Posted on 05/13/2007 1:20:06 AM PDT by neverdem
SARAHLYNN LESTER, 32, considers herself a supporter of abortion rights. She gives money to the National Abortion Rights Action League and volunteers for Planned Parenthood.
But as a woman who continued a pregnancy after learning that her child would have Down syndrome, she also has beliefs about the ethics of choosing, or not choosing, certain kinds of children.
“I thought it would be morally wrong to have an abortion for a child that had a genetic disability,” said Ms. Lester, a marketing manager in St. Louis.
As prenatal tests make it possible to identify fetuses that will have mental retardation, deafness, early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and a range of other conditions, such personal deliberations are adding a new layer to the fraught political debate over abortion.
Abortion rights supporters — who believe that a woman has the right to make decisions about her own body — have had to grapple with the reality that the right to choose may well be used selectively to abort fetuses deemed genetically undesirable. And many are finding that, while they support a woman’s right to have an abortion if she does not want to have a baby, they are less comfortable when abortion is used by women who don’t want to have a particular baby.
“How much choice do you really want to give?” asked Arthur Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “That’s the challenge of prenatal testing to pro-choicers.”
For many women and their partners, the decision to terminate a pregnancy after a prenatal diagnosis of a serious genetic defect can be harrowing, often coming after a painful assessment of their own...
--snip--
“But isn’t there something equivalent for social liberals? Shouldn’t they have moral standards about what reasons are acceptable for an abortion?”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping
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It is good that Ms Lester chose to keep her Down’s Syndrome baby but why did she do the genetic testing in the first place?
Actually it does, good try NYTimes.
Moral standards for an abortion??? I can just imagine what they'll come up with . . . something like, abort every child that isn't a gay minority and nearly certain to vote Democrat.
Ping-a-ling.
Maybe there is a history of it in the family or she is an older mother and she was advised to take the test and that she felt that she wanted to be prepared rather than it come as a shock.
But it's morally alright to abort a child just because you don't feel like carrying it and giving birth to it.
Uh-huh...
>>“How much choice do you really want to give?” asked Arthur Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “That’s the challenge of prenatal testing to pro-choicers.”<<
You can already see in India and China how just being able tell the sex of the baby before birth effects the population - genetic info would have even more effect, I would think.
The standard triple screen (AFP, bHCG, estriol) lets you know whether a Downs child or one with a neural tube defect is likely.
But unless a mom is willing to abort, there’s no need to do the test. I wouldn’t.
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