Category Archives: Eugenics

Philip "Phil" Jerome Theisen

February 25, 1952 - September 26, 2021

Philip "Phil" Jerome Theisen, 69, of Forest, Va., passed away peacefully on Sunday, September 26, 2021, after spending several days in the hospital.

Phil was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on February 25, 1952, to Marie and Vincent Theisen. Phil tragically lost his father at the tender age of 6 months old and was raised by his mother. He was a graduate of the University of Southampton in Long Island, New York, with a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice. He served as a Lynchburg City Police Officer, Hospital Security Director for Centra, a Lynchburg City Social Worker, and was the Executive Director of The Lynchburg Area Center for Independent Living.

Phil was fiercely passionate about making a better life for people with disabilities and raising awareness about mental health issues. He dedicated his life to changing the community for the better. Three of Phil's biggest accomplishments were: 1. Winning the 1992 Governor's Gold Medal Award for Volunteering Excellence for mental health advocacy, which was awarded to Phil by Former Virginia Governor, Douglas Wilder, 2. Helping to get the Monacan Bridge & Parkway named after the Monacan Indian Tribe, and 3. Spearheading the 2002 Virginia Eugenics Program apology, which was issued by former Virginia Governor, Mark Warner. The apology issued by Virginia prompted a cascade effect of Oregon, North & South Carolina, and California to issue formal apologies for their eugenics programs.

Phil met his wife, Linda, at Riverhead Highschool, in Riverhead New York in 1971, and went on to have one son. Phil put family first, always, and was a dedicated father and husband. He was a strong, kind, loving, and supportive father. His knowledge and guidance were the foundation of his family.

After he retired as the Executive Director of LACIL, he mainly concentrated on home projects, wood-working, and learning about history, to cultivate and occupy his time.

Phil is survived by his wife of 48 years, Linda Theisen; son, Robert Theisen; daughter-in-law, Rachel Theisen; and his mother, Marie Theisen.

A celebration of life memorial service will be held in Phil's honor at Forest Presbyterian Church in Forest, Virginia, on Saturday, October 9, 2021, at 11 a.m. All family, friends, and people who were touched by Phil's life are welcome to attend. Face masks will be required.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation, specifically the "Heart of Virginia Fund (In memory of Dennis G. Theisen & Robert S. Haizlip)," at 1100 Commerce Street, Lynchburg, VA 24504.

Heritage Funeral Service and Crematory 427 Graves Mill Road (434) 239-2405 is assisting the family. Memories and thoughts may be shared with the family at http://www.heritagefuneralandcremation.com.

Published by The News & Advance on Sep. 29, 2021.

See the original post:

Philip Jerome "Phil" Theisen Obituary (1952 - 2021) The News & Advance - Legacy.com

Politicos play the race card with reckless abandon. As such, the words racist and racism are losing punch. These words are the crudest and most misused cudgels in English. Congressional Democrats are throwing them smack in the middle of the abortion conflict, which they do at the peril of their cause.

Bestselling author and Front Range resident David Horowitz reminds us in todays perspective section how the United States outlawed institutional racism with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If institutions exercise or promote racism, we have legal recourse.

The Gazettes editorial board routinely identifies vestiges of institutionalized racism. We talk about Colorados Ku Klux Klan-inspired Blaine Amendment and how it deprives minority children of receiving the educational options available to white children in high-income households.

We talk about the swiftly growing movement to promote racism with coursework that calls white children oppressors and nonwhite children victims. Among the remnants of institutionalized racism, one institution outperforms them all: the on-demand abortion practice.

This is not to rehash old abortion debates about the merits or pitfalls of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights in general. Lets face it, more than 90% of adults long ago took sides on this issue and will not be swayed no matter what.

Whether one agrees with a persons right to an abortion, most reasonable people believe abortions should be regulated for safety. We dont want fake doctors performing abortions and risking the lives of persons experiencing pregnancy.

We also dont want abortion providers to target demographics. People experiencing pregnancy in some cultures (see: China) blatantly use abortion to eliminate unborn girl babies so they can try for boys. The Boulder abortion clinic is a go-to institution for those who are told an unborn child has Down syndrome.

The largest abortion provider in the United States, Planned Parenthood, began as The Negro Project. It was an effort by eugenicist Margaret Sanger to reduce the Black population. She was a racist who pitched her message at a Ku Klux Klan meeting. To this day, based on Planned Parenthoods data, about 40% of the companys clinics are in neighborhoods where Blacks make up a majority of the population. This, in a country with a Black population of 13%.

A report by the Center for Urban Renewal and Education finds 79% of Planned Parenthoods surgical clinics those that conduct abortions are in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods.

The difficult truth is that Margaret Sangers racist alliances and belief in eugenics have caused irreparable damage to the health and lives of Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, people with disabilities, immigrants, and many others.

These are not the words of a pro-life activist. That is a direct quote from a Planned Parenthood website. By Planned Parenthoods admission, this is an institution founded in racism.

Despite the fact that Planned Parenthood owns its racist past, and despite the fact it terminates disproportionately high numbers of minority children, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives want fewer state regulations on abortion. Thats no surprise, but the opening paragraphs of the bill should cause a collective eye roll. Democrats claim they want this law because they care about minorities.

HR 3755, introduced last week, would force anything-goes abortion on all states. It goes so far as forbidding requirements that only licensed physicians perform abortions.

The bill says abortion restrictions perpetuate systems of oppression, lack of bodily autonomy, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism. This violent legacy has manifested in policies including enslavement, rape, and experimentation on Black women; forced sterilizations; medical experimentation on low-income womens reproductive systems; and the forcible removal of Indigenous children. Access to equitable reproductive health care, including abortion services, has always been deficient in the United States for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) and their families.

Somehow, laws that restrict abortion cause the forcible removal of minority children, medical experimentation on Blacks, and other monstrous outcomes.

Again, regardless of an individuals position on abortion rights, this bills justification language can be seen only as a blatant attempt to turn the truth upside-down. The Negro Project, now known as Planned Parenthood, pushed abortion and sterilization on Black persons experiencing pregnancy. Just ask Planned Parenthood. Access? Whether one believes Planned Parenthood or pro-life activists, minorities absolutely and beyond debate have easier access than whites to the countrys largest abortion chain, which taxpayers subsidize.

Great minds can have reasonable, intelligent, and honest discussions about abortion rights. We can debate whether states or the federal government have the authority to regulate abortion.

We cannot have a reasonable disagreement about the role abortion has played in reducing the population of minorities. The facts, as acknowledged by Planned Parenthood, speak for themselves. Those facts scream dont play the race card to advance abortion rights. The truth eventually prevails, meaning this deception stands only to backfire.

The Gazette Editorial Board

Originally posted here:

EDITORIAL: Don't play the race card to advocate abortion - Colorado Springs Gazette

The House of Representatives voted to approve the Women's Health Protection Act on Friday morning, a sweeping bill that pro-life advocates warn would wipe away state pro-life laws across the country. The measure passed with a vote of 218 to 211, so now it's up to the Senate.

President Biden says he'll sign the controversial pro-abortion measure if it comes to his desk.

Melanie Israel, a research associate for the Devos Center of Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, told CBN News the bill is an attempt to overturn health protections for women and the rights of unborn persons that have already been upheld by legislatures and courts.

"It's really meant to roll back existing policies, many of which have been on the books for many years, litigated all the way to the Supreme Court and deemed constitutional," she said. "The goal of this bill is to enshrine unfettered abortion access into federal law across the country and take away the American people's ability to have a say at all."Israel also wrote about it in a new report from Heritage saying it's a danger to pro-life efforts of any kind, even efforts to prevent eugenics and gendercide.

"The bill would prevent state protections for children from abortion based on their sex, race, or diagnosis of a genetic abnormality such as Down Syndromepolicies that, in the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, 'promote a State's compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics'," she wrote.

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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) opposed the measure in Congress saying, "This bill is far outside the American mainstream and goes far beyond Roe v Wade."

"For the first time ever by congressional statute, H.R. 3755 would legally enable the death of unborn baby girls and boys by dismemberment, decapitation, forced expulsion from the womb, deadly poisons, or other methods at any time until birth," Smith warned.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) praised the pro-abortion measure saying it's about people's medical choices."This is about freedom. About freedom of women to have a choice about the size and timing of their families - not the business of the people on the court or members of Congress. It's about themselves. But it's also about freedom from the danger of vigilantes."

Pro-life leader Lila Rose from Live Action says the proposed law will lead to the killing ofunborn children and will use taxpayer dollars to do it, funding government facilities that are used for abortions.

"This is the most extreme pro-abortion law Congress has ever proposed," Rose said. "Pelosi's law would destroy all regulations or restrictions, permit sex-selective abortions, abolish waiting periods, attempt to coerce medical professionals to participate in the killing of children, and force Americans to pay for the murder of those children. America's abortion law is already on par with China and North Korea. It is more extreme than virtually all of Europe. This law would codify that federally."

The bill doesn't have as much support in the Senate where the Democrat margin of control is razor-thin at 50-50. A Republican filibuster of the bill is expected in the Senate, so the Democrats would need 60 votes to move ahead with it. They don't appear to have those votes since Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is considered to be pro-life, and even a prominent pro-choice Republican is opposing the bill.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the pro-choice Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), an occasional Democrat ally, rejects the bill saying, "I support codifying Roe. Unfortunately, the bill goes way beyond that. It would severely weaken the conscience exceptions that are in the current law," Collins said. She went on to call the measure "extreme."

Heritage analyst Melanie Israel further warned, "Rather than take away the American people's ability to have a say in pro-life policymaking, Congress should pursue policies that protect innocent unborn human lives."

See the article here:

House Passes 'Extreme' Pro-Abortion Bill to Wipe Out State Pro-Life Laws and Permanently Enshrine Roe - CBN News

This summer a new documentary TV series premiered on the Discovery Channel. Hunting Atlantis follows a pair of experts on a quest to solve the greatest archaeological mystery of all timethe rediscovery of Atlantis. Theres just one problem: theres not an ancient historian or archeologist working in the field today who believes Atlantis was a real historical city.

Academics and documentary filmmakers often find themselves at odds, but as criticism of the show spilled over onto social media things turned ugly. A well-respected archaeologist was verbally abused by a flood of true believers who were committed not just to Atlantis, but also to white supremacy and eugenics.

Hunting Atlantis is co-hosted by Stel Pavlou and volcanologist Jess Phoenix. Phoenix is an expert in natural disasters (specifically volcanic eruptions), who has spent a great deal of time in the field as a geologist. In 2018 she even ran for Congress. Pavlou is a successful TV host, producer, screenwriter, and bestselling author: one of his films is a cult classic and his childrens books have won awards. The basis for their show is Pavlous argument that the date of Atlantiss destruction should be placed at the beginning of the fifth millennium BCE.

That the show has something of a sensational bent is to be expected; making archeology TV friendly often involves inflating or sensationalizing what can otherwise be quite dry material. There are also certain ancient artifacts and locationslike the Holy Grail or Noahs Arkthat hold the attention of viewers and will always be evergreens for documentary history-telling.

As bioarchaeologist Stephanie Halmhofer has discussed in an insightful blog post, everybody loves Atlantis, thanks to things like Disneys Atlantis: The Lost Empire, DCs Aquaman, and the popular television show Stargate: Atlantis. People are broadly familiar with it as a cherished part of their childhood imagination.

The difference between the Ark and Atlantis is that while people acknowledge that there was a cup that Jesus drunk out of or that the Ark of the Covenant existed, I dont know any archeologists who think Atlantis was a real place. Searching for it, for most archeologists, is only slightly more reasonable than hunting for Narnia. Greatest archeological mystery it is not.

Our sources for Atlantis are the philosophical dialogues of Plato (specifically the Republic, Timaeus, and Critias) in which characters in the fictional dialog have a hypothetical conversation about the ideal society. Atlantis, in Platos imagination, was a technologically advanced and harmonious society that gradually descended into corruption, disorder, and greedy warmongering. It was ultimately destroyed by a series of earthquakes that led to the city disappearing into the ocean.

It was the presentation of Atlantis as an actual place that drew concern from archaeologists when the show was first announced in May 2021. With so much rigorous archaeological research going undiscussed and underfunded, there was a palpable sense of frustration that a popular channel would air another show on what experts call pseudoarcheology.

To his credit, when challenged on social media, Pavlou offered to share what he described as the academic paper on which the show was based. Having been volunteered by a colleague, Dr. Flint Dibble, a Mediterranean archeologist and Marie Skodowska-Curie Research Fellow at Cardiff University, rose to the challenge.

Dibble was unimpressed: I read the paper carefully, refreshed my own research on Plato and the archaeology of Athens in the 5th millennium BCE and wrote a Twitter thread. This thread debunked the paper and exposed its logical faults in some places where scholarly research was cited, explored examples where conclusions were drawn from uncited statements.

The scholarly consensus, he told me, is very clear: Atlantis was not a real place.

After watching the show, Dibble said, he remained unpersuaded. He was concerned by the way that the credible research of legitimate archaeologists was being used to prop unfounded claims about Atlantis. If you watch carefully, he explained, youll notice that scholars never mention the name Atlantis nor Plato on air. At no times on air do the two co-hosts ask the scholars any questions about Atlantis or bring it up in front of them.

When I corresponded with Pavlou he was frustrated with the response from academics on social media. At no point have I ever claimed Atlantis is real, he said, I find it hard to believe [Plato] invented the whole story None of [the research I have done] proves that Atlantis is real but [it] does suggest there may have been a real myth buried somewhere behind Platos writing. Pavlou told me that he is agnostic about the existence of Atlantis: Atlantis as Plato wrote it certainly doesnt exist but there may have been a myth tied to the memory of earlier geological events.

There are many reasons that scholars would dispute this more nuanced claim, but this is a different kind of argument. But even so this is not the impression one gets from watching the show. The series ends with Pavlou saying that, It feels like Atlantis could be right beneath our feet. A feeling is not a statement of fact, but this and many other elements in the show imply a belief in the historical Atlantis.

When I asked Pavlou why an Atlantis-agnostic would make a show called Hunting Atlantis he claimed that he had originally pitched the series as a myth busting style show. He wasnt even originally supposed to host it, he added. Over time, and with input from producers and executives, the series morphed into something else: a show grounded in his theories of a preexisting earlier myth. As someone who has made documentaries myself, I have to wonder: what parts of the show stem from the host, which are the input of the production team, and what is just slick marketing?

Dibble told me that he asked the hosts and producers for a comment about misrepresenting the research of the academics interviewed on the show. This is when things started to get heated, Pavlous wife made some ad hominem attacks on Dibble that questioned his credentials and dragged his family into the fray (Dibbles father was a famous archeologist, but in a different period and field).

Dibble, in turn, contextualized his objections by exploring the problematic ways that Atlantis has been utilized throughout history. By the next day, Dibble said, both he and Pavlou were engaged in a full-on Twitterstorm. He woke up to hundreds of colleagues and supporters defending him to Pavlou and similar numbers of Atlantis-believers trying to dispute his claims and insulting him.

At one point, he said, Robert Sepehr, a pseudoarchaeologist who has a YouTube channel called Atlantean Gardens and praises Nazi research, began targeting colleagues and friends who were tweeting about the situation. From archeology to white supremacists overnight, the bizarre situation raises the question: how did we get here?

For almost two thousand years after Platos death everyone read the story about Atlantis for what it was: a fictional account about an ideal city that lost its way and was being use by Plato as a foil for his hometown of Athens.

Interest in Atlantis as a real place first emerged, writes Halmhofer, in the 1500s when early European explorers wondered if the indigenous people of Central America were the descendants of the Atlanteans. Interest in this theory continued to build over several centuries until, in 1882, Ignatius Donnelly published his highly influential book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World and inaugurated a new era of study. In it, Donnelly claimed that Atlantis was the origin point for human civilization. Others took up this cause and argued that the Atlanteans were the ancestors of a particular group of people: the Aryan race. This, as I imagine you have already guessed, is where things take a dark turn.

As Halmhofer writes on her blog and Dibble articulates in one of his Twitter threads, the history of Atlantis has, since the nineteenth century, been interwoven with the study of evolution and eugenics. Plato ends the Critias with a discussion of how the divine nature of the Atlantides was corrupted when it was mixed with the inferior nature of mere human beings.

The discussion lends itself well to 19th and 20th century eugenicist theories of the races. The Nazi Institute of Atlantis founded by Himmler aimed to find evidence for the theory that the Aryan race was descended from the biologically divine Atlantides.

To be inescapably clear, racism and eugenics are not at work in Hunting Atlantis. On this Pavlou and Dibble are in agreement. Pavlou told me There is nothing about the show, my paper, or the way I live my life that has any connection whatsoever. Dibble agreed [Pavlous] family fought Nazis in WWIIhe seems like he would be someone fun to have a beer with, if it wasn't for this show and the Twitter eruption from it. Some worry, though, that white supremacists might use this show to support their dangerous claims. Indeed, some already are.

While many people love reading archeological fan fiction in their youth and some become archaeologists because of it, pseudoarcheology is not always harmless. We find ourselves in a difficult position. Where are the boundaries between pseudoarcheology, slick soundbites, and minority opinions? Do good production values always mean bad or exaggerated archeology? And, is every writer, TV host, or academic responsible for the potential misreading or misuse of our arguments?

None of us begrudge children who love comics about Atlantis or expect to receive a letter from Hogwarts, but does the blurring of the line between minority opinion and scientific facts harm cultural and scientific literacy in wider society? Can we afford confusion in a society already plagued by a lack of trust in expertise and information accuracy?

Academic concerns about how ancient history can be used by white supremacists are far from unique; the poster child for this issue is the wildly successful show Ancient Aliens. Here the problem is even more acute because crediting aliens for human ingenuity involves erasing the contributions and work of historically excluded groups. In this series, a team of commentatorsmost famously the meme-able Georgio Tsoukalosanalyze ancient artifacts and suggest that they were built by or refer to extraterrestrials.

For several years Dr. David Anderson at Radford University has criticized the show and called for a retraction of some of its claims. Anderson told me that many of the claims made in the show are based on troubling older work. As an example, he mentioned the sarcophagus lid of the Maya ruler of Pacal. In 1968 international best-selling author, theme-park founder, and convicted white collar criminal Erich von Dnikenwhose book Chariots of the Gods pioneered the Ancient Aliens theoriesclaimed that the image was an astronaut blasting off in a spaceship.

A recent tweet by Tsoukalos rehearses this interpretation. The basic issue, said Anderson, is [that] these claims don't even begin to ask where or when Pacal's sarcophagus was found and what it might have meant to the Maya, they simply squint at a confusing image from a foreign culture and say it kind of looks like a rocket ship.

When we compare this image to other pieces of Maya art we find that it is full of symbols that are widely known and repeated. Theres no mystery here: the lid depicts a Maya ruler falling from this world to the underworld at the moment of his death. The artifacts are taken out of their original context, people are asked what does this look like to you? and an alien genealogy is offered with no regard for ancient interpretations or contexts.

Then theres the helicopter found in the temple of the Egyptian Pharoah Seti I at Abydos. Ancient Aliens suggests that a strange looking hieroglyph is a helicopter or flying saucer but traditional archeology identifies it as a re-carved inscription in which one name had replaced another. It might look strange but this, said Anderson, is just because the paint has been chipped away. The roots of many of von Dnikens theories about Ancient Aliens are actually pop culture. The theory that aliens built the pyramids, for example, first shows up in the 1898 science fiction novel, Edisons Conquest of Mars. In a forthcoming article, Anderson shows that von Dniken was pipped to the post by science fiction writers who had already hypothesized that ancient people would have confused aliens with gods.

To say that the theories that underpin Ancient Aliens have been rejected is to understate the case. In the foreword to a book debunking von Dnikens claims Carl Sagan wrote: That writing as careless as von Dniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking.

The troubling part of this kind of pop entertainment isnt so much that its wrong (though that is incredibly frustrating to academics), but rather that it erodes the accomplishments and ingenuity of ancient peoples. As University of Iowa historian Sarah Bond has written, it is not a coincidence that these peoples are almost universally non-white and non-European (the lone European outlier, of course, is Stonehenge). The racist assumption that indigenous peoples werent intelligent or evolved enough to build the Native American earthen mounds in the eastern half of the United States or the Great Zimbabwe in Africa fed early twentieth century archeology and public policy. In fact, said Anderson, when President Andrew Jackson called for the removal of Native Americans to Oklahoma, a call that led to the Trail of Tears, he did so [by] invoking the lost white race of Mound Builders. Bad archeology has violent real-world consequences.

This is not to say, as professor and Ancient Aliens voice-of-reason Robert Cargill, has pointed out that everyone who believes in ancient alien theory is racist. The problem is structural and systemic, but in some cases, the racism is shockingly straightforward. Museum curator Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews has gathered choice quotes from various archeologists including a von Dniken question that went: was the black race a failure and did the extraterrestrials change the genetic code by gene surgery and then programme a white or yellow race? [sic]

As modern archeologists have debunked the racist assumptions that everything of value was built by white people, the conspiracy theories have just shifted target. The aliens-theorists are the heirs to this lineage. Anderson told me, Ancient Alien authors started picking up the same examples of temples and monuments that European Colonialists imagined being built by lost white races but instead imagined that that they were built by extraterrestrials.

The same assumptions of indigenous incompetence are at the heart of alien mythologies, yet with 196 episodes and sixteen seasons under its belt the Ancient Aliens juggernaut continues apace.

Looking at Hunting Atlantis, perhaps the lingering question here is, what and who is excluded by the Atlantis myth? Why do we search for this fictional utopia? Is our collective fascination with and search for Atlantis a form of escapism? Bond, who has tweeted one example of cultural erasure involving Atlantis, said to me, People would rather focus on it than the mess we live in now. But ignoring science is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Does the search for a perfect city prevent us from fixing our own social problems in the present? If it does then perhaps part of the blames lies with us, the viewing public? Only time will tell but, in the meantime, the mythic status of Atlantis has been settled by unlikely authority: IMDB.com categorizes the show as fantasy.

See the rest here:

Atlantis, Which No Serious Historian Thinks Existed, Is Making People Insane on Twitter - Daily Beast

As Canadians head to the polls next week, I reflect on what big apology a future government will one day issue.

Past transgressions have made governments increasingly adept at belatedly saying sorry. Even kind and polite Canada is not immune. From lamenting wartime internments and removal of voting rights, to turning away Sikh refugees some to their deaths on the Komagata Maru, to residential school atrocities against Indigenous children, national apologies have become opportunities for press conferences of contrition.

In the hope of foregoing future photo opportunities, perhaps we should consider what the next big apology might be, and avoid needing to make it.

Reconsidering wide expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) may be one such opportunity. In March 2021, the Liberal government, with the support of the Bloc Qubcois, passed new MAiD legislation removing previous safeguards (notably, both left and right were united against this, with NDP, conservatives and Greens voting against). It is one of the most liberal facilitated suicide laws in the world.

Consider past justifications for one of the most notorious policies discriminating against women with mental illness and Indigenous women: Forced sterilization. Forced sterilizations were justified by a combination of devaluing certain lives and rationalizing that we were actually doing the right thing, and occurred across the world for decades. The policy officially continued in Canada until the mid 1970s, with women continuing to report the practice even into the late 2010s. While clearly coercive, society comforted itself by rationalizing that these women were mentally defective and unfit, that they would be better off not having children and that society was somehow pursuing a greater good.

Ableist assumptions, valuing some human lives more than others, have been manifest in societal policies for centuries. In September 1921, at the Second International Eugenics Congress, Alexander Graham Bell and prominent academics of the day provided expert reassurances of enlightened beneficence with the tag line, Eugenics is the self direction of human evolution, promising a better future for all and setting the stage for justifying decades of mistreatment of the mentally ill and marginalized.

Now consider the arguments made in favour of providing MAiD for mental illness: That MAiD is about respecting autonomy and providing compassionate relief from suffering. That MAiD is about dignity and valuing what people want. And perhaps most importantly, that MAiD is not the same as the tragic suicides society aims to prevent.

When MAiD is provided in near end-of-life conditions, when we know someone will not improve and faces enduring suffering, the above arguments are valid and supported by evidence. In these situations, we find that white, wealthy and privileged people tend to seek MAiD.

All the above arguments become fantasies once MAiD is expanded beyond near end-of-life conditions to the non-dying with disabilities and mental illness, as the Trudeau government intends, with even more MAiD restrictions lifting in 2023.

In these situations, evidence shows that populations marginalized by poverty, loneliness and unresolved life suffering seek MAiD, with twice as many women as men being euthanized for psychiatric disorders. This is the same ratio of women to men who attempt suicide when mentally ill but who, absent the 100 per cent lethal means of MAiD, survive the attempt and do not try again.

Yet, despite lack of evidence that MAiD can responsibly be provided for mental illness, MAiD expansionists blindly forward the same arguments to push broader access to MAiD with fewer safeguards. This benefits the white, wealthy and privileged to have even more autonomy, while sacrificing our most vulnerable, those marginalized by sexism, racism, ageism and ableism, to entirely avoidable premature deaths.

Ironically, it sacrifices them to these deaths under the pretence of autonomy, disregarding how internalized oppression would force our most vulnerable to make an impossible, and unfair, choice to die well because society never gave them a chance to live well. Evidence shows that these are often ambivalent suicidal wishes in people who could have gotten better and are seeking escape from social disenfranchisement, not from inevitable medical suffering. These people would want to live if given a true choice of life with dignity instead of the enticement of a painless death to escape a painful life.

Read more: Medical assistance in dying for mental illness ignores safeguards for vulnerable people

From eugenics to forced sterilizations, public figures and ideologues of the day ignored cautions of dissent and assured society it was doing the right thing, allowing us to overlook the reality that the most vulnerable amongst us were being discarded.

Today, ignoring the evidence, prominent politicians, senators and, sadly, some of my psychiatrist colleagues are similarly reassuring Canadians that our wide MAiD expansion is enlightened and safe. It may be safe for the privileged who already live well and will have more autonomy to die better. For others, the non-dying disabled and marginalized whose social suffering will be solved with death, it will eventually be called something else.

If we knowingly ignore this reality, we can anticipate the inevitable press conference with a future Canadian prime minister issuing a heartfelt apology for our current sins.

See more here:

The next national apology: Future Canadians might regret expansion of medically assisted dying laws - The Conversation CA

Scott Deshefy| For The Bulletin

Comparative examination of skulls, performed by anatomist artists Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer and Anders Vesalius became pseudo-science in the 19th century. Paul Broca (1824-80) compared skulls of men and other animals; Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1822) invented phrenology; and Samuel Morton (1799-1851) measured hundreds of human skulls, making erroneous judgments about cranial size, race and intelligence in Crania Americana.

Prejudicial fallout lingered for decades. The 1800s not only saw Americas foremost expansion of slavery, but also rapid infusions of racial and ethnic minorities. To suppress them, especially newly ascendant African-Americans post-Civil War, Mortons craniometric exercises built illusory ladders on which Caucasians assumed top rungs, false generalizations from which U.S. and Nazi eugenics doctrines evolved. Exploration of cranial capacities among races and ethnic groups to determine intelligence hierarchies already smacked of reification fallacy (something abstract regarded as real or material enough to quantify) before Stephen J. Goulds The Mismeasure of Man (1981) permanently laid it to rest. Gould reanalyzed Mortons data and discovered prima facie evidence of unconscious racial bias. Morton, a well-regarded Philadelphia doc, originally filled his specimens with pepper seeds to calculate cranial volumes, but switched technique to BB shot in later work. Morton made the switch because seeds were light, variable in size and easily compacted, making measurements less reproducible and suspect. Gould, after tabulating and reanalyzing Mortons data, was struck by systemic differences between both sets of analyses. Africans skulls had much larger increases in mean cranial capacity with shot than White Americans. Gould contended Morton distorted original measurements for Caucasian skulls by unconsciously cramming and compressing more seeds with which he filled them, supporting preconceptions.

Unconscious bias is one thing, premeditated another. The so-called 1776 Commission, designed to promote patriotic education by downplaying discrimination and injustice in Americas past was anything but patriotic. Disbanded by President Biden his first day in office, Trumps oxymoronic brainchild was the kind of Goebbellsian propaganda, filled with superlatives, which serves to exaggerate national grandeur by excluding facts. Ample reasons exist to be proud of being an American without eliminating historical missteps and errors from classroom discussions, praise-worthy in themselves.

Patriotism should begin with acknowledging and teaching the truth and behaving in accordance with evidence, not some alternate reality constructed by radical conservatives to minimize crises and obfuscate science, solutions and proof. Refusals to wear masks, get vaccinated and take actions against climate change are consequences of purposeful disinformation foisted on the public, the way MAGAs narratives are rooted in nonexistent paradises lost.

Indoctrination (i.e. brainwashing) programs, cherry-picking Americas past, show battles over human differences and myths of racial exceptionalism persist. Centuries of dividing us into discrete groups perpetuated the lie that some populations are naturally better, and therefore zoologically licensed, to exploit others, human and not. Those of us trained in biological sciences have a responsibility to emphasize the commonality of Homo sapiens, how were genetically more alike than other primates and individual dissimilarities supersede group phenotypes.

When presented in honest, unedited historical context, race is a product of social parameters such as economics, access to healthcare, diet, geography and exposures to environmental impacts. Thusly, Americas history of oppression and subjugation, driven by false notions of ethnic and racial superiority, should be requisite in future generations curricula. Omissions constrict us as a nation. The 1776 Report, panned by historians, would have warped the kind of scholarship that ended eugenics, debunked fallacies about womens bodies and minds, and advanced environmentalism and civil and nonhuman animal rights. Released on Martin Luther King Day, after banning federal diversity training, it was a deliberate attempt to undermine the 1619 Project and dissolve the bonds of U.S. citizenship, ashes of a dangerous presidency best scattered to the winds.

Scott Deshefy is a biologist, ecologist and two-time Green Party congressional candidate.

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View from the left: Omission of our flawed past constricts us as a nation - Norwich Bulletin

Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and other revered historical figures who supported the eugenics movement at the height of its pre-WWII popularity.

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Theodore Roosevelt was a proponent of the sterilization of criminals and the supposedly feeble-minded. In 1913, Roosevelt wrote a letter to eugenics supporter and biologist C.B. Davenport, saying that society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind."Wikimedia Commons

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Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell helped lead the First International Eugenics Conference in 1912. Bell also published a paper in which he bluntly listed the steps that would prevent the proliferation of the deaf: (1) Determine the causes that promote intermarriages among the deaf and dumb; and (2) remove them."Kentucky Digital Library

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Even Helen Keller, surprisingly enough, advocated for the eugenics movement. She once stated, Our puny sentimentalism has caused us to forget that a human life is sacred only when it may be of some use to itself and to the world."Wikimedia Commons

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Winston Churchill advocated for compulsory labor camps for mental defectives in 1911. The year prior to this, Churchill wrote a letter advocating for sterilization saying, "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes ... constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate."levanrami/Flickr

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Activist Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic and she aligned her fight for contraception with the eugenics movement. She stated that birth control is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives."Wikimedia Commons

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Harvard-educated sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois was a leading African-American activist and writer who called for dividing the black community into four groups. He promoted marriage and reproduction within the most desirable group, the talented tenth, and wanted to breed out the lowest group, the submerged tenth."Library of Congress

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However, in 1926 he wrote an essay called "The Eugenics Cult", in which he condemned the theory.

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Celebrated writer George Bernard Shaw explored the biology of eugenics in his political writing. He is quoted as saying, "We should find ourselves committed to killing a great many people whom we now leave living, and to leave living a great many people whom we at present kill." He added, "A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people's time to look after them."Wikimedia Commons

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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932, wrote the 1927 Buck v. Bell decision that allowed for compulsory sterilization of the "unfit" in the U.S., stating, It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. ... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."Library of Congress

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The famous French explorer Jacques Cousteau was in favor of population control saying in an interview, Worldpopulation must be stabilized and to do thatwe must eliminate 350,000 people per day.This is so horrible to contemplate that weshouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable."Marka/UIG via Getty Images

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Doctor, nutritionist, and the inventor of Corn Flakes, John Harvey Kellogg also ran a sanitarium. He wrote in the 1913 issue of the Journal of Public Health, "Long before the race reaches the state of universal incompetency, the impending danger will be appreciated ... and, through eugenics and euthenics, the mental soundness of the race will be saved." Library of Congress

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Long before the eugenics movement, Greek philosopher Plato wrote, "The good must be paired with the good, and the bad with the bad, and the offspring of the one must be reared and of the other destroyed; in this way the flock will be preserved in prime condition."Wikimedia Commons

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Prominent British economist William Beveridge remarked in 1909, "Those men who through general defects are unable to fill such a whole place in industry are to be recognized as unemployable ... with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood."Wikimedia Commons

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Alice Lee Moqu was an American newspaper correspondent, photographer, and suffragist. She also supported sterilization of certain genetic undesirables, such as those with hereditary illness in their bloodline.Wikimedia Commons

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Co-founder of the London School of Economics, Sidney Webb carried out research in the 1890s confirming the high fertility of the improvident whom he described as "degenerate hordes unfit for social life."Library of Congress

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British biologist Francis Crick is quoted as saying, "in an attempt to solve the problem of irresponsible people and especially those who are poorly endowed genetically having large numbers of unnecessary children ... sterilization is the only answer."Wikimedia Commons

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Neurologist Dr. Robert Foster Kennedy stood up before the American Psychiatric Association in 1941 and told them, "I am in favor of euthanasia for those hopeless ones who should never have been born-Natures mistakes."Wikimedia Commons

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English economist Thomas Malthus, who died before the eugenics movement truly took hold, believed in eugenics because he was concerned about food shortages. He once noted, "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man."Wikimedia Commons

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In the American Child Health Associations Childs Bill of Rights, Herbert Hoover made the statement, There shall be no child in America that had not the complete birthright of a sound mind in a sound body."U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

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Scientist and peace activist Linus Pauling was forced to defend his eugenics position in 1972, well after the height of the eugenics movement, when a woman at Michigan State accused him of promoting racism. (Pauling had said carries of genetic diseases shouldnt procreate.) He replied, "It's alright for her [a mother] to be allowed to determine the extent to which she will suffer, but she should not be allowed to produce a child who will suffer. This is immoral. It is wrong to produce a little black child who will lead a life of suffering. I would say this is not racism. I advocate the very same thing to ... all kinds who carry these abnormal genes."Oregon State University/Flickr

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Even after World War II, economist John Maynard Keynes supported eugenics, population control, and migration restrictions as Director of the British Eugenics Society. He asserted that eugenics was, "the most important and significant branch of sociology."International Monetary Fund/Wikimedia Commons

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The eugenics movement will forever be associated with Adolf Hitler, whose quest to build an Aryan master race during the 1930s and '40s culminated in the extermination of millions.

However, Hitler wasn't the first to champion the idea of wiping away humans deemed to be unfit. In large part, he actually took inspiration from the United States. As Hitler remarked in 1924's Mein Kampf, "There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."

The popularity of eugenics and related ideas in the U.S. (as well as Western Europe) at the time was in part a reactionary response to increased industrialization and immigration. The latter was on the rise and cities became more crowded as people moved to be closer to work. And with supporters of the early eugenics movement believing that people inherited traits like feeble-mindedness and poverty, this meant to them that society had an obligation to thin this growing herd.

Moreover, Western eugenics was an outgrowth or racist and colonialist ideologies. Pseudosciences (like phrenology, for example) allowed some whites to "scientifically" justify their bigotry and then take things a step further by claiming that "lesser" races needed to be phased out. In this way, Social Darwinism became a means to construct a supposed hierarchy of race and ensure that white people (and their genes) remained the ideal.

Fittingly enough, eugenics actually has some of its roots with Charles Darwin. His theories about "survival of the fittest" inspired his cousin, Francis Galton, to start the eugenics movement as the world would come to know it (and coin the word "eugenics" itself) in the late 19th century.

From there, eugenics actually enjoyed a period of mainstream popularity in both Darwin and Galton's native England as well as the U.S. and elsewhere in the late 19th century and early 20th. Both abroad and in the United States, proponents of the eugenics movement believed it a Caucasian responsibility to Westernize other civilizations. This was coupled with the idea of producing fewer, better children who would create a better race, and cure many economic and social problems.

Before Hitler took eugenics to its deadly extremes, more people than you might think considered at least some eugenics-related ideas to be completely legitimate despite their serious moral implications. Eugenics was something that many prominent people once supported, whether vocally, financially, or politically. Presidents, economists, activists, and philosophers many of which you'd never think would be supporters all once spoke out in support of the eugenics movement.

See for yourself in the gallery above.

Next, dig deeper into the ugly history of American eugenics. Then, learn about how Hitler's eugenics efforts as part of the Lebensborn program.

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21 Eugenics Movement Supporters That Might Shock You

They told them they had bad blood.

What they actually had was syphilis, but the U.S. Public Health Service never shared that diagnosis with the almost 400 African-American men, most of them poor and undereducated sharecroppers, they recruited for a secret study at Tuskegee Institute in 1932. Indeed, health officials did little for those men for 40 years, except watch the progression of the disease.

That was the goal of the study: to see what happens when syphilis is left unchecked. And they did see. Syphilis is a venereal disease that can lead to paralysis, blindness, deafness, dementia, heart trouble, brain damage and death.

People often point to the so-called Tuskegee Experiment to explain why African Americans tend to mistrust the medical establishment, but while what happened in Alabama was obscene, it was hardly unique.

To the contrary, from experimental procedures on the vaginas of enslaved women to grave robbers stealing Black bodies for use in medical schools, to forced sterilization in the name of eugenics, to studies revealing that white doctors think black people feel less pain, to new mother Serena Williams having to battle doctors and nurses who ignored her as she suffered a life-threatening medical emergency, Black people have been routinely betrayed by this profession whose prime directive is, First, do no harm. So the mistrust is grounded in hard experience.

I can speak to this at firsthand. In recent years, Ive lost a brother-in-law and a cousin after they declined to follow medical advice. Another brother-in-law has heart issues and trusts his doctors about like he would a $4 bill.

I also have two sons and a grandson who refuse to take the COVID vaccine. I am scared to death for them.

Most of the public discussion of vaccine hesitancy is dominated by Republicans behaving badly, the clownish people who think vaccines will magnetize them or let Bill Gates track their movements. But beyond political party, race (along with age) has emerged as a major predictor of skepticism.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that less than half of Black and Hispanic adults have been fully vaccinated, compared with well over 60% percent of white ones. And mistrust is a major reason, though not the only reason, for that disparity.

My boys and I, we do this dance. They give me their reasons for not getting the shot, I give them rebuttals.

It was developed too fast, they say. Its called an emergency, I say; you get out of the house faster when its burning.

I dont know whats in it, they say. You dont know whats in Cheez Whiz, I say, but that doesnt stop you from eating it.

There may be side effects to taking it, they say. Well, the side effect to not taking it could be death.

They nod and promise to think about it, but they dont. Its just a dance we do.

And while we dance, 616,000 Americans lie dead, a disproportionate number of them people of color.

Theres nothing wrong with skepticism. Skepticism can be healthy, can even save your life. But skepticism can also make you blind. So this is me begging my sons and all our sons and daughters: Just take the damn shot.

Look around. People whove done that are not dying. People who havent are. Thats a fact. Please dont be so skeptical that you cant see what might save your life. Im not asking you to trust your doctor.

I am asking you to trust your eyes.

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 3511 NW 91st Ave., Miami, Fla., 33172. Readers may contact him by email at lpitts@miamiherald.com.

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Pitts | Opinion | heraldbulletin.com - The Herald Bulletin

Theres an irony to the uproar over the claim that institutions of higher learning are advancing critical race theory to suppress white people. The reality is that many colleges and universities still struggle to make amends for their racism or even recognize that amends need to be made. While researching and publishing facts about an institutions ties to slavery is important and praiseworthy, this should be the bare minimum for colleges and universities that are committed to racial justice. Once past wrongs are identified, these institutions should develop and implement plans for restitution.

Racial reckonings are happening at many colleges and universities across the United States. The University of Richmond is now taking steps to mark and protect a burial ground for enslaved persons, which previous leadership knowingly desecrated. Students, faculty and staff have also lobbied to remove two names from school buildings the name of a slave owner, who is considered one of the founders of what became the University of Richmond, and the name of a segregationist who advocated for eugenics. While the university created signage marking the burial grounds, and is discussing ways to further memorialize the dead, the universitys board has refused to remove the names of the slave owner and of the eugenicist a noted historian from the buildings, despite sustained pressure.

Reparations are the most progressive and meaningful actions universities can take.

At a time when many of the nations public-facing institutions are grappling with what it means to become anti-racist, an increasing number of colleges and universities are finally acknowledging that white supremacy has been encoded into their land, built into their environment, and culture.

But in too many cases, acknowledging the racism at their institutions roots has been mere lip service, while action that could bring justice to victims and begin to right the wrongs of the past is halting or nonexistent.

Related: Student debt cancellation isnt regressive, its anti-racist

Over 80 institutions of higher education including the University of Richmond have joined the Universities Studying Slavery (USS) consortium, created and led by the University of Virginia. The consortium builds on the pioneering work of Brown University, which began studying its own complicity in slavery in 2003 for a report published in 2006. And recently, Virginia legislators passed a law that requires five public institutions the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, Longwood University, Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Military Institute to make reparations through scholarships or community-based economic development and memorial programs.

These colleges and universities, along with others elsewhere, are hoping that reparations in the form of preferred admission as well as scholarships and other financial aid will not only atone for the past but also help address issues of inequitable access to higher education and financial disparities in paying for that education. While there are still plenty of questions surrounding whether this approach will produce tangible results, the legal accountability is a welcome feature that will go a long way in ensuring meaningful action.

Reparations are the most progressive and meaningful actions universities can take. But the implementation of reparations is an ongoing challenge. For example, Georgetown University officials made headlines in 2019 when they announced the creation of a $400,000-a-year reparations fund after it was widely reported the school had once sold 272 enslaved men, women, and children for the equivalent of $3.3 million in todays dollars in order to remain financially solvent. Georgetown, which is a participant in the USS consortium, plans to invest this money to benefit descendants indirectly, through strengthening community services including health clinics.

But to the descendants of those enslaved persons, $400,000 a year in community investment is a paltry sum, particularly given the universitys $1.5 billion endowment. Georgetown students have critiqued the plan on the basis that it transforms the fund intended to repay a debt into a philanthropy effort. As one student put it, The fear is that the university will use these funds for their own purposes The university is trying to control the narrative, and were trying to prevent that. Georgetown students created their own proposal for handling reparations: 66 percent of the student body voted to levy a $27 student fee to be paid directly to the descendants. But the university has thus far chosen not to pursue this approach.

Related: If you dont want critical race theory to exist, stop being racist

Making direct cash payments to descendants is the most straightforward approach to reparations. If higher education leaders decide on a different approach, the burden is on them to demonstrate how their alternative approach will produce tangible results. Moreover, leaders often act as though universities particularly those with large endowments must choose between paying reparations or pursuing community development efforts to respond to local racial disparities in health, wealth and education.

That is a false choice. They can and should do both.

As we wrote in a recent Brookings report, institutions like the University of Richmond have the capacity to do heavy-lifting in addressing racial disparities through their sheer size as an employer to say nothing of their ability to leverage their assets and procurement and contracting power. There is no reason why colleges and universities cannot pursue a multi-pronged approach to reparations and racial justice.

Nevertheless, while the mechanics of reparations are important, we cannot allow the best to be the enemy of the good especially when that means lost momentum.

For every college or university that is demonstrating meaningful commitment to restitution, there are many others with an explicit history of being complicit in slavery and white supremacy that are now quietly hoping to avoid accountability altogether. Without unrelenting pressure, many leaders in higher education will be forever content with forming task forces, drafting reports and publishing committee recommendations while never taking the bold action required to formally address the injustices of the past. In the words of a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, most universities will do as little as they can get away with. It is our job to ensure that these schools do the most, not the least.

In the end, acknowledging previous wrongs is a crucial first step in establishing racial justice. But now its time for universities complicit in slavery to put their money where their mouth is, and pay the restitution that is owed.

This story about reparations was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechingers newsletter.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn't mean it's free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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Universities are finally acknowledging their complicity in slavery, but they must offer reparations, too - The Hechinger Report

Spectrum 10K is led by researchers at the world-leading Autism Research Centre (ARC), the University of Cambridge, together with the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and will study how biological and environmental factors impact on the wellbeing of autistic individuals.

In the UK, there are approximately 700,000 autistic individuals. The level of support needed by autistic individuals varies considerably. Many autistic people have additional physical health conditions, such as epilepsy, or mental health conditions, such as anxiety or depression.

It is unclear what gives rise to the diversity within the autism spectrum or why some autistic people have better outcomes than others. The project aims to answer this question and to identify what support works best for each individual.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, leading Spectrum 10K and Director of the ARC, explained: There is an urgent need to better understand the well-being of autistic individuals. Spectrum 10K hopes to answer questions such as why some autistic people have epilepsy or poor mental health outcomes and others do not.

Individuals of all ages, genders, ethnicities and intellectual capacities will take part in Spectrum 10K. Eligible participants join by completing an online questionnaire and providing a DNA saliva sample by post. Autistic participants involved in Spectrum 10K can also invite their biological relatives (autistic or otherwise) to participate. Information collected from the questionnaire, DNA saliva samples and information from health records will be used to increase knowledge and understanding of well-being in autism.

James Cusack, CEO of the autism research charity Autistica and an autistic person, said: We are delighted to support Spectrum 10K. This project enables autistic people to participate in and shape autism research to build a future where support is tailored to every individuals needs.

The Spectrum 10K team views autism as an example of neurodiversity and is opposed to eugenics or looking for a cure for preventing or eradicating autism itself. Instead, their research aims to identify types of support and treatment which alleviate unwanted symptoms and co-occurring conditions that cause autistic people distress.

The Spectrum 10K team collaborates with an Advisory Panel consisting of autistic individuals, parents of autistic children, clinicians and autism charity representatives to ensure Spectrum 10K is designed in a way that best serves the autistic community, and 27 specialist NHS sites around the UK are also helping with recruitment for Spectrum 10K.

Venkat Reddy, Consultant Neurodevelopmental Paediatrician in the Community Child Health Services at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, said: There is a need to conduct further research into autism and co-occurring conditions to enable researchers and clinicians to build a better understanding of autism. I would encourage autistic individuals and their families to consider taking part in Spectrum 10K.

Chris Packham, naturalist and TV presenter who is also autistic, said: Im honoured to be an ambassador of Spectrum 10K because I believe in the value of science to inform the support services that autistic kids and adults will need.

Paddy McGuinness, actor, comedian, television presenter, and father of three autistic children, said: As a parent of three autistic children, I am really excited to support Spectrum 10K. This research is important to help us understand what makes every autistic person different and how best to support them.

Anna and Alastair Gadney, parents of a teenager with autism and learning difficulties, said: We have been exploring, over many years, how to implement the best support for our son. We wholeheartedly endorse Spectrum 10K and hope our involvement can help increase understanding of autism and in turn support many families out there.

Recruitment for Spectrum 10K is now open. Autistic children under the age of 16 must be registered by their parent or legal guardian. Autistic adults who lack the capacity to consent by themselves must be registered by a carer/or family member. To register, participants should visit http://www.spectrum10k.org

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10000 autistic people to take part in the UK's largest study of autism - PMLiVE