The new ethical controversy?

[piercehawkeye45]

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/...nclick_check=1

At his kitchen table, John Ginther flips through photos of his son, Bobby.

Here is Bobby at a wedding, he says. Here's Bobby at a walk-a-thon, Bobby in a water park, Bobby with his sister.

The pictures show a boy with Down syndrome, doing things every 10-year-old boy does. It pains Ginther to think of a future without more children like Bobby - a future without Down syndrome.

"Look at these pictures, and tell me it's a bad thing," says Ginther defiantly. "It is not a disease. It should not be eliminated."

With those soft-spoken words, Ginther thrust himself into the medical debate of the future.

Thanks to advances in genetic testing and prenatal screening, science is winning the war against ailments that have plagued mankind for centuries.

But mankind may not want the victories.

I have thought about this before as a huge ethical problem if I ever decide to have children and I'm sure many of you guys having children or planning on it have thought about this as well. Not an issue I really like discussing but it is important for every parent to think about so here we go...

Just like abortion, this deals with the idea of choice and life but in a different flavor. How ethical is it to be able to screen for disabilities like Down Syndrome and parent's reactions to them?

[Aliantha]

For some parents it's too much to think about and so they terminate the child. At least, that's the option over here.

I don't think it'd be an option for me and my husband. In fact, we spoke about this very subject just this weekend gone knowing that we're trying to fall pregnant, but getting older and are more likely to have birth defects in a child, the older we get.

I think it's up to the parents to decide though, and most couples that go through these types of procedures are most likely to consider all the eventualities.

[DucksNuts]

I watched friend of the family go through some awful times with their handicapped daughter.

She is 40 something now, with the mind of a 5 year old and some of the things she does to her elderly parents is horrific.

They were nearly 40 when they had her, she beats them up regularly and they have a hell of a time discipling her.

I have a close girlfriend who has a young child with down syndrome and he is the most gorgeous little boy....everyone just loves him completely.

They are members of a small community and we will go to school with kids that have known him since he was born and cherish him for the beautiful little boy he is....would this be different in a huge school? I dont know.

I believe it is the right of the parents to have all the tests they can afford.

A lot of doctors will recommend the tests to mothers who's worrying is getting out of control and not beneficial to a healthy pregnancy.

It can also be seriously traumatic to have something like this thrust upon you at birth, rather than having months to come to terms with it.

I would prefer pregnant couples have all the information at hand and be able to make informed decisions that is best for them, whether that be to terminate or mentally prepare themselves for the journey they will be embarking.

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally Posted by DucksNuts

[snip]

I believe it is the right of the parents to have all the tests they can afford.

[snip]

It can also be seriously traumatic to have something like this thrust upon you at birth, rather than having months to come to terms with it.

I would prefer pregnant couples have all the information at hand and be able to make informed decisions that is best for them, whether that be to terminate or mentally prepare themselves for the journey they will be embarking.

I agree with this. In some cases, genetic screening can change a child's life. A friend of mine found out that he and his wife were having a child with spina bifida. Because it was caught early, they were able to correct it in utero. Then there are children who are, say, hydroencephalatic. They're going to die, usually soon after birth. I wouldn't want my child to have a few hours of misery just to satisfy someone else's idea of morality.

Some people can deal with extreme birth defects. Some can't, for whatever reason: emotional, financial, whatever. Personally I don't like the use of abortion as birth control; I think adoption is a better choice. But I think that couples should have all the information they can get, for exactly the above reason: so that they can mentally prepare themselves to deal with it, or decide whether or not to choose another option.

[freshnesschronic]

Science is at our disposal.
Modern medicine must be used.
Now I don't know about aborting retarded fetuses or whatever but I just think that the more advanced medicine becomes the more obligated we are to use it to better mankind. Already we are living longer, healthier lives. It's in due course, in my opinion.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by freshnesschronic

...

What a controversial opinion!

[glatt]

I think abortion should, as a rule, always be legal. That means I have no problem with abortion being legal for parents who want to prevent their Downs fetuses from being born. But it makes me a little queasy.

A friend of mine had a baby/fetus that she aborted because it had a serious birth defect. One that would cause the baby, if born, to have a short and painful life that might last as long as a month or two in the hospital. It was a gut wrenching decision for her, but I think she did the right thing. I have no problem with that at all.

So I support and even encourage having an abortion when the fetus has a serious birth defect like the one above.

Downs is tougher. To make it personal, I've got a mentally retarded cousin, and while she has been quite a burden at times for her family, she is living on her own now, and leads a good and productive life. She's a great person. I'd be horrified at the thought of killing her.

To me, though, abortion isn't killing a person. It's more like erasing the life that could have been. It's hard to image what life would be like for me and my extended family if my cousin had never been in it. Maybe it would be a better life for us, maybe it would be worse. Who are we to even be making that choice? Well, this gets into religious beliefs and the morals/ethics of each family. So I'm going to cop out and say that it's really up to the parents. And I'm OK with that.

[queequeger]

I don't think screening prenatally for disease (or curing it, removing it) could be looked at as a bad thing under any context (except maybe religious). I don't see it any different from a more traditional immunization. I think the reason this fellow thought it's not something he wanted to get rid of, is that this is what he's used to. Making his son healthy would mean making him a different person, and he obviously loves the person his son is.

[lookout123]

Already we are living longer, healthier lives.

is that good?


But back to the issue. A close friend of mine and his wife were told after all the tests that their daughter would be born with Down's. He discussed abortion, how hard life would be, etc. Their daughter is now 7 and absolutely healthy. no defects whatsoever.

[Jeboduuza]

Survival of the fittest?

[Clodfobble]

I agree with glatt. The other thing you have to remember is, specifically with Down's Syndrome, there is no foolproof test before birth. They measure the thickness of the skull with ultrasounds, and the thicker the skull, the more likely Down's is. But they can't know for sure until they do a genetic test after the baby is born. A friend of mine was told her baby had a 90% chance of having Down's, and they chose not to abort. Her daughter turned out fine, with absolutely no mental defects. There are many other diseases, however, where they can know for sure.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

The other thing you have to remember is, specifically with Down's Syndrome, there is no foolproof test before birth.

Well, there is amniocentesis, but it's a little risky, and it's never done routinely because of that risk. Around 1% of fetuses are killed by the procedure.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by glatt

Well, there is amniocentesis, but it's a little risky, and it's never done routinely because of that risk. Around 1% of fetuses are killed by the procedure.

For some reason I thought an amnio couldn't be used for Down's testing, but a quick Google search shows I'm clearly wrong. What I don't get is how the test could be wrong, as in lookout's anecdote. Either the extra chromosome is there or it isn't... LabRat? Any clues?

[jinx]

Any tests accuracy is affected by how much of a stoner the lab tech is (my mom worked at a physician services lab for a while, told me some stories...) but in also in this case maybe it's mosaic down's?

Mosaicism

Trisomy 21 is caused prior to conception, and all cells in the body are affected. However, when some of the cells in the body are normal and other cells have trisomy 21, it is called Mosaic Down syndrome (46,XX/47,XX,+21).[10] This can occur in one of two ways: A nondisjunction event during an early cell division in a normal embryo leads to a fraction of the cells with trisomy 21; or a Down syndrome embryo undergoes nondisjunction and some of the cells in the embryo revert to the normal chromosomal arrangement. There is considerable variability in the fraction of trisomy 21, both as a whole and among tissues. This is the cause of 1–2% of the observed Down syndromes.[9]

[lookout123]

sorry, i can't offer any clarification. i'm sure they were told more details but the story goes that they were cautioned about the complications of raising a child with Down's but they chose to go forward anyway. She is a perfectly normal kid. annoying if you ask me, but i guess that makes her normal.:p