Autism Database Updates

If you’re new around here, you might want to get caught up: here’s my letter to the North Dakota psychology board about the Health Department’s mandatory autism database, and here’s information about other states that have mandatory databases as well as steps YOU can take to protest them.

I was able to get a hold of someone at the North Dakota Psychological Association and learned that not a single mental health professional was consulted in creating the database, and everyone in the association spoke against it at the time. They shared serious concerns about privacy, eugenics, and ethics. And the government, which supposedly exists to serve the people and defend our rights, went ahead and passed the law anyway.

NDPA is in favor of me pushing back on this, but it sounds like they ran out of options at the time. I have reached out to the North Dakota chapter of the ACLU and am awaiting a response, since it sounds like this law would not hold up if challenged in court, but that requires someone to challenge it in court.

One rationale for the database is that it is modeled after a similar (equally unethical and terrible) database in New Jersey. Now, I have focused my energy on North Dakota because I’m licensed there and feel like I would have more pull as a provider, but I wonder if it would be more effective to focus nationally – if we could fight all the databases at once, that would be such a win.

Is this something the national ACLU chapter would take on? I’m figuring it out. Are you a provider who wants to push back on these laws? Are you not a provider but pissed off and wants to help? Let me know! Let’s do this together!