Samantha Pierce

It should have been an obvious outcome of the combination of unforgiving government attempts at population control, cultures that value men above women, and advancements in medical technology that allow sex identification and the termination of the unwanted in utero. Gendercide The worldwide war on baby girls: Technology, declining fertility and ancient prejudice are combining to unbalance societies According to the article the normal ratio of births is 103 to 106 boys for every 100 girls. But in some areas there have been reported ratios as high as 275 boys for every 100 girls. I find this imbalance appalling not for the sake of all of the men who will be unable to find wives but for all of the girls who had to die and the mothers who had to kill their daughters to produce the imbalance. Not even the education and advancement of women seems to stop the trend of terminating baby girls. The stakes only get higher when you're only going to have one or two children in a culture that s...

There is intriguing news out about of some of the latest research into the genetic origins of autism. The research out of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has identified several changes in genes involved with brain function that occur in autistic individuals and the general population (thanks to hubby for doing most on the leg work for this). CHOP, Penn research points to genetic link in autism By analyzing DNA from more than 2,000 autistic children, researchers have uncovered the best evidence yet for genetic links to the disorder - all tied to the way brain cells form and dissolve connections. The research effort, led by Hakon Hakonarson at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, used much larger samples than had been analyzed before to identify genetic differences between autistic subjects and controls. The CHOP group collaborated with Penn, UCLA, and other institutions, announcing their findings in two papers in today's issue of the journal Nature. One paper reveale...

This is what comes of constantly harping on how awful autism is and how awful life is for you with your autistic kids and how your kids were poisoned and damaged by toxic vaccines and so on and so forth despite all evidence that such is not the case. From the comments section on this article : vaccines & autism People with autistic children are desperate, with good reason. It is spectacularly difficult to get good help with these children in most school systems. I have met many parents of autistic children, and it is gut wrenching. But something I also discovered, many of these people had autism in their family history. I don't know if there's a genetic test for these disorders (there are many disorders under the autism umbrella, so probably not) but it seems to me that we are getting more autistic children simply because our society manages to help people become mainstream who in past generations would not have been educated and would have been unlikely to end up married. ...

Now here is an interesting argument. A pro-life stance is the lesser of two evils when the other choice is aborting a particular segment of the population based on their genetic profile. The linked post is a call to support McCain/Palin because of the demonstrated pro-life stance of the Republican ticket. I have noticed a certain cognitive dissonance in the online autism community on the issue of abortion. For the most part it seems that abortion is okay unless the individual to be aborted was selected for termination based on their genetic profile. Armed with the knowledge that upwards of 90% of babies who test positive for Down Syndrome are aborted autistic advocates and advocates for autistic individuals rightly fear the development of prenatal tests to detect the potential for autism. The post I linked to above generated the following comment that illustrates the conflict between wanting to protect the life and rights of the unborn autistic individual and wanting to continue abort...

I had hoped that the emerging science on the genetic complexity and subtleties of autism would curtail the lean towards a eugenic solution to autism. Those of us in the us autism community are painfully aware that upwards of 90% of babies who test positive for Down Syndrome through prenatal testing are aborted. I for one don't want to see autism travel down the same road. So this bit of news is a bit unsettling, Autism pre-birth gene test. Here? Technorati Tags: autism , eugenics , abortion Generated By Technorati Tag Generator