Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

We have done a few newsletters on this topic as well as having a section on our web site due to  an increase in the numbers of abortions due to adverse diagnosis. Obviously, this article is about more "search and destroy", which leads to the parents being pressured to abort, and even made to feel guilty if they choose to continue with the pregnancy.

On the other side there are some great resources out there now, and they are growing all the time. "Be Not Afraid" is a wonderful resource, as well as Prenatal Partners for Life and here in the NY area we haveThe GIanna Center.

Prenatal Testing Leading to Abortions of Disabled Babies is Eugenics

by Mark Leach | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 9/18/12 11:15 AM

Calling fetuses defective if they are prenatally diagnosed with genetic conditions foreshadows a dangerous path toward eugenics.

This year has seen a rash of medical studies reporting on
developments in cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) prenatal testing. Not too
long ago, one commentator cautioned that as prenatal genetic testing
becomes more pervasive, our society risks developing a “eugenics common sense.” The reporting on the new cffDNA testing suggests that some have already developed this sensibility.

In October 2011, Sequenom, a publicly traded company, introduced
its version of cffDNA prenatal testing. As the name suggests, floating
in each expectant mother’s blood stream are bits of DNA from the child
she is carrying. The new testing procedure tests this fetal DNA and can
detect with the greatest reported sensitivity whether the fetus has Down
syndrome. Because of false positives, cffDNA testing remains a
screening-type test, providing a reassessment of the likelihood that the
child has Down syndrome; it is not a diagnostic test, yet.

Sequenom’s
competitors Verinata and Ariosa entered the market this year with their
versions of cffDNA testing. Like Sequenom, they heralded their testing
with medical journal articles and press releases. Reporting on these new
tests has employed language with a notable eugenics lexicon.

In his recent column for Slate–headlined “Fetal Flaw“–Will
Saletan praised the advances in prenatal testing for informing mothers
if they are pregnant with a “defective fetus.” Saletan used the new
tests as a wedge in abortion politics. Citing various polls, he argued
that it will be difficult for pro-lifers to persuade a majority to be
opposed to this new testing, even though Saletan rightly expects that
the numbers of abortions will increase. Because it would be difficult to
enforce any prohibition against aborting for specific reasons–such as
the recent attempt
by the House of Representatives to make sex-selective abortion
illegal–Saletan almost gloats that the new tests will allow for even
more eugenic abortions, i.e., abortions due to the fetus’s genetic make-up.

The rest is here:http://www.lifenews.com/2012/09/18/prenatal-testing-leading-to-abortions-of-disabled-babies-is-eugenics/

Here is an article I wrote about it a few years ago that was published in Celebrate Life.