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ASAN Statement Applauding New Administration on Community Living

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The Autistic Self Advocacy Network applauds Secretary Sebelius and the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services for the creation of the new Administration on Community Living. By bringing together the HHS Office on Disability, the Administration on Developmental Disabilities and the Administration on Aging under one...

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The Judge Rotenberg Center on Trial, Part One

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by Shain Neumeier Almost ten years after Andre McCollins was restrained facedown for seven hours and shocked 31 times over that interval while attending the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts, the lawsuit against the program and some of its most important staff for these abuses, McCollins...

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The Debate About Euthanasia

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by Lateef H McLeod on DisabilityRightNow Recently there has been a resurgence of debate of whether or not euthanasia is a viable ethical option for people with disabilities. Proponents of euthanasia stress that since all Americans have the right to life and have the authority of how to end...

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All Done Autism Awareness

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by Shannon Des Roches Rosa There’s a saying we overuse in my household: “All done, !” We’ve actually swiped the saying from our son Leo, who is eleven and autistic, as “all done” is what he proclaims when he is completely fed up with the activity or person at...

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Killing Words

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by Zoe Gross Let me present to you a sequence of events. On March 6th, a 22-year-old autistic man named George Hodgins was murdered in Sunnyvale, California. His mother, Elizabeth, pulled out a gun, shot him point-blank, and then killed herself. In the following days and weeks, journalists wrote...

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ASAN Statement on the Exclusion of Tyler Long’s Autism Spectrum Diagnosis from the Documentary Bully

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Over the course of the last several years, growing public attention to issues of bullying – driven in part by the tragic suicides of a number of students subject to bullying and harassment in schools – have helped to drive greater focus by policymakers, educators and the public to...

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The I-Word

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by Ian Ford We have come a long way, right? We used to be called idiots and lunatics. Now we are referred to as individuals living with name-your-disorder, so it appears we have finally moved beyond the language problem. Most people know the R-word is incorrect, and the new...

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Disability Community Across the Country Mourns Disabled People Murdered by Family Members and Caregivers

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On March 30th, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, working with the broader disability community, convened a nationwide Day of Mourning in memory disabled people murdered by family members and caregivers. Eighteen cities participated by holding candlelit vigils in locations across the country. Over the course of the past week, the...

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Plants Outside the Shade

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by Amanda Baggs   This is a personal description of some of what autism means to me. Because even among other autistic people such descriptions are too rare. Autism means that my earliest memories are of floating in among the feel of things.  Not how they looked or sounded,...

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