The part that isn't compassionate is the part that insists we label certain people as defective.
Your response is about people having the right to label themselves defective.
If you argue that it's compassionate to allow people to live the lives they want to live, that's beautiful and I agree. I am arguing it's NOT compassionate to insist that certain people are defective, especially regardless of how they feel about their own lives.
The crispr treatment in the article is not simply a way to remove the gene causing some forms of autism, it is also a method to add that same gene. The fact that we are talking only about using it to remove autism shows that everyone knows that some forms of autism give much more disadvantages than advantages and therefore are defects. The problem with autism is that many different things are grouped under the same term and some of them are not that disadvantageous.
> everyone knows that some forms of autism give much more disadvantages than advantages and therefore are defects
No, not everyone knows that. I feel quite humbled by my experience meeting people with "defects", who are proud of their "defects", would not choose to remove their "defects", actively seek out relationships with other "defective" people, and have formed a cultural identity around their "defect", to the extent that they hope their own kids are also "defective", maybe not to the strength that other people hope their kids aren't defective, but at least express a preference.
I hold it as a fundamental, nowadays, that I cannot decide what is and is not defective for other people, especially strangers, and especially people who themselves actively say "I'm not defective!". I rather focus on concrete harm to figure out how to exist in the world, for myself and for others.
I think it does harm to the world to approach all disabilities from a mindset that is focused on "defectiveness". I will take my lead from other people with the relevant disabilities. "Nothing about us without us" is a powerful slogan that guides me to do so.
I don't know whether you identify with any "defective" or defect-adjacent subgroup (since you talk about all the different things that grouped under autism), but I know for sure not everyone is. And so not "everyone knows that some forms of autism give much more disadvantages than advantages". When I try to drill down on what that really means (how would you even determine how to weigh the advantages and disadvantages?), the whole endeavor seems divorced from individual realities and pointless.
Your response is about people having the right to label themselves defective.
If you argue that it's compassionate to allow people to live the lives they want to live, that's beautiful and I agree. I am arguing it's NOT compassionate to insist that certain people are defective, especially regardless of how they feel about their own lives.
I mean, the word "defective" alone, c'mon.