Saturday, September 19, 2009

Disappearing Downs

I tagged an article on Science Daily for review. While it was in the queue, Albert Mohler beat me to the punch!

Mohler strikes right to the heart:
"Knowing this, health care providers have historically operated under the assumption that if a woman consents to prenatal screening or diagnosing, she must believe that having a child with DS would be an undesired outcome and wish to terminate her pregnancy if such a diagnosis were made prenatally"
Their reasoning is logical. There is nothing that can be done for Downs syndrome, currently. The only reason to test would be to decide for abortion. Assuming patients have thought this through is probably presumptive...

And:
"Skotko's research indicating that 92 percent of women who learn they are carrying a baby with Down syndrome choose to abort the pregnancy."
I would argue this shows society has already made its decision. Life is about enjoyment and feeling fulfilled. Anyone who can not live up to this standard will have a very short life indeed.

3 comments:

TheDen said...

Interestingly, when my wife was pregnant, the doctor asked if we wanted to check for DS. I asked her what the reasoning would be and I think she did mention that some parents terminate the pregnancy.

We concluded that whether we knew or not, we were keeping the child and opted to NOT do the DS test as it would not affect our decision. The doctor was very understandable regarding our decision--likely hearing that logic drawn out before.

Fortunately, our daughter was born healthy and happy.

I believe that most pro-life parents would not opt to have the test as it would not alter their decision and it wouldn't really prepare them for a child with DS anyhow.

This would skewer the percentage to a VERY high percentage who would terminate a pregnancy. The only reason to take that test would be on an early decision of termination.

It's really a shame when a parent values their lifestyle more than their child's life.

nedbrek said...

Hello!

Your note on the statistics is correct. Although, the number is going down (when it should be up from pop growth), so clearly lots of people are ok with abortion.

Also, I think it has moved from "parents valuing their lifestyle" (simple selfishness) to an actual belief that children who cannot live a "full" life (in the worldly sense) are better off dead.

This is far worse.

Anonymous said...

You said, "I think it has moved from "parents valuing their lifestyle" (simple selfishness) to an actual belief that children who cannot live a "full" life (in the worldly sense) are better off dead. This is far worse."

I agree.