=== Amniocentesis. One can never know how you will respond
But it's possible folks of the "Healthy Babies [only]" mindset at the March of Dimes who perfected amnio probably were wagering most would kill the child.
The OB-Gyn of a friend of mine told her when the question came up that, unless she were equal to aborting the child, there was really no point to performing the amnio in the first place. (It's true the March of Dime did perfect the procedure on "to-be-aborted" women for a reason.)
Oh for the day when no one ever knew if they were having a boy or a girl, even.
Mine said the same about the amnio and AFP. We did neither for that same reason. (BTW, neither would have identified my son's special needs)
Just a clarification on the amnio issue. In our case, my wife decided to have the triple screen test done, even though we did not do it for our first child. To this day, she does not know why she decided to do it. The triple screen came back positive for DS - merely meaning that there was an elevated risk (1 in a 100) that our baby had DS. We discussed the option of an amnio with the OB-GYN - someone who is definitely pro-life, along with others whose wisdom we valued.
In the end, we chose to have the amnio for one simple reason - we assumed that the results would come back negative and it would therefore make the remainder of the pregnancy that much easier. And, my wife was far enough along that the risk to the baby was minimal - nowhere near the risk numbers someone posted above (particularly given the skill and experience of our OB-GYN). We concluded that it would be far better to find out that everything was OK, as this would greatly reduce the stress on my wife, which of course puts stress on the baby.
Did it help us knowing ahead of time that our baby had DS? You bet. Sure those first few weeks were hard - harder than anything I have ever had to deal with. But, we were able to be better prepared, and the additional level 3 ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy helped in identifying potential health concerns. And, having dealt with the grief long before made the joy of our son's birth that much more special (particularly given the fact that he had no significant health issues when he was born).
One other thing - when we had the amnio we could have found out with 100% certainty the sex of the baby. We chose not to. Some find that odd, but it did help make our son's birth a bit more exciting. Likewise, we have not found out the sex of our third child, even though once again the amnio would tell us with 100% certainty.