On Wednesday of Holy Week, while most Christians were preparing to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a proclamation of a different kind: “Autism destroys families.” He went on to say that autistic children “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted … ”
These remarks framing autism as an epidemic or tragedy were not simply a one-off. They are both part of and an escalation in the broader Trump administration position that accessibility — the “A” in DEIA — is a problem to be eliminated, a mindset that results in policies that are at least unfriendly, if not actively hostile, to disabled people like me. See, for example, new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz’s comments that “healthy people don’t consume healthcare resources,” or a Federal Emergency Management Agency course about including disabled people in disaster operations being deleted, or the announcement that the National Institutes of Health will begin compiling personal and private medical records to create a new “disease registry” about autism. It seems clear that RFK Jr., and the administration as a whole, do not see my life, or the life of my disabled children, as worthy of respect, much less support. I have gotten accustomed to people being casually dismissive of autistic people or thinking that our lives are tragic or deficient. But I did not ever expect to hear it from a sitting HHS secretary standing at a podium with the American flag behind him.
While others have already addressed just how incorrect these blanket claims that RFK Jr. made about autism are, such an approach only addresses part of the problem. Many autistic people can, in fact, do all of the things that RFK Jr. listed, and many neurotypical people may be able to do none of them. But this isn’t just a question of getting the facts about autism wrong. In painting autism as tragedy, and for the reasons given, RFK Jr. is getting one of the essential facts about humanity wrong.
What is it that gives you value? Is it your productivity? Your abilities and capacities? Your seeming independence? You would be hard-pressed (though some have tried) to make a biblical case for those as fundamental markers of inherent human dignity or value.
Scripturally speaking, the two earliest and most fundamental claims about the value of human beings come for exactly the same reason, eight chapters apart. In the story of creation in Genesis 1, God created humankind in God’s own image, and upon so doing, declares how good the creation is. Just a bit later in the story, in Genesis 9, God makes the very first covenant with humanity, with Noah and his family. As a part of this great covenant with all of humanity, God forbids murder: “Whoever sheds human blood, by a human his blood will be shed; for in the divine image God made human beings” (Genesis 9:6).
Murder is unacceptable because of how humanity was created and whose image it is that humanity bears. Humankind has value because in it — in every last member of the species — God can be seen in some way.
Theologians have disagreed over the intervening centuries about exactly how it is that we see God in humanity, but Scripture makes it simply inescapable that all of humanity bears the divine image. And bearing that image is what gives us value; it is what makes the elimination of human life unacceptable, from a Christian perspective. Human life is of infinite worth because of the image of our maker that we bear — that we all bear.
This is the theological heart of the problem: RFK Jr.’s comments assume the value of human life is found in human capacity. He laments what he considers to be the inherently tragic nature of autistic lives simply because they may not share the same capacities he expects human beings to have. He believes autism is a “disease” that “destroys families” because it means that the lives affected by it are somehow worth less than other lives. Autism “destroys … our children” if they can’t play baseball, write a poem, or hold a job, because in RFK Jr.’s view, this means that autistic children lack something essential about what it is to be human.
This framing is alarming. Such comments indicate that RFK Jr. believes that some lives are simply more worth living than others, and that some lives are so inherently tragic that extraordinary measures (such as withholding childhood vaccines — even though claims of vaccination links to autism have been thoroughly debunked) are necessary to avoid even the possibility of bringing autistic life into the world. Allowing this narrative about autism to stand means joining in the act of creating a world that is more hostile by the day to the autistic people in our midst — a world that already leads to a fourfold increase in the likelihood of depression for autistic individuals. And this kind of framing has, in the past, led to extermination campaigns against disabled individuals. See, for example, the Nazi idea of “life unworthy of life” and its natural outcome in the Aktion T4 program. And while he may not be advocating for involuntary euthanasia programs, some parts of the Western world are nevertheless already making allowances for voluntary euthanasia for disabled people, including autistic individuals. All of this is made possible when we fail to see the image of God in autistic people — even though God has already told us it is there — and the value that image gives to every human life.
The stakes, in other words, are not low, even if we treat this as merely a theological question. Devaluing any human life is a denial of the image of God. It is a refusal to see the goodness of God in God’s own creation. It may be even more than that.
In the parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 25:31-46, the defining difference between the sheep and the goats is that some people treated Christ with respect and charity, and some didn’t: “I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.” Those who took care of the vulnerable Christ went on to eternal life, and those who didn’t faced the much grimmer prospect of unending fire. All of them — sheep and goats alike — were surprised, in the end, to find that Christ had been present in the form of those they held of no account: “when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.” We can claim no such ignorance, cannot say we have no idea that Christ is always present among us; we have already been told, from the moment of creation, that every human being bears the image of God.
Matthew 25 turns the imago dei into a challenge: Are we willing to see the face of Christ in everyone we meet? Or do we limit it to those people to whom we have already deemed worthy? I find it unconscionable that RFK Jr. would be so willing to devalue the humanity of autistic individuals, regardless of what abilities or capacities they do or do not possess. But perhaps it isn’t my condemnation that he ought to fear.
I wish I could say that RFK Jr.’s style of deficit- or tragedy-based framing for autism was rare, but it is unfortunately all too common. Even if this doesn’t eventually lead us down the path to eugenics, negative framing still adversely impacts the mental health of autistic people and caregivers. What if instead, we rejected this negative view in favor of viewing autistic people the way God views them: as worthy of bearing God’s own image? What if we sought out the inherent and God-given value of autism and autistic people, not despite them being autistic, but because of it? What if there is something about autism and autistic experience that somehow shows us more about who God is, that we might not otherwise see?
RFK Jr.’s comments make clear that he does not see God’s image, does not see Christ’s face in autistic people. As a society, however, we need not replicate his error. Seeking out the face of Christ in each other — regardless of ability or capacity — is no less than a Gospel imperative. In autistic people, as in every member of the human species, God is pleased to dwell. Every one of us bears the image of God — the only question is whether or not we recognize it when we see it.
Ian Lasch is an autistic Episcopal priest. He is currently studying for his PhD through the University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology, and his dissertation is on autism and the imago Dei. He is married to Loren, also an Episcopal priest, and father to two neurodivergent children.
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