Eugenics Is the Issue, Not Tylenol

We need to address the real concerns behind this bait-and-switch autism announcement

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

I don’t want to dwell too long on addressing the issue that Tylenol is not and cannot be what causes autism. I don’t care what causes autism because the cause is not the point (it’s genetic).

Yes, I care that some autistic people suffer greatly. I always have, but not wanting them to exist is ableist, and it is most definitely eugenics.

This administration is focusing on finding the cause of autism (again, we know the cause, it’s genetic) as a litmus test for how far they will be allowed to go with eugenics to eliminate autistic people from the planet.

Being perennially obsessed with curing autism is ableist and is leading us down the slippery slope of eradicating anyone that society views as undesirable and expendable.

That is Third Reich behavior. Heck, it’s a part of the US’s rather recent and repugnant past.

The Nazis got their playbook from the US’s ugly history of eugenics, which included hiding, institutionalizing, and sterilizing autistic people and disabled people in general.

Autistic people have been socially identified as far back as the 1700s, and various studies have theorized that…