The reason why it matters that the child is autistic is because he doesn't know better. Any other child could have been soothed, or perhaps would have felt better having been fed/changed/etc. An autistic child doesn't have the tools to understand things that would be commonplace to us. Perhaps air travel was not the best choice for this mother, but its hardly her or the child's fault.

That's horrible, the poor thing! When my mother was going through chemo, my family and I shaved our heads for support purposes. I'm employed by the symphony in the city I live in, and my boss was none too pleased. He implied it would be best I wear a wig, and I felt amazingly uncomfortable, to the point where I simply stopped taking shifts until my hair was longer. I really feel for this woman, and I hope the publicity of this story will at least make her ex-boss feel like an ass.

It looks like they ran out of ideas in the last three... they could easily be compiled into one... Maybe they felt like it was necessary to have seven exactly?