I stand by it. Being in a coma is a bad thing. As is autism. I've seen arguments by the 'neurodiversity' folks that autism is not a bad thing; I vehemently disagree and regard most of their arguments as rubbish.

I saw this had been voted up to +1 and went to correct it. Then I noticed that it was me who had voted it up, I don't know why. Don't you hate it when that happens? Anyway, that comparison is idiotic. Why are you comparing autism to a coma? Why not compare it to, say, Triffids taking over the world. That is a bad thing too and only slightly less relevant. Your dismissal of the arguments is also unjustifiably absolute. There is a clear margin at the top of the 'functional' spectrum at which AS is personality trait that is far more adaptive in many ways than various other traits that we consider 'normal' despite being suboptimal adaptions to the current environment.

(In an analogous situation, I am contemptuous of those of us in the hard-of-hearing and deaf communities who declaim that our disabilities are not disabilities and are actually good, and the people who do things like select their embryos for carrying deafness genes are not committing a great evil. This strikes me as deeply perverse.)

Deafness gives no benefit. AS does, even if they are outweighed by the disadvantages.