Can a New Blood Test Make Babies with Down Syndrome Disappear? – TIME Healthland
What if new tests for Down syndrome could one day mean no more affected babies are born? Is that cause to celebrate medical advances or reason to worry we are callously weeding out the less-than-perfect in our midst?
The possibility is on the horizon now that researchers in Hong Kong have announced they've developed a test that relies on DNA technology to scan the mother's blood for indications of Down syndrome. The new screen could help most moms-to-be — 98%, according to the authors — avoid more invasive forms of testing.
“This test brings a lot of anticipation and welcome benefit, but it ushers in a whole host of provocative questions,” says Brian Skotko, a doctor in the Down syndrome program at Children's Hospital Boston who also chairs the clinical advisory board for the National Down Syndrome Society. (More on Time.com: 5 Things for the New Mom Who Has Everything)
Also called trisomy 21, Down syndrome means a fetus carries an extraneous copy of the 21st chromosome; the physical and mental impairments that result occur in about 1 of every 800 births. Women over 35 — classified as “AMA,” or “advanced medical age” — are at greater risk. [...]
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If the concern of doctors is really that their parents won't have adequate counseling available, other parents are available all over the Internet who can give them first-hand accounts of all the different ways they've met the challenges unique to this condition, where they found help, and also accounts from those who've chosen, one way or another, not to meet those challenges. That would be the best form of counseling there is, and probably offer a fair number of the up to 90% who apparently abort pregnancies where Down's is detected hope that they might not need to do so. Perhaps the test to detect it will lead to a way to repair the DNA, too, who knows. That'd be cool. :)
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