For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.--Psalm 139:13
The news out of Europe is that scientists have developed a test whereby they can diagnose Down Syndrome by giving a simple blood test to a pregnant woman. The test results were published in the online journal, Nature Medicine, suggesting that scientists can spot Down Syndrome through fetal DNA that has been shed into the mother's bloodstream.
This is being hailed as good news because it may result in avoiding the necessity of taking a sample of amniotic fluid, which carries the risk of causing a miscarriage, to make a firm diagnosis.
Now I am all for safety in medicine, but I find this news highly disturbing. I can only think of one reason for testing in the first place and that is that doctors will encourage the parents of a potentially Down child to abort the pregnancy.
We are already in an age where we end human life in the womb simply because the child will not be born with our idea of perfection? Where will such thinking end? I think one only has to look to Nazi Germany, whose citizens started out going down this same path, to see our future. A future where life is valuable only because it fits someone's idea of what is acceptable.
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