Oversold prenatal tests spur some to choose abortions

https://www.bostonglobe.com ^ | December 14, 2014 | Beth Daley

[Maelstorm]

BERKLEY — Stacie Chapman’s heart skipped when she answered the phone at home and her doctor — rather than a nurse — was on the line. More worrisome was the doctor’s gentle tone as she asked, “Where are you?”

On that spring day in 2013, Dr. Jayme Sloan had bad news for Chapman, who was nearly three months pregnant. Her unborn child had tested positive for Edwards syndrome, a genetic condition associated with severe birth defects. If her baby — a boy, the screening test had shown — was born alive, he probably would not live long.

Sloan explained that the test — MaterniT21 PLUS — has a 99 percent detection rate. Though Sloan offered additional testing to confirm the result, a distraught Chapman said she wanted to terminate the pregnancy immediately.

What she — and the doctor — did not understand, Chapman’s medical records indicate, was that there was a good chance her screening result was wrong. There is, it turns out, a huge and crucial difference between a test that can detect a potential problem and one reliable enough to diagnose a life-threatening condition for certain. The screening test only does the first.

Sparked by the sequencing of the human genome a decade ago, a new generation of prenatal screening tests, including MaterniT21, has exploded onto the market in the past three years. The unregulated screens claim to detect with near-perfect accuracy the risk that a fetus may have Down or Edwards syndromes, and a growing list of other chromosomal abnormalities.

[Maelstorm]

Luckily the mother did not abort and her baby was born and was perfectly fine. Beware Genetic Counselors and Genetic tests. We had a friend who went through a very similar scenario and was told there was a good chance her daughter would be retarded. She was distraught thankfully she also did not abort because her daughter was also born perfectly fine. It wasn't till our last child did we encounter the dreaded "Genetic Counselor" who was virtually forced on us. She kept pushing for my wife to get an amniocentesis. Eventually I just told her during a visit that we were prolife and it wouldn't matter what was found we'd be having the baby. We had a perfect baby boy.

[Maelstorm]

BTW: what could be done to hamper over reliance on these tests is to pass legislation making doctors financially responsible for damages in the event the test results are wrong and a healthy baby is aborted. I don’t like to make life more difficult for Drs but I think when a life is at stake they need to not be so eager to recommend or drive a patient to the abortion conclusion and the quickest way to prevent that is through financial cost.

[txnativegop]

I wonder how many of the pro-abortion crowd are actually un-medicated homicidal psychopaths?

In story after story like this, the pro-abortion individual is always seems just a little too eager to sell the abortion.

Or is the reason something even more crass? Money?

[Maelstorm]

These “genetic counselors” aren’t cheap. They should try to be impartial they get paid regardless. I’ve debated with the pro-abortion types for years and some of them are just monsters inside. They see the only right choice as abortion and the population Nazis are some of the worst because they think that every child aborted is good for the planet. There is a lot of poison against having children and families and it feeds into this.

[Bubba_Leroy]

The eugenics goal of Planned Parenthood is coming to fruition.

[txnativegop]

I guess I’m just not normal (by today’s standards); I don’t understand that type of mindset.

[Maelstorm]

I don’t think most have that kind of mindset but the problem is that they have a position of power that allows them to pressure women and if they are wrong there is no recourse. The one thing that conservatives need to do is focus on strengthening the recourse by providing more legal protections for pregnant women. The left is expert at doing this on issues that matter to them because they know threat of lawsuit and losing $$$ is a big motivator and big behavior modifier. I don’t like it but we can’t continue operating as if we live in a world of perfect.

[Neidermeyer]

We went through this cr*p ,, for us it was a false positive for Trisomy18 ... I think the tests were demanded by our insurance company because of my wifes age... something needs to be done about using unreliable screening tests in this way. My oldest son is now at the top of his 5th grade class..