Patients need to take charge of their own decisions. It does make a difference.
And amnio causes miscarriage 1 time in 300.
I think it is wrong that the alpha-fetoprotein test is now considered a routine prenatal screening. If I were pregnant I would refuse the AFP.
AFP has a huge rate of both false positives and false negatives; it leads to thousands of unnecessary amniocenteses, which themselves can injure or kill the developing baby. But worst of all, it subtly leads literally tens of thousands of women to have an attitude of "tentative pregnancy": that is, if all the testing is OK, then I'm "really pregnant" and I'll go ahead and tell my family; but if my testing shows anything a little off the norm, I'll snuff the baby and nobody will ever know.
This is a society that talks about "tolerance," "diversity," "live and let live," "inclusion." And at the same time, we practically insist that pregnant women practice "hostile surveillance" of their unborn children, with the ever-present option of rejecting and killing the child if the "product" isn't perfect.
There is a big difference between a product and a person.
A product is all about specifications and performance.
A person is all about learning to accept and be accepted, trust and be trusted, love and be loved.
Let's love our babies. That's what we're here for.