‘Screening’ out Downs Syndrome: The New Eugenics

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC) is recommending the “screening” of all pregnant women for Downs syndrome, with the specific intention of giving them the option to abort. Previously screening was reserved for women over 35, whose chances of bearing a baby with Downs increases significantly.

Already 90% of babies with Downs are aborted, according to the New York Times. What might that number spike to with the new screening guidelines—98%, 100%? How is this nothing less than a ‘silent eugenics’—one not of totalitarian ideology, but of consumer choice?

Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of SOGC told The National Post, “Yes, it’s going to lead to more termination, but it’s going to be fair to these women who are 24 and say, ‘How come I have to raise a baby with Downs whereas my cousin who is 35 does not have to.”

Lalonde’s imaginary 24yr old is precisely the voice of what Newsweek columnist George F Will (whose own son has Downs) calls ‘entitlement mentality’: “Nothing—nothing—in the professional qualifications of obstetricians and gynecologists gives them the standing to adopt policies that predictably will have, and deem intended to have, the effect of increasing abortions in the service of an especially repulsive manifestation of today’s entitlement mentality—every parent’s ‘right’ to a perfect baby.”

This is what happens when a culture loses sight of the profound fact that having a child is not a ‘right’ bestowed upon us by biotechnology, but a gift from the Creator.

And what, as Margaret Somerville warns, will this ‘entitlement mentality’ do to the traditional values of parenting? “Parental love becomes conditional on the child having certain characteristics, and not having others. This is a fundamental change in the shared morality and values on which society has traditionally rested.”

But that is not the only cataclysmic shift unfolding. The other involves the medical profession itself: it is insidiously ironic that a head of a major medical body—which is supposed to be devoted to saving and healing life—has become an advocate for the extermination of life.

Sadly, none of this will change until we see beyond our limited notions of ‘value.’ Thomas Waugh of the Los Angeles Times recently characterized Downs syndrome by “congenital heart defects and mental retardation.” After spending the last year living at Larche, sharing my life with people with Downs, I have to disagree. It is not the mental retardation and heart conditions that characterize them—it is their indomitable spirit and tenderness of heart. They have a gift we could all benefit from, especially those at the SOGC.