Because it’s completely logical. Follow this example. Let’s assume that a mother has the amniocentesis test to be sure that she is not carrying a Down’s syndrome baby. If it is positive, she definitely intends to have the unborn baby killed by abortion. In this instance, the test is normal.

But, when the baby is born, he turns out to have Down’s syndrome. The test was mistaken. Now what? If she had identified the baby’s condition before birth, she would have "solved" the problem by killing the tiny patient.

Why not kill the baby now?

Same Patient

Same Problem

The Australian ethicist, Peter Singer, wrote that the sanctity-of-life view, the "religious mumbo-jumbo," should be stripped away. "Species membership in Homo-sapiens is not morally relevant." If we "compare a dog or a pig to a severely defective infant," he said, "we often find the non-human to have superior capacities." To Singer, quality of life is the only guide.

"Children from the Laboratory,"
J. Watson, AMA Prism, Ch. 3, p. 2, May 1973

In a series of 150 unselected spina bifida patients questioned as older children, all were asked whether their handicaps made life not worth living and should they have been "allowed to die" after birth. Their unanimous response was forceful. Of course they wanted to live! In fact, they thought the question was ridiculous.

W. Peacock, Pers. Comm. to D. Shewmon in
"Active Voluntary Euthanasia," Issues in
Law & Medicine, 1987.

Dr. C. Everett Koop, prior to becoming Surgeon General of the U.S., spent his life as a pediatric surgeon repairing "nature’s mistakes." For some children this meant 30 or more operations. At one reunion of the "kids" he repaired (with all the pain and disability these entailed), he asked if they had to start over, would they want the surgery again? These young people unanimously said "yes."

Do you treat, care for, and help a sick or disabled person, or do you kill him? Do you measure the value of a person’s life in money? Or in utilitarian usefulness?

The cost to society to care for all the physically and mentally handicapped among us is but a tiny fraction of the cost to society for the morally deformed among us.

Professor Jerome Lejeune, discoverer of the chromosomal pattern of Down’s syndrome once related to us a story he had heard from a geneticist colleague which illustrates this well:

"Many years ago, my father was a Jewish physician in Braunau, Austria. On one particular day, two babies had been delivered by one of his colleagues. One was a fine, healthy boy with a strong cry. His parents were extremely proud and happy. The other was a little girl, but her parents were extremely sad, for she was a Mongoloid baby. I followed them both for almost fifty years. The girl grew up, living at home, and was finally destined to be the one who nursed her mother through a very long and lingering illness after a stroke. I do not remember her name. I do, however, remember the boy’s name. He died in a bunker in Berlin. His name was Adolf Hitler."

Dr. D. McLone & Colleagues reported on a series of almost 1,000 unselected cases of spina bifida which they had aggressively treated.

D. McLone et al., "Concepts in the Management of
"Spina Bifida," Concepts in Pediatric Neuro- surgery
33 (1986): 359-370

And if the parents don’t want such an infant, there are organizations like the Spina Bifida Association of America, with over 100 couples on its waiting list, wanting to adopt an infant with spina bifida. (Write J. Grafstron, 1955 Florida Ave., Xenia, OH 45385.) The Michael Fund, 400 Penn Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15146 can give you a similar waiting list.

"Upwards of 80% of Down’s babies will occur to younger mothers" under 35.

Even so:

at a maternal age of 30, 99.9% of babies do not have it,

at a maternal age of 36, 99.6% of babies do not have it,

at a maternal age of 40, 99.1% of babies do not have it.

There is a list of waiting adoptive parents for any Down’s baby (see Michael Fund above).

One of the truly gratifying developments in the last half-century has been the mainstreaming of Down’s people.

These pleasant and functional people now have an average life expectancy of 55 years. Only 2% are born with fatal heart defects, and less than 5% with severe mental retardation. Most now can lead semi or completely independent lives and enter the workforce in some type of supported employment. Others are competitively employed.

Every year in the U.S. about 4 million babies are born. Of these, 5,000 have Down’s Syndrome, 1,500 have Spina Bifida and 2,000 have Cystic Fibrosis.

The classic studies on this were done during a major Rubella epidemic. Of the 16.9% of children who develop defects when their mothers get Rubella while pregnant:

There are no reported cases of significant damage to the babies who were born after such vaccination. For example, "none of the live-born infants had serologic or clinical evidence of congenital rubella."

S. Wyall & K. Herrmann, "Inadvertent Rubella Vaccination of
Pregnant Women," Jour. Amer. Med. Assn., vol. 225, 1973, p. 1472

Rubella Vaccine probably poses no threat to fetuses whose mothers are vaccinated around the time of conception. All newborns tested in this study were negative.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control, U.S. Public Health Services, in a report covering 1971 through 1982, reported on 959 pregnant women who were vaccinated while pregnant. They reported no evidence of Rubella-induced defects. The very few abnormalities found were "expected" in such a large number.

Only about 25% of babies born of HIV-infected mothers are born infected. Sadly, there is no cure.

Happily not, with the one exception of Down’s. A major study of 27,000 cases of birth defects demonstrated clearly that older women (over 35) have no greater risk than younger women. This survey looked at 43 defects including spina bifida, cleft palate, heart defects and limb deformities. It even showed that hypertrophic pyloric stenosis, patent ductus arteriosis and dislocated hips decline after age 30.

Any talk about breeding out genetic diseases is a lot of nonsense. Seriously affected persons are unlikely to marry and have children; the genes are passed along by carriers. For instance, there are 40 carriers for every person with sickle cell anemia. If every victim of this disease were eliminated, it would require 750 years just to cut the incidence in half; to stamp it out altogether would require 200,000 abortions for every 500,000 couples. Because each "normal" person is the carrier of three or four bad genes, the only way to eliminate genetic diseases would be to sterilize or abort everybody.

"Interruption of pregnancy is never justified because of the radiation risk to the embryo/fetus from a diagnostic X-ray exam, abdominal or peripheral."

Very poorly. One study reported maternal depression of 92% and paternal depression of 82%, plus a 30% incidence of marital separation after the abortion.

Blumberg et al., "Psychiatric Sequelae of Abortion for
Genetic Indication," Amer. Jour. OB/GYN,
vol. 122, no. 7, Aug. 1975, pp. 799-780

By amniocentesis, the alpha-fetoprotein test, and chorionic villi sampling. And later in pregnancy by ultrasound exams.

It involves taking a small amount of fluid from the baby’s amniotic sac through a needle inserted into the mother’s abdomen and uterine wall. The cells in the fluid are cultured and examined a month later. Certain chemicals in the fluid can also be measured. It is done in the midtrimester to diagnose certain conditions.

Both Methylmalonic Acidemia and Biotin deficiency can be discovered in mid pregnancy. Neither, however, is treatable until later in the third trimester.

Toxoplasmosis infection of the mother can infect her fetal baby. Treatment in late pregnancy (after the 5th month) can protect the baby.

This is quite different. These are safe, and they are done to help treat and save the lives of both baby and mother. Then it is done for Rh disease, diabetes, fetal lung maturity, etc.

In England and other countries the test itself kills upwards of 1% of the babies tested.

Opinions differ. A very reputable, large English study found that there were 14 fetal deaths in the amniocentesis groups compared to 5 in the control group, severe maternal bleeding in 37 compared to 12, ruptured membranes in 0.5% compared to none, subsequent spontaneous abortion in 2.7% compared to 1.4%, and Rh antibodies developed in 9 compared to 2. Severe postpartum respiratory distress occurred after birth in 30 compared to 9, with 24 major orthopedic abnormalities compared to 1. The overall increased risk to the baby was 300% and the cumulative overall risk of all negative factors to both mother and child was 9.2% compared to 3.3% in the control group. One must also add to this the false positive and false negative test results which resulted in additional "needless" abortion of normal babies.

Royal College of OB/GYN, "An Assessment of Hazards of
Amniocentesis," British Jour. OB/GYN,
vol. 85, Supplement N.2., 1978

In a large follow-up study eight years later, "spontaneous abortion rate was 1.7% in the group with amniocentesis, and 0.7% in the control group."

"Randomized Trial of Amniocentesis in 4606
Low Risk Women" Lancet, 1287, June 7, 1986

There have been no newer large scale studies. Your author has a daily radio commentary. Every time he has discussed this problem, we receive a number of letters recounting the needless loss of normal babies from the test.

It tests the mother’s blood and can reveal that she is probably carrying a child with either an open spine (spina bifida) or anencephaly.

It must be done on blood drawn between her 16th and 18th week of pregnancy. Of 1,000 women, 50 will have positive results. The blood test must then be repeated. This time, only 30 will be positive. An ultra-sound test will then be done and will clear 15, leaving 15 still positive. Then these mothers must have an amniocentesis (1% of babies die from the test). After the necessary four-week wait, the results will pinpoint 1 or 2 babies who have the handicaps, who are 20-22 weeks old, and who weigh 1 to 1-1/2 pounds each.

Even after all of this testing, some of the babies aborted will be normal, and some of the "normals" will be born with the handicap, for the test is not always correct. The test is available, however, is being used, and is required by law in some places. The main problem, even for those who favor abortion, is the level of anxiety created as the elimination process continues. Many who are "cleared" still don’t believe they are "OK" and get abortions on the suspicion that the tests were wrong.

Another report found false positive and negative results varying from 4% to 17.5%.

This sampling, or biopsy, is an exam which involves passing a small instrument through the cervix, in early pregnancy, to cut away a very small piece of the edge of the tissue surrounding the baby. Since this tissue is a part of the baby’s body, it has the same genetic makeup as the rest of the baby. The same information previously could only be obtained by amniocentesis. This allows the parents to "find out" much earlier in pregnancy (9 to 11 weeks).

In the 1980s, when it was first used, it resulted in the loss of the baby in 3.5% to 12% of the times.

As doctors became more expert, the percent of babies killed dropped to the 2-4% range.

Also, a British study reported 3% false positives, i.e., 3% tested abnormal, were killed by abortion and then found to be normal.

It can cause fetal loss through severe oligohydramnios. This is a slow and continuing leakage of amniotic fluid resulting in "spontaneous" abortion at 4 to 12 weeks.

But then studies from Oxford, Milan, Chicago and Taiwan reported clusters of birth defects in infants on whom the test was done. These included missing or shortened fingers and arms, malformed mouths, and brain abnormalities.

To protect their wallets. Doctors have been sued because they did not do the tests and did not discover a handicapped fetus so she could abort. This has produced a compulsion among doctors to have the tests done so as to protect themselves.