Aborting the Disabled
Aborting the Disabled
A bill before the Senate hopes to better inform mothers about diagnosed disabilities, while a study confirms that women can feel pressured to terminate their pregnancy if tests find a disability.
by Rob Moll
Women whose babies are prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome report that "their obstetricians had failed to provide enough up-to-date printed material" and "felt rushed or pressured into making a decision about continuing the pregnancy." The study of mothers whose children have Down syndrome was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
One woman quoted in the study said that in 1999, when her child was diagnosed with Down syndrome, the doctor "showed a really pitiful video first of people with Down syndrome who were very low tone and lethargic-looking and then proceeded to tell us that our child would never be able to read, write, or count change."
In response, senators Sam Brownback and Ted Kennedy are sponsoring legislation that would require doctors to provide current medical information about any diagnosed disability after a prenatal test, along with treatment options, the expected development of the child, and information about local support communities.
Prenatal testing
Testing babies while still in the womb is normally offered by doctors, and often recommended to women more than 35 or couples with other risk factors. Many states require doctors to offer prenatal genetic testing to all pregnant mothers. However, there are no treatment options for the genetic diseases tested for, such as cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, or Down syndrome.
"A lot of the testing is done for disease processes that we really can't do anything about," says Stephen Nelson, staff neonatologist and director of the Neonatal Transport Service at MeritCare Children's Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota. "Our ability to diagnose diseases prenatally exceeds our ability to treat."
Prenatal testing is a way of learning valuable information about a baby, but just as important is what parents will do with that information, says John Kilner, president of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. "It is usually used to find out if there is something there you don't want so you can abort." According to the study, many doctors assume that women who undergo testing would choose to abort. But there are other reasons to learn about the health of a fetus. Kilner says, "If the purpose is to be able to prepare as best one can for the well-being of the fetus and the mother, that's a more noble rationale."
Because there is a minor possibility of miscarriage and other problems caused by the tests, prenatal tests should only be used if other factors, such as the age of the mother or a family history of genetic diseases, outweigh the risks, say doctors and bioethicists. Kilner said that when he and his wife had trouble conceiving their second child, doctors offered prenatal tests. "It was just offered to us as obvious in the normal course of things," Kilner said. "It was only in response to our questions that we discovered there was any risk at all. And then when we realized that we would only be getting information that would lead us to abort, it was like, wait a minute."
Often, doctors feel they must offer prenatal tests in order to avoid malpractice lawsuits. "There's a great deal of fear on the part of obstetricians that if they don't offer genetic testing and the baby does have one of these conditions and it's recognized after birth, that the obstetrician can be sued for wrongful birth," says Nelson.
A parent files a wrongful birth suit if she says that had she known her baby would have a genetic disease, she would have aborted. Doctors have been successfully sued for the costs of raising a disabled child if they didn't offer tests that would have discovered the disability, or if they didn't discover a disability even with prenatal testing.
Unfortunately, there are currently no standards for how the information obtained from a prenatal test should be used. "We've got policies that mandate the tests to be offered, but we have no public policy to shape the ethic of how you respond," says Carrie Gordon Earll, senior policy analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family.
Pressure to abort
"We have been able to screen for certain conditions in the womb for quite some time now, but I'm concerned that we don't have a great track record for handling that information very well," Sen. Brownback, R-Kan., said announcing his legislation. "For some conditions that can be detected in the womb, we are aborting 80 percent or more of the babies who test positive."
According to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology study, 20 percent of doctors said when a prenatal test discovered Down syndrome, they encouraged mothers to abort, or they emphasize the negative aspects of the disease "so that parents would favor a termination." Most doctors, however, tried to remain unbiased in telling parents the results of a prenatal test.
Still, "there's a lot of unspoken pressure to abort once you've had the testing done," says Nelson. Throughout the medical literature, "parents are blamed if they have a baby with Down syndrome." Parents who decide to give birth to a Down syndrome child " say that they feel like outcasts, they feel blameworthy."
Because abortion is seen as the preferred option, "Soon, it will be seen as unnecessary to fund therapy and care for the disabled," says Amy Laura Hall, assistant professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School. "There is no will to care for the disabled."
Eugenics by abortion
The Brownback/Kennedy bill could help alleviate cultural pressure to abort. "The effect of this sort of 'weeding out' is creating new eugenics, a form of systematic, disability-based discrimination," said Brownback. "We don't want a world where parents feel driven to justify their children's existence. We need to link parents with these programs so that they are equipped with all the information they need to hopefully make a life-affirming choice."
Our culture's image of the nuclear family encourages people to abort children that don't fit the model, says Hall, who is working on a book on the rise of medically enhanced children and scientifically standardized families. "We have the model of family life with two kids who look like their parents. We have our kids appropriately spaced to fit the model of the ideal family. This has contributed to the abortion culture."
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A bill before the Senate hopes to better inform mothers about diagnosed disabilities, while a study confirms that women can feel pressured to terminate their pregnancy if tests find a disability.
by Rob Moll
Women whose babies are prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome report that "their obstetricians had failed to provide enough up-to-date printed material" and "felt rushed or pressured into making a decision about continuing the pregnancy." The study of mothers whose children have Down syndrome was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
One woman quoted in the study said that in 1999, when her child was diagnosed with Down syndrome, the doctor "showed a really pitiful video first of people with Down syndrome who were very low tone and lethargic-looking and then proceeded to tell us that our child would never be able to read, write, or count change."
In response, senators Sam Brownback and Ted Kennedy are sponsoring legislation that would require doctors to provide current medical information about any diagnosed disability after a prenatal test, along with treatment options, the expected development of the child, and information about local support communities.
Prenatal testing
Testing babies while still in the womb is normally offered by doctors, and often recommended to women more than 35 or couples with other risk factors. Many states require doctors to offer prenatal genetic testing to all pregnant mothers. However, there are no treatment options for the genetic diseases tested for, such as cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, or Down syndrome.
"A lot of the testing is done for disease processes that we really can't do anything about," says Stephen Nelson, staff neonatologist and director of the Neonatal Transport Service at MeritCare Children's Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota. "Our ability to diagnose diseases prenatally exceeds our ability to treat."
Prenatal testing is a way of learning valuable information about a baby, but just as important is what parents will do with that information, says John Kilner, president of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. "It is usually used to find out if there is something there you don't want so you can abort." According to the study, many doctors assume that women who undergo testing would choose to abort. But there are other reasons to learn about the health of a fetus. Kilner says, "If the purpose is to be able to prepare as best one can for the well-being of the fetus and the mother, that's a more noble rationale."
Because there is a minor possibility of miscarriage and other problems caused by the tests, prenatal tests should only be used if other factors, such as the age of the mother or a family history of genetic diseases, outweigh the risks, say doctors and bioethicists. Kilner said that when he and his wife had trouble conceiving their second child, doctors offered prenatal tests. "It was just offered to us as obvious in the normal course of things," Kilner said. "It was only in response to our questions that we discovered there was any risk at all. And then when we realized that we would only be getting information that would lead us to abort, it was like, wait a minute."
Often, doctors feel they must offer prenatal tests in order to avoid malpractice lawsuits. "There's a great deal of fear on the part of obstetricians that if they don't offer genetic testing and the baby does have one of these conditions and it's recognized after birth, that the obstetrician can be sued for wrongful birth," says Nelson.
A parent files a wrongful birth suit if she says that had she known her baby would have a genetic disease, she would have aborted. Doctors have been successfully sued for the costs of raising a disabled child if they didn't offer tests that would have discovered the disability, or if they didn't discover a disability even with prenatal testing.
Unfortunately, there are currently no standards for how the information obtained from a prenatal test should be used. "We've got policies that mandate the tests to be offered, but we have no public policy to shape the ethic of how you respond," says Carrie Gordon Earll, senior policy analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family.
Pressure to abort
"We have been able to screen for certain conditions in the womb for quite some time now, but I'm concerned that we don't have a great track record for handling that information very well," Sen. Brownback, R-Kan., said announcing his legislation. "For some conditions that can be detected in the womb, we are aborting 80 percent or more of the babies who test positive."
According to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology study, 20 percent of doctors said when a prenatal test discovered Down syndrome, they encouraged mothers to abort, or they emphasize the negative aspects of the disease "so that parents would favor a termination." Most doctors, however, tried to remain unbiased in telling parents the results of a prenatal test.
Still, "there's a lot of unspoken pressure to abort once you've had the testing done," says Nelson. Throughout the medical literature, "parents are blamed if they have a baby with Down syndrome." Parents who decide to give birth to a Down syndrome child " say that they feel like outcasts, they feel blameworthy."
Because abortion is seen as the preferred option, "Soon, it will be seen as unnecessary to fund therapy and care for the disabled," says Amy Laura Hall, assistant professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School. "There is no will to care for the disabled."
Eugenics by abortion
The Brownback/Kennedy bill could help alleviate cultural pressure to abort. "The effect of this sort of 'weeding out' is creating new eugenics, a form of systematic, disability-based discrimination," said Brownback. "We don't want a world where parents feel driven to justify their children's existence. We need to link parents with these programs so that they are equipped with all the information they need to hopefully make a life-affirming choice."
Our culture's image of the nuclear family encourages people to abort children that don't fit the model, says Hall, who is working on a book on the rise of medically enhanced children and scientifically standardized families. "We have the model of family life with two kids who look like their parents. We have our kids appropriately spaced to fit the model of the ideal family. This has contributed to the abortion culture."
READ IT ALL!
posted by Straight Up with Sherri at
10:15 AM
1 Comments:
Great work sherri, I wanted to cover this in a future blog. I was told I should ( at the time it wasn't mandatory) take an afp test. I read about and seen there were a lot of false postives/negatives. I told the nurses I would not be taking it. They recommended however I should since I was in my mid thirties. They even went as far as telling me it would be better for me to know should I want to terminate...?!!! I told them under NO terms would I be terminating regardless. It had been 17 yrs since my last child, and I had hit my knees to get pregnant again. After all that heartache and miscarriage I had the yr before I did not care. If the LORD wanted me to have a dysfunctional child then he would give me the grace and strength to care for it. She was born healthy. 9lbs 8 1/2 oz....
That was 10 yrs ago. I never did and never will trust these tests. Too many woman have aborted to find out there was nothing wrong with their babies, and others have gone on and had them despite the drs crying "abort it", only to have healthy babies!
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KC, at 7:20 PM
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