.


** never again **


Suzanne Wright of Autism Speaks, which is funding prenatal testing eugenics research through its affiliate NAAR, recently said that her vision of the future is one in which autism "is a word for the history books."

Let me tell you something about what it's like to end up as a word for the history books. A century ago, large numbers of Jews lived in Yiddish-speaking villages in Central and Eastern Europe. Such a village was called a shtetl. Life was often hard for these villagers, who were persecuted in many ways, but they created a rich and vibrant culture in which they celebrated their unique experiences and their different outlook on the world. When the Nazis came to power, these villagers were all rounded up and sent to the concentration camps. A way of life that had endured for a millennium was destroyed in just a few short years.

You're not going to find a shtetl in today's Europe. It's just a word for the history books.


** never again **


Approximately 55 million people worldwide are on the autistic spectrum, according to an estimate by the UK's National Autistic Society. That's a social minority group made up of 55 million human beings whose genotype has existed since ancient times, who share a thriving international culture, who often find life hard because of prejudice and discrimination but still celebrate their accomplishments and their unique perspective on life.

How many more times will genocide have to happen before our world finally learns to value all human beings? How many more children will die because of hate and ignorance?