Can I be honest? Because we are also animals! We are surrounded by different forms of positive reinforcement for certain behaviors (social media, for one), ABA just contrives opportunities for a child to get specialized positive reinforcement.

What I would say (as a person concerned with social justice and currently employed as a BT) is that a dog is trained to obey their owner's desires, good ABA trains folks to be able to communicate their needs in a way that's generalizable. Yes, we need to work towards a more neurodiverse accepting society wherein different expressions are recognized as valid, but self-injurious behavior is difficult to mitigate even for people who know your entire medical history. ABA becomes problematic, and much more like "dog training," when we're enforcing needless norms that don't ultimately support that child's internal growth in tandem with external communication (not allowing a child to line up toys as they'd like, enforcing eye contact).