By Sarah Terzo Rayna Rapp interviewed counselors at genetic clinics where women came to have their babies tested for disabilities including Down syndrome. The counselors then discussed with the women whether or not they would have abortions. Many of the women who came in aborted when they found out that their babies would have a …
Continue reading "Genetic counselors and sex selection abortions"By Dave Andrusko It’s bad enough that the Daily Mail reported that as a result of new tests, the number of babies diagnosed with genetic anomalies who were aborted soared by 34% between 2011 and 2014 [www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3123078/New-blood-test-blamed-women-choosing-abort-babies-s-syndrome-disabilities-soars-34-three-years.html]. But it gets worse. Tucked away in the story, written by Jo MacFarlane, is that until recently, the blood …
Continue reading "New blood test=large increase in babies diagnosed with medical problems who are aborted"By Sarah Terzo Rayna Rapp interviewed counselors at genetic clinics where women came to have their babies tested for disabilities including Down syndrome. The counselors then discussed with the women whether or not they would have abortions. Many of the women who came in aborted when they found out that their babies would have …
Continue reading "Genetic counselors and sex selection abortions"By Dave Andrusko After all this time, I still have to remind myself that writers (and certainly those not working for a newspaper) don’t write headlines. That’s why “My view: Parental pains, birth defects and abortion” can be so neutral when W. Brett Branham’s analysis and conclusions are so hugely life-affirming. I saw the …
Continue reading "“Regardless of size, shape or differences, each unborn child is one of a kind”"By Wesley J. Smith More boys than girls have autism, so now, an Australian IVF clinic will search out male embryos for destruction before implantation, e.g., sex selection. A bioethicist thinks that accepting pre-natal autism cleansing needs to be respectfully debated. From, “Prenatal Screening and Autism,” by Andrew Whitehouse: “The internet was ablaze last week …
Continue reading "Eugenic Pre-Natal Cleansing Spreads to Autism"By Dave Andrusko A nationwide study of 4,400 women published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine found that scanning the genes of unborn babies “reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does,” according to Marilynn Marchione, Chief Medical Writer for the Associated Press. The study, led by Dr. Uma Reddy …
Continue reading "New England Journal of Medicine study could spur call for wider use of prenatal genetic scanning"By Richard Weikart Recently Oxford philosophy professor Julian Savulescu moved his campaign for “moral enhancement” out of the ivory tower and into the mainstream. This month Reader’s Digest is carrying his article, “It’s Our Duty to Have Designer Babies,” in which he promotes the idea that “people have a moral obligation to select ethically better …
Continue reading "The New Eugenics: Engineering “Moral Enhancement” by embryo screening and selective abortion"By Dave Andrusko We’ve written two stories about a very important topic—a new noninvasive procedure that may allow women someday to test their unborn babies for more than 3,500 genetic disorders. Needless to add, there are ethical concerns galore in opening this “Pandora’s Box,” as NPR’s Rob Stein described it. The research, published in the …
Continue reading "New Test opens “Pandora’s Box”"By Peter Saunders Editor’s note. Dr. Saunders is a former general surgeon and CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organization with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. A consultant in genetic medicine has said that he believes new technologies that enable doctors to search out and discard human embryos with severe …
Continue reading "Geneticist claims that weeding out embryos with severe genetic abnormalities is ‘a tremendous blessing and a wonderful thing’"By Wesley J. Smith Editor’s note. This appears at Wesley’s terrific blog. As we have discussed here before, preventive screening has, in some cases, become controversial. Example: PSA blood tests for signs of prostate cancer. Some believe that false positives can lead to unnecessary further testing or treatment–adding to the strain on health care resources …
Continue reading "Infant Genetic Screening Financial and “Quality of Life Ethic” Worries"