Down syndrome: dad keeps son, a mom terminates, and a state tries to ban selective abortions

The mom in the Yahoo story had Sequenom’s MaterniT21 test

Three stories that kicked off 2015 involving Down syndrome have drawn commentary from fellow parent/bloggers worth considering:

From the News page (which has a ton of links to news stories and blog posts concerning Down syndrome):

• Baby Leo, an Armenian ultimatum, & how to spend $500,000

A dad from New Zealand, who was forced to leave his first child with Down syndrome, raised $500,000 through gofundme based on his story that his Armenian wife forced him to choose between their newborn son with Down syndrome and her. She disputed his story. And the internet weighed in.

Here’s a pretty comprehensive report on the story, my take on it, and a post from Meriah Nichols that was picked up by Huffington Post, which then was posted by an Armenian site as through Nichols was the wife in the story–Nichols lives in a different hemisphere.

• Why a mom terminated after learning her child had Down syndrome

A mom shared via YahooParenting her reasons for terminating after finding out prenatally her child had Down syndrome. I wrote about her account as did Maureen Wallace, on why she didn’t terminate after a prenatal result. Some of the comments to Wallace’s piece are vile and should be taken down by the hosting website.

• Pro-life measures featuring Down syndrome

Indiana has two bills making their way through the state legislature featuring Down syndrome promoted by Indiana Right to Life. I wrote on both in separate posts here and here, and David Perry has written on them, most recently here.