Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Prenatal Testing for Down Syndrome Dangerous for All Babies

Prenatal Testing for Down Syndrome Dangerous for All Babies:
A study published by Down Syndrome Education International, a British charity organization, reports that invasive prenatal testing kills 400 healthy babies a year who had been identified as having the condition by false-positive blood tests, The Telegraph reported.

The testing also results in annual abortions of 660 British babies with Down syndrome who would have survived until birth if the pregnancies were allowed to progress, Frank Buckley and Sue Buckley wrote in the online version of Down Syndrome Research and Practice.

...
'When widespread prenatal whole genome screening becomes a possibility, many of the troubling issues raised by our experiences of screening for Down syndrome will be brought into sharper focus,' the Buckleys continued.


That's putting it mildly.

The NRLC article also cites another study showing that a shocking 92% of English and Welsh infants whose Down syndrome is identified in utero are aborted.

1 comment:

Ana Braga-Henebry said...

Nice to see your new blog, ScienceMom!