Obviously I missed the memo stating that effective immediately, the most important prerequisite of giving birth to a child is perfection.
Oh, I know of Denmark’s Copenhagen Post projection that by the not too distant future Denmark could be a country without a single citizen with Down syndrome.
How? Well, by offering all pregnant women free prenatal screening to determine if the fetus is affected with an extra 21st chromosome. Suddenly women were aborting prenatally diagnosed fetuses right and left.
Which kinda makes me wonder what is so terrorizing about Down syndrome that would convince a mother to abort her unborn child.
My concern is magnified by this latest announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services that it will adopt the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation that no-cost prenatal care will include prenatal testing for “genetic or developmental conditions”
The regulation was issued as part of the PPACA’s coverage of preventive services. This prompts the question, How does prenatal testing prevent Down syndrome?
Could the HHS be trying to sneak in a eugenics program the way Denmark has seemed to do? Or am I just being paranoid?
Now here’s the kicker. The HHS, while providing free prenatal testing is NOT providing necessary and updated information in case that prenatal testing comes back positive for Down syndrome.
As Mark W. Leach writes:
” Professional guidelines require that physicians be well-informed about Down syndrome, offer accurate information, and recognize that parent support organizations can be very helpful. This summer, the National Society for Genetic Counselors and the American Academy of Pediatrics required that this balancing information be part of prenatal care. Both further note that families “benefit from hearing a fair and balanced perspective, including the many positive outcomes of children with Down syndrome and their effect on the family.”
The need for this information is so apparent that, in 2005, two senators from opposite sides of the abortion issue, Senators Ted Kennedy and Sam Brownback, co-sponsored legislation that recognized the need to provide accurate, balanced information and support by parent organizations. In 2008, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act was signed into law, but it has yet to receive any appropriations. Similarly, the HHS regulation only requires coverage of the testing itself, but says nothing about covering the provision of proper training, accurate written materials, or support to or through parent organizations–things that could, in fact, improve the parents’ and child’s wellbeing after receiving a prenatal diagnosis.
Sounds a little sketchy to me.
About a month after Leach’s article was posted news came out about a new and less risky down syndrome test that has been developed.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand being scared when confronted with a new diagnosis. I understand being worried. I understand feeling lost. I get it.
But I don’t understand the fear to the point of doing everything in society’s power to bring to an end an entire population of people.
Then it hits me.
While it’s all about Down syndrome now, it’s about cystic fibrosis, autism, gender or undesirable paternity later.
Tricky, no?
The same technology used to detect that extra chromosome, the counting of small fragments of DNA in a mother’s blood can…..and will be used to detect any sort of imperfection. Even the imperfection of not being the preferred gender.
And so I ask again. Since when did perfection become the leading prerequisite to determining whether a parent allows their unborn child the opportunity of life?
How did we get here? And what can we do to stop it?
I’ve often wondered the same thing. I think there are a lot of pro-life groups out there that are aligned behind giving all children a chance to experience life! I’ve also thought this could be a slippery slope on health care – in a country looking to cut budgets left and right where the leave our most vulnerable citizen’s services on the chopping block who’s to say they won’t try to with-hold health care because you knowingly brought a baby with many health concerns into the world. Very slippery slope, indeed!
Kristina recently posted..Swim Lessons
Twitter: kdlavoie
Oct 27, 11
As much as I want a test for early detection of autism so that children can receive intervention services and therapy at the earliest possible age, I hope that such a test will not be possible pre-natally. The statistics on the number of children with Down Syndrome that are aborted is horrifying. It is doubly so for me when I consider that your average person has a much more positive view of Down Syndrome than they do of autism. Given the broad spectrum of autism, and the narrow way in which it is perceived by the public, the unborn diagnosed with autism would be eliminated without fully understanding who is being discarded. It’s hard to even put it into words…as challenging as my child has been, I wouldn’t give her up for anything. By her sheer determination to make it in a world that doesn’t fit her she has more than proven her right to be here. I have no doubt she will change the world. She has already changed mine.
KDL recently posted..Fallen Stars
Twitter: marriedlife
Oct 28, 11
This makes me so incredibly sad.
I have refused genetic testing with all three of my pregnancies simply allowing an ultrasound to determine if there are any glaring things that we might want to be aware of. It would not in any way change the outcome of my pregnancy. All my babies are loved, just as they are. (although some days they drive me insane!)
The biggest issue that I personally have with this pre-natal testing is that the percentage of tests that give a false positive and then the mothers choose to abort. Even if it’s only 1% (and I’m pretty sure it’s higher than that) that is too many. THAT is scary.
Krista recently posted..Relevant…
One person comes to mind as I read this, Hitler. For any scientific results to determine the future or lack thereof, of a human life is enough to scare me.
Twitter: therextras
Nov 4, 11
Praying our world will turn around and away from the evil of killing lives in the womb.
Barbara recently posted..Angelic Heralding Blog Carnival
That is just terrifying. I was bullied into an ultrasound with my fourth child. And I do mean bullied — I finally caved into the “just go do it and everything will be fine and you’ll feel so much better” to shut up the obstetrician. The ultrasound showed a problem and the tech did a horrible job of concealing his reasons to redo the measurements several times. Later that afternoon, I got a call from a genetics counselor — the ultrasound showed a measurement that could indicate Down Syndrome and they wanted to offer me the option of an amnio. The risk of the amnio causing a miscarriage was higher than the risk of him having Down Syndrome, given the information they had. And there was no way I would have aborted my pregnancy, or consented to a test that was risky to my unborn child…so all it did was add more stress onto an already stressful situation.
My baby had a kidney defect that was corrected by surgery when he was six months old. That was what showed up on the ultrasound. And it still gives me chills to think that a mother-to-be could’ve used the same sort of information I was given to decide on an abortion.