Health insurance ought to cover mental illness

Mental health 

Mental health care should be covered on all health insurance policies just as specific medical care is. Mental health can be more devastating than many physical ailments, but many people are not able to seek help for these problems because services cost too much money and are rarely available, with many health insurance providers making it nearly impossible for many families to seek help.

 Having acute mental health problems can affect a person’s life in many ways. First it can make them have internal problems and negative cognitions that make them feel horrible about themselves. This will continue to bring them down farther and farther until they are able to seek treatment. Mental health can also have a huge impact with school work or in the job force. The person enduring a mental illness may not do as well in these environments if they are silently suffering with their mental health. Having stress and bad mental health can also lower your immune system and cause a person to get physically sick more easily. 

Without affordable treatment they may feel alone and helpless, and they may develop worse relationships with their loved ones because of what they are experiencing. These things can lead to hopelessness, suicidal ideations, drug abuse, or other escapes from the pain sought out by the person with the mental illness.  Mental health is a very serious problem that many people have experience with, either by knowing someone with these problems or they themselves have experienced mental health problems. 

I personally believe mental health is more debilitative than some of the sicknesses that are covered on insurances. For example, many insurances will either cover prompt care completely or only have the patient pay a small cover fee if they have a cold, or any other small ailments that the patient is seeking medicine for. Having a mental illness, however, is not seen as important to many individuals. I believe this is because many people do not see the person suffering as much as they do with a physical illness, and they understand the physical illness better than they might understand the torments of mental illness. 

Some people also think that the mentally ill just need to be happy, or stop worrying etc. and think it is an easy fix, which it is not. Mental illness can affect a person for the entirety of their lives if not treated, and many people do not understand this, which makes them feel more alone and causes them to experience a lower quality of life satisfaction. 

This could change if insurance could help cover mental health problems along with physical ones, because mental health is just as—or even more important than—physical health in its power to ruin life satisfaction and stability. Adding mental health coverage to all health insurance policies could dramatically lower suicide rates, and would help people who choose to use their insurance to seek help with finding healthy coping skills to better handle their life problems. After seeking help, they would more likely better provide for our community because they will be able to work more productively.

War on Drugs is a sociopolitical masterstroke

The following paper is in reaction to the class discussion we had about mental health and substance abuse. I have chosen to write a brief reaction paper positing a plausible motive behind Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party’s mental health and drug policies, which led to the defunding and the eventual shut down of numerous mental health institutions and substance abuse treatment centers in the early 1980’s. 

In my opinion, The Reagan Administration and The Republican Party defunded and shut down mental health institutions and substance abuse treatment centers in the 1980’s not only because they wanted the private sector to take over the care and treatment of such individuals but also because they wanted/needed such people to be seen wandering the streets and committing crimes to give Americans the impression that the streets needed to be cleaned up.

Think about it: The Reagan Administration declares a so-called war on drugs, pointing to images of mentally-ill poor people on the streets doing drugs, while he implements policies which lead to the release of hundreds of thousands of such individuals on our nation’s streets. The Reagan Administration then grants amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, many of them said to be mentally ill cast outs from the island of Cuba. Then, at the very time that this war on drugs was declared, it seemed to many people who I have spoken to about this issue who lived in the inner-city during that time that there was an influx of cocaine in the city during those years, not a drop off as one would expect during a so-called war on drugs.

Having said all that, the war on drugs has obviously not been a failure. The Republican Party accomplished its goal of increasing the private sector’s role/responsibility in caring for mentally ill people and substance abusers, while also conducing to the probability that such people would invade the streets and scare the citizenry into supporting their policies, which ultimately involved transferring many of those mentally ill substance abusers out of one institution into another, with the added benefit of being able to criminalize and lock up the boogeymen who supplied them with the drugs.

The war on drugs is not a failure; it is a sociopolitical masterstroke.

In the 1980s the federal government and most of the states did not adequately fund the community mental health centers that were supposed to become the agents of delivery for mental health policies, including everything from prevention and community wellness to long-term residential care for people in each center’s catchment area. 

Your reaction treats the government and the Republican Party as if these institutions were persons with fairly simple motives and logical processes, but of course this is a necessary generalization or abstraction, since we know that policy-making processes and political parties and governments are all aggregations of hundreds and thousands of individuals, with each individual having a variety of mixed and sometimes contradictory motives and goals.

There are a variety of moral foundations that would inspire most people to be concerned about drug addiction.  For some people, the rule of obedience to legitimate authority makes them concerned about drugs since they believe God or the government forbids drug addiction and abuse. For others, the rule of purity informs their emotional rejection of drug use, since drugs or intoxication are unclean or impure.  Some are motivated by a sort of conservation ethic, seeing a waste of talent and potential when others abuse or become addicted to drugs.  For many people, a care ethic motivates them to oppose drug use, since persons who become addicted to drugs or abuse them are often hurt, or harm others.  With so many moral reasons why people might want to control or forbid how others alter their minds through alcohol and other chemicals, we tend to forget there could be other motives. 

When Marx said religion was the aspirin of the masses (he actually called it opium, but he meant it in the sense of a painkiller, not a drug of abuse) he was pointing out that powerful elites might prefer people to escape from harsh realities by turning to drugs.  This was a point in Huxley’s Brave New World in which all the people were constantly taking mood altering drugs to improve their feelings, or in Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep where people were turning a dial and pushing buttons on a machine to give them experiences of different moods and outlooks.  People who have a strong liberty ethic might also approve of allowing others to use all sorts of drugs, since the use does not directly cause harm to others.  

You are adding to this list of possible motives for allowing or encouraging drugs by suggesting that some people considered that if drugs were widely available, this would create fear and destruction, and in a climate of fear and destruction, people would turn to political parties that offered law-and-order policies.  This is exactly the strategy of some terrorist groups, who seek to create chaos with terrorism to undermine the authority of governments and make common people so desperate and hopeless about the government’s ability to protect them that they will turn to the terrorists as saviors who can put an end to the chaos. The question is, is it plausible that a significant number of Republicans could have had this sort of mentality, really plotting to use the tragic disaster of homelessness, persons with mental illnesses unable to get treatment or services, and an influx of cocaine into poor communities in order to turn people toward a more traditional value system and a political party that promised law and order?

My rule is to generally assume that when people follow courses of action that lead to terrible consequences, they are most likely to be motivated by ignorance, stupidity, or cognitive biases that prevented them from seeing the harm their actions would cause.  I think callousness and lack of empathy is the next most likely cause of evil policies, following ignorance and stupidity.  Malicious intent or long-range strategies to win personal gain are also possible, but I think they are rarely good explanations when simple ignorance, stupidity, cognitive biases, or indifference and contempt are more readily available as explanations.

Mental health clinics weren’t adequately supported because Republicans (and many Democrats) had other priorities that were more important, including lower taxes, economic growth, decreased government size, military spending, and so forth.  Persons with mental illness, who would benefit from well-funded community mental health services, just aren’t very important to the political parties, at least they are relatively unimportant compared to the needs of that military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about, or the goals of the wealthiest and most powerful people, who generally want lower taxes, a smaller government, and a growing economy, and consider these goals more urgent than public safety nets to provide a decent life for every person suffering from a mental illness or disability. 

Yes, there were some interesting connections between drug dealers and CIA informants back in the 1980s. Most famously, the president of Panama was both an informant for the CIA and a major drug trafficker.  But I think the Hitz report showed that the CIA was mostly guilty of not aggressively investigating the drug connections of some informants and local partners, but was probably not guilty of actually directly using the drug trade to raise money for their support of various thugs and terrorists in Central America. 

Recognizing Mental Health Symptoms in Adolescents

This is a letter a student wrote to a state representative about a bill that would dictate to school districts that they must have a certain type of in-service training for teachers, counselors, and social workers:

I am writing to you in regards to HB4495. I think that it is very important that school guidance counselors, teachers, school social workers, and any other school employee who works with students in grades 7 through 12 should be trained to identify the warning signs of mental illness and suicidal behavior.

I have been a Springfield citizen for 22 years now and I believe this bill has been a long time need for our society. Children spend most of their time at school, and their teachers see more of them than their own parents do. Teachers and other school personnel should have been trained to recognize these symptoms outlined in HB4495 a long time ago. I believe this bill could help prevent a lot of suffering and make a big difference in the number of teen suicides. Before HB4495, these employees were only trained to identify the warning signs of suicidal behavior. With this in-service training on the basic factors of mental illness outlined in HB4495; the counselors, teachers, and other school employees will now be able to recognize the symptoms of mental illness and know how to approach situations.

Many people who develop mental illness show symptoms by the time they are 14, that is why I believe HB4495 has a very good focal age group. Not only are these school personnel being trained to recognize the warning signs of mental illness and suicidal behavior, they are also being taught the appropriate intervention and referral techniques to handle situations. Knowing what resources are available will be key to success. According to HB4495, at least once every two years an in-service training program for school personnel will be held. It is important to keep the training up-to-date with the changing resources available. I believe the in-service training should be held once every year at the beginning of the school year. With the help of HB4495, school personnel will be better able to communicate with youth victims of domestic or sexual violence, and refer them to agencies or programs.

I believe with bills like HB4495, there would be a less likely chance of a school shooting happening. It seems like at least every month there is some school shooting or a threat. When the story comes out, we always talk about the warning signs the classmates saw, but now with this in-service training teachers and school personnel will hopefully see those warning signs as well. This bill could also help the suicide rate from bullying go down as well. I think that it would be a wise decision if other states adopted this bill. All schools should have guidance counselors, teachers, school social workers, and any other school employee who works with students in grades 7 through 12 trained to identify the warning signs of mental illness and suicidal behavior.

I do have one concern though, how will this in-service training be funded and how much would it cost? Although I believe this bill is necessary, it is also necessary to keep in mind the struggling economy.

Reaction paper on workplace safety at state mental hospital

There was an article on NPR on workplace safety in a state mental hospital in California, and several of the students in this semester's class were moved to write reaction essays in response to what they learned.

In my second reflection paper, I choose to write a response to an article entitled, “At California Mental Hospitals, Fear Is Part of The Job.” The article detailed how psychiatric hospitals throughout California are known for violent acts committed by their very own patients. The article details how an employee was even killed by a patient. The article talks about the safety, or lack thereof, for the hospital’s employees.

Upon reading the article, I found it rather disturbing. While the mentally ill population is one that should be cared for, those that care for them should feel safe. Any type of job that you work for, you should feel some sense of security. However, one would argue that with some jobs, that just isn’t going to be possible. For example, people that go into law enforcement police) know that their lives are at risk each time they walk out the door. As well, those who work with the mentally ill are at a higher risk for violence. The patients who are in these sorts of environments obviously are not in the right state of mind and thus act out more. I believe that if you choose to work with this population, you must also be aware and be okay with what may happen. I want to make clear that no one should feel fear going into their place of employment, but I suppose you have to really love your job and the people you work with, in order to stay employed in this field.

Further, the 92-page plan created by the Justice Department seemed to have been successful, but at the expense of its employees! That is not acceptable. No plan enacted by the government should remain if it causes harm to the very people who are serving this group of people. While the plan may be good, it needs to offer changes so that it works for every person involved. The article stated that since the plan had been enacted, the violence in hospitals has been on the rise, perhaps due to excessive paperwork. Employees stated that they can’t spend as much time with their patients because they are busy completing paperwork. So, why not create a plan that is still effective but with limited paperwork (paperwork that is absolutely necessary)? Another point the article stated was, there were some problems with patients being neglected, substandard care, and bad record keeping. That could be a result of employees being tired of fearing for their lives. As a result, that could be there way of retaliating and having an “I don’t care” type of attitude. It is just important to make sure both parties (patients and employees) are happy.

Personally, it is not my desire to work with this group. I don’t know if I could directly relate to them nor do I think I want to risk my life. I believe that there are people who can deal with certain groups of people, but I don’t this is my group. Instead of being helpful, I would be fearful because I would never know what to expect from the patients. This article was a real eye opener for me and if I contemplated working with this group before, it has definitely proven wrong!

Regional Integrated Behavioral Health Network

Here is a student paper in favor of extending more services for mental illness and substance addictions into rural areas and small cities and towns, where such services are now often unavailable. 

HB2982

            The purpose of this bill is to provide more accessible treatment services for those suffering from a substance abuse illnesses along with mental health illnesses. Currently, it is difficult for people to find adequate services that fit their needs. The bill would create the Regional Integrated Behavioral Health Network Act to ensure the appropriate treatment would be made accessible and resources could be used efficiently and effectively. Rural areas are currently lacking in services, so the goal of the networks is to allow them to use the same treatment as the urban residents. They need to be able to access legitimate and appropriate care no matter where they may reside.

            Statistically, there is an estimate of about 25% of people living in Illinois that are over eighteen years old that have had incidents with a mental or substance abuse disorder. Also, 700,000 Illinois residents that are adults have a serious mental illness. Finally, 240,000 Illinois children and adolescents suffer from a serious emotional disturbance. These people may be going without treatment at any point in time because no treatment center is located near them, which makes treatment less accessible, because the distance is a barrier. This is mostly caused from fragmentation, geographic inconsistency, lack of funds, psychiatric and other workforce shortages. The far distances to adequate treatment centers makes transportation an issue, as many low-income persons in less densely populated areas of the state live without owning cars, and cannot afford gas for regular long commutes even if they own cars. If they cannot reach a treatment facility, they cannot receive and benefit from treatment.

            Since the people are not able to receive the proper treatment, they experience increased suffering, and may lose their ability to function in their social roles or even their daily activities. This loss of functioning and increase in suffering can push people to increase their use of medical services or emergency medical care. If drug treatment and mental health services were available and accessible, the persons receiving treatment would increase their productivity at work, or would be more likely to find employment. Their unemployment is causing many of them to become homeless. Persons who face addiction or mental illness without treatment or help may withdraw from their social support networks, or actively repulse those who love them and would care for them, and this decreasing desire to be a part of their family and/or communities may lead to additional problems. Persons with untreated mental illness and addictions are often unable to complete their schooling. These people are ending up behind bars or even dying. None of these scenarios or effects is an example of how we want our people to be living. It is not fair to them to not receive their proper treatment. Illinois needs to respond to the different regions to work out a more integrated system of treatment in which services are available in smaller towns and rural areas that are distant from the state’s cities. The correct care needs to be delivered at the appropriate time to the persons who desperately need it.

            There are many goals associated with this bill, but there is one main one. The hopes are that the networks will be able to allow people to access the most effective treatment for their mental and substance abuse illnesses throughout Illinois, but focuses in rural areas of Illinois. It is most important for the different treatment centers to work together as to make the process run smoother. The people are suffering and it is having highly adverse effects not only on them, but also the community. 

labeling theory, an anecdote and reaction

In a couple classes we talked about labeling and how people might conform to expectations or roles.  This is relevant in issues of crime and deviance, and also in the process of illness and mental illness. Here is a student’s reflection on her own family’s experience with labeling, and my comments follow the anecdote in this purple font.

For the second reaction paper, I’m going to write about the labeling theory.  When we talked about this in class, I was very interested and wanted to know more.  I have always thought that my brother was a product of labeling.  He was always labeled as a problem child.  

Growing up, my brother was always overweight.  My father constantly made references to his weight problem.  My parents would chastise him for eating too much at dinner and would compare him to me.  I tended to be very small and I know it bothered him that he wasn’t thinner.  Not only did he have a weight problem, but he also had problems in school.  This led to yet another comparison between him and I because I always excelled in academics.

In school, my brother was always labeled as the slacker who ran with the wrong crowd.  He never received good grades and felt that his teachers labeled him as someone who was never going to amount to anything.  He claimed that his teachers knew about him before he was even their student.  Because he felt this way, my parents took him out of Mt. Zion schools and paid out of area tuition to send him to Macon schools.

While attending Macon, my brother once again felt that his teachers singled him out and didn’t like him.  He never felt that his grades were the ones that he deserved but rather, punishments for his teachers’ dislike.  He was frequently absent and our parents stated that he was just not trying hard enough.  They got into many fights over his lack of achievement which later led to him transferring to yet another school.  He attended this school, but was kicked out for lack of attendance.  Eventually, he received his GED on his first try without classes.

My brother got into drugs heavily and we later found out that it started when he was 13.  My parents struggled to help him overcome his addiction and often wondered where they went wrong with their parenting.  In fact, they bickered so much about him and his well-being that they eventually divorced.

I firmly believe that my brother became his label.  Growing up, my parents made constant references to his weight.  This did not encourage him to lose weight, but actually discouraged him.  To this day, he remains overweight.  He was also labeled a problem child early on.  These labels became a stigma to him.  He never felt like he was smart enough, thin enough, or good enough.

My brother and I are very different people.  I would argue that I am also a product of labeling.  I am several years younger than my brother.  I saw the problems that labeling caused my brother, so I became everything opposite.  I never had a weight problem, always excelled at school, and chose not to do drugs.  I didn’t want my parents to be disappointed in me the way they were with my brother.

As a social worker, I believe that it is our duty to help end this cycle.  We need to teach our youth self-confidence. It should also be taught that it is okay to make mistakes.  We need not dwell on them, but find a way to make sure that we learn from them.  High expectations from parents are a fact of life.  However, there is a point when they are not expectations, but stigmas placed on them.

Your personal story brings to mind a few critical ideas I want to comment upon.

First, if we see something bad going on, it’s important to describe it as a specific situation in a specific context, and help people see how the situation or context was involved with the problem behavior or failure. For example, a parent might say, “You ate a tremendous amount of food today, you must have been feeling really hungry today. I’ll try to serve you less food tomorrow so you won’t overeat, do you think that would help you?” This would be better than saying, “You always overeat, and you’re getting fat. A fat person like you shouldn’t eat so much.”  In the first example, the parent is commenting on the overeating as a specific one-time event, and is also suggesting a solution, and is offering to be part of the solution (by serving less food).  The parent is also asking the child to be engaged in the change in behavior by asking, “do you think that would help you?”  It might be even better to just ask an open-ended question to let the child say something about their eating behavior on that specific day and what might help change behaviors at future meals.

Second, your story reminds me of the importance of holding high expectations of everyone while at the same time having a realistic understanding that people won’t reach your expectations. If teachers have low expectations and assume the worst of their students, the students will be “allowed” by the teacher’s expectations to perform at the level the teacher had signaled them to perform to. If a teacher holds all students to high expectations, students will attempt to achieve those higher expectations. Yet, when holding high expectations, I think it’s important to allow failure, and let students know that high expectations must be coupled with patience, support, and a high tolerance for people not achieving the highest marks. When we have high expectations and show too much disappointment or displeasure when people can’t achieve what we asked of them, then we will tend to encourage frustration and discouragement. The correct way to apply high expectations is to keep up an optimistic and accepting attitude.  “Oh well, you didn’t quite reach the mark this time, but you came pretty far toward it and you tried hard. Let’s see what you can do next time, and what I can do to help you get closer to the mark we’re striving to reach. I’m confident you’ll eventually get it.” 

When we’re disappointed with ourselves, or with our spouse or a child, we can communicate our disappointment, but we need to make the feeling related to a specific instance of behavior, and not raise issues of a person “always” doing something we don’t like, or “being” the wrong type of person. In the present instant of time we can’t do something about a problem that is “always” going on, can we?  We can only modify what we are doing in the present instant.  And, it’s hardly fair to blame us for being wrong. We can only control what we do, not what we are.

Student editorial on mental illness in corrections.

A student wrote this editorial on the topic of mental illness and prisons.  I'm sharing it here without comments:

I recently caught the last half hour of a documentary on PBS (The Released, by Karen O’Connor and Miri Navasky), which followed mentally ill prison inmates after they were released back into the community. The program caught my interest especially because of our recent class discussions about Criminal Justice and Mental Health in relation to Social Work. We learned the most common institutionalized settings in which mentally ill individuals live are jails and prisons. According to NAMI, at least 16 percent of the prison population can be classified as severely mentally ill. The particular program I watched examined the high rates of recidivism among mentally ill offenders.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 81 percent of mentally ill inmates currently in state prison have prior convictions. Sixty percent of released prisoners are likely to be rearrested within 18 months, but mentally ill offenders are likely to be rearrested at even higher rates. The program I watched allowed me to realize the reasons for this are the lack of community services available to mentally ill offenders as well as the general attitude of the American public. There are individuals who don’t see this issue as a priority because they feel like mentally ill offenders are just a drain on society. Alphonse Gerhardstein, president of the Prison Reform Advocacy Center, believes we should care about what happens to these people because “As long as their heart’s beating, they have a right to life and liberty.”

It is extremely difficult for mentally ill ex-offenders to obtain public housing because most housing subsidies are only available to applicants who have federal income tax forms (the working poor). Public housing authorities and Section 8 providers are also allowed to deny housing to individuals with criminal histories. To make the situation even more troublesome, most ex-offenders who are mentally ill are released from prison with little money. Even if they do find housing, lack of support services makes it difficult for them to sustain their housing.

The Council of States Governments has created the Consensus Project in order to address the recidivism rates of mentally ill offenders. They recently (in 2002) released a report which recommends planning for post-release services from the very first day mentally ill offenders arrive in the justice system. They suggest community-based agencies need to join together to access housing funding for mentally ill offenders. The report also states treatment for substance abuse and mental illness should be integrated and individuals with mental illness should be able to access all government entitlements they are eligible for such as Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplementary Security Income. 

I think this report has valuable suggestions which community leaders need to be aware of. Especially considering our current economic situation, it is necessary for everyday citizens to weigh the costs of keep mentally ill offenders incarcerated rather than working to help them successfully re-enter the community.

Student reacts to mental illness being treated in corrections facilities

I'm sharing this student reaction paper without any comments from me. 

After reading our chapters on mental illness and crime and punishment, I was extremely disturbed to find out how many individuals with mental illness are in the prison system. It seems to me that a much better idea would be to find the individuals with mental illnesses before they commit a crime and get them treatment.

A girl I work with has a son, B____, who recently went to prison. He stole a blank check from his brother and forged his name to get money. His brother pressed charges and he was sentenced to two years. If all goes well he’ll be out in May for good time. B____ had been in and out of trouble as a teenager. He stole bikes and hung out with gangs. However, he managed to stay out of juvenile detention. In the past two years, he’s had a lot of health problems. He’s been having seizures and nosebleeds. He was usually treated at the hospital emergency room with no follow up. The emergency room doctor recommended that he see a neurologist. The neurologist couldn’t find anything wrong with him. It makes me wonder if the treatment that he received was marginal because he was on a medical card.

While in prison, B____ has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. His mom was shocked. He’s been taking medication for the illness. However, I wonder that when he gets out if he’ll continue his treatment. After three years of release 62.3% of offenders will be back in jail. In the case of individuals who have mental illness I’m sure that’s because they discontinue treatment.

Early intervention and early use of new medications lead to better medical outcomes for the individual. The earlier someone with schizophrenia is diagnosed and stabilized on treatment, the better the long-term prognosis for their illness. B____ is only 19 years old. Since schizophrenia is a disease that typically begins to show signs in early adulthood, B____ has a good chance to control his disease. It’s just sad that he had to go to jail to get a prognosis.

Student considers parental stresses related to autism

The story of Katherine McCarron, the three year old child who was smothered to death by her own mother, was very sad, and is one of the readings that stood out to me the most this semester. I had never heard of this case before, so it was new information to me. I did a little more research on the topic, just reading a little more into the story. I was shocked to learn that her mother was a physician. 

I found a website titled “Action for Autism”  with some more information about Katherine McCarron. Some newspapers actually reported that this murder was done to put her out of pain. It seems like a lot of people are misinformed about autism. It is not a disorder that causes pain. It has more to do with the way people socially interact.

One part of the article states: “one mother—with her autistic daughter within earshot—mentioned that she once thought of driving her and her daughter off the George Washington Bridge.” When I read this portion, I just thought it was absolutely horrible. What kind of person could think that, let alone talk about it with their child listening?

However, something changed my mind.

After reading the article, I was browsing through the comments that people were leaving. One stood out to me and really gave me a different point of view. “I am not condoning murder….I am defending the mother who had the courage to admit her desire to drive off the Washington bridge. We need to listen to these cries for help as a society and work on creating greater and more accessible support systems for families with autistic children.” I still think the idea of driving off of the Washington Bridge is pretty extreme, but this commenter had an excellent point. Clearly there is a need for more support for not just autistic people, but for their parents as well. It makes sense, the parents are their sole care providers. They need resources and information that are accessible so that they do not feel alone or overwhelmed. It seems like many of the other people who commented related to this story at least a little bit. One mother that commented claimed to feel unsupported, exhausted, and depressed. Taking care of any child is time consuming and stressful. A special needs child could be more stressful on the parents and family.

I think that this just shows the importance of the few supportive organizations for parents of autistic (or any other special needs) children. 

Here is my reaction, in a purple font.

Children with significant autistic symptoms and associated social impairments are not like the rest of us. They share with persons who have anti-social personality disorder a difficulty feeling empathy or understanding the reality that other people exist as something other than objects, things, tools, means toward the gratification of desires. Unlike persons with anti-social personality disorder, persons with serious autistic disorder  don’t try to deceive (in fact, persons with autism can be the most honest humans, as they sometimes do not understand the concept of deception, lies, or such things). Much of human morality seems to be related to wanting to be perceived as a good person, and persons with significant autism symptoms don’t usually care how others perceive them, or they are unaware that other people can even have conceptions or perceptions of them.  That just isn’t part of the mental world for them. 

Thus, it can sometimes seem that persons with autistic disorder are entirely a-moral.  When they are in the grip of strong negative (hostile) emotions, they can be moved to murderous rage, and they may not be able to constrain acts of violence, or their control of violent impulses may be rooted only in fear of consequences, and not in any empathetic sense of sympathy for the person with whom they are angry.

Since the children with this disorder live in a mental and emotional world so alien to normal human thinking (and morality), they can be perceived as being entirely wicked, and in exasperation, it would be easy for people to become utterly and murderously frustrated and able to contemplate murdering such children, even if they were their own children. It is probably good for people to recognize this and talk about it, because by recognizing their dark feelings and desires they will be able to deal with them and control them.  If they deny such feelings, or pretend that those feelings aren’t there, it may be harder to control them, or they may start to feel tremendous guilt (and resulting sadness or depression). 

That’s my understanding of it all.