The above photo was shared by my kids’ maternal grandmother today, and it made me very happy and winsome for a time of such innocence. Elsewhere, someone wrote something stupid and bigoted on Twitter that made me sad and infuriated. But, unfortunately, it was further evidence that, in the end, prenatal genetic testing’s administration is to allow for eugenic abortions.
My kids’ mom texted me the photo above around midday today. Her mom had found a photograph (read: not a .gif or .jpeg) of our kids when they were around four and two years old. They are sitting on the side of their grandparents’ Alabama-shaped pool. My daughter is doing her best “smolder” look, while my son looks like the chillest dude.
The photo reminded me of that wonderful time most new families get to enjoy: when the kids have not learned “no” and disobedience is not an option; when they genuinely are each other’s best friends; and, when their joy is the purest they’ll ever experience and the parents get to enjoy it vicariously. I was incredibly happy and winsome looking at the photo.
And, then, I made the modern-day error of checking social media, specifically Twitter.
A professor I followed posted along the lines, “For those wondering why ‘Down syndrome’ is trending, it’s because someone has argued against the Supreme Court allowing a Texas abortion ban to go into effect because it will result in more kids with Down syndrome being born.”
WHAT?
At the end of this post, I’ll directly address the Ivy-school educated guy who posted a very stupid and bigoted, and then when called on it, cowardly post. I don’t want to highlight him and feed his troll appetite for clicks and attention. But, I do want to address his argument as it is emblematic of the fundamental justification for prenatal genetic testing, which manifests in how it is actually administered.
Prenatal Genetic Testing is to provide for the option of abortion
The guy’s argument basically boiled down to this:
- The U.S. Supreme Court, by denying a request for an injunction, allowed a Texas law to go into effect where anyone can sue anyone who assists in an abortion where there was a fetal heartbeat, typically around six weeks into the pregnancy.
- Prenatal genetic testing isn’t available until ten weeks into a pregnancy.
- Therefore, the Supreme Court was wrong because now more babies with Down syndrome will be born in Texas who otherwise would have been diagnosed prenatally and terminated.
Now, his logic that if abortions are banned after six weeks and a mother won’t be able to find out if her child has Down syndrome until after 10 weeks, then it can be expected that there will be more babies with Down syndrome born is not, in and of itself, incorrect. His judgment that it is wrong for this to happen, well, that’s another thing.
But, what I want to highlight is that while it appears it’s mostly just this guy seeking attention, his logic is, in fact, imbedded in the justification and then manifested in the administration of prenatal genetic testing.
As I’ve written more extensively at this post , when the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) changed the standard of care to offer prenatal genetic testing to all expectant mothers, they listed four justifications:
- To provide reassurance to the mother that the child does not have the tested-for condition.
- To provide the opportunity for prenatal treatments, if they exist.
- To allow for safer deliveries at appropriate birthing centers. And,
- To allow for the option of terminating the pregnancy.
The post linked above explains in detail why the first three justifications do not apply in the case of Down syndrome:
- There have been zero studies that find there is a medical benefit for being “reassured” for a condition that, odds are, almost all of the women tested were not going to have anyways.
- There are no prenatal treatments for Down syndrome. And,
- There are no studies finding a prenatal diagnosis results in safer births. So,
- The only justification remaining for prenatal testing for Down syndrome is to allow for abortion.
With this being the only applicable justification, it has bled over into how prenatal genetic testing is administered.
Practitioners Offer Prenatal Testing & Counsel About Abortion, But Fail to Provide Other Recommended Prenatal Educational Resources
Defenders of the current practice of offering prenatal genetic testing to all mothers emphasize that prenatal genetic testing is value neutral and simply provides information. However, again, as detailed in a litany of posts on this site, practitioners only always provide the opportunity to know prenatally through the offer of prenatal genetic testing and then counsel their patients about termination. They rarely if ever mention adoption as an option, and more often than not, they do not provide the educational and support resources recommended in the same guidelines for assisting women with understanding what a Down syndrome diagnosis or test results means.
As a result, the administration of prenatal testing reflects the only medical justification for it: an emphasis on allowing for selective abortions.
That this is so pervasive in our culture is reflected in the ease with which the internet foisted a simple, dumb, bigoted argument in opposition to a US Supreme Court ruling because the issue had to deal with whether a woman could get an abortion after six weeks or not.
Wrong on the numbers, wrong on the effect, wrong for being a bigot
So, now I’ll address the Tweets about Down syndrome and the Texas law. If you want to see them in full, the Daily Caller ran a rapid column collecting them. You can see the poster’s name there and the exact language used. Again, because I don’t want to give him any more attention personally, but just address his arguments, which echo those of other self-described “academics”, I’ll simply make my argument here without highlighting him.
In two tweets, in an effort to argue that the Texas law is wrong, the guy uses as an example what apparently is meant to be a horrible side effect of the law. He begins with an incorrect premise: that 80% of pregnancies positive for Down syndrome are aborted. Leaping off from a wrong place, not surprisingly, he ends in a wrong-er place: that if Texas-type laws are adopted in similar conservative states, then, *aghast*, those states could have quintuple the number of babies born with Down syndrome.
Put aside (for a few paragraphs) the bigotry that having more people with Down syndrome is obviously something to be avoided, i.e. a bad thing, the dude simply doesn’t understand what the percentages are, what the research has been on abortions and births of people with Down syndrome, and, ergo, what actual effect it would have.
He conflates the reported termination rate as applying to all pregnancies. But, of course, that rate only applies to whatever the percentage is of expectant mothers who receive an actual prenatal diagnosis. The most current statistics are that about 70% of all pregnancies have some form of prenatal testing, but the number that go all the way to a diagnosis, which involves the risk of miscarriage, is much less than that percentage.
With that fundamental misunderstanding is how he then gets to the “scare” number of a 5X multiplication of births with Down syndrome. In fact, estimates by the most respected researchers in this area are that there would not be a 5-fold increase, but rather an increase from around 5,000 live births with Down syndrome, to around 7,500–or a 50% increase, not a 500% increase.
So, he’s wrong on the numbers, he’s wrong on the percentages, and he’s wrong on net effect. But other than that, well, he’s a cowardly bigot.
In a follow up tweet, almost jokingly, he alludes to the negative stereotype of people living in red states being not that smart, and that an influx of a huge generation of children with Down syndrome would only exacerbate that negative stereotype. You get it right: us folks down in red states like my home state of Kentucky are just backward hicks and then we’d have a whole bunch more of retarded babies, makin’ us even stupider.
When someone called him out on his prejudicial argument, he tucked his tail and cowered saying he hadn’t even said it would be bad if there were more babies with Down syndrome born. But, what else was the point he was trying to make? Hence his backsliding to minimize his own argument reveals that at some level he even understands how awful it was (if only to hopefully preserve whatever position he currently holds).
Ignorant misunderstanding of what can be a wonderful life
What infuriates me about the argument I’m responding to is how cavalierly it is made with no second-thought of any lasting consequence. If you were to sub out “Down syndrome” and insert a condition that also can’t be tested for until beyond six weeks, the wrongful discrimination of the position would be apparent.
The most selected against genetic condition is not Down syndrome in terms of sheer numbers: it’s “female.” In certain countries and cultures that prioritize sons over daughters, there is a gendercide against newborn baby girls. Sometimes, even post-natally, but especially when prenatal testing identifies a fetus as a girl, the rate of terminations is so large it has skewed the sex ratio in these countries. Sex typically is not identified before six weeks. But, would this guy–or anyone else–cite that as an example of the wrongness of the Texas abortion law? That, it would prevent a mother from aborting her fetus for being a girl? And, how the negative effect of the law would be that more women are born?
Of course not.
But, not so with Down syndrome. This guy thought nothing of making “Down syndrome” the means for meeting his end of arguing against the Texas law, and, as the links above show, others, too, regularly make this case.
I expect for most it is because they have limited to no exposure to having a true relationship with someone with the condition. I was no different than they until my daughter was born. It would have been impossible for me to foresee how good a life ours is, and today is just one example.
An otherwise, good, typical day with my daughter with Down syndrome
My day began with a wonderful photo texted to me by a dad who succeeded me as board chair for our local Down syndrome support organization. It was a picture of my kids and his son (who happens to have Down syndrome) playing at his house when they were toddlers.
I then drove my daughter to her high school, talking along the way of what she had to look forward to at school. While she was attending classes, I received the photo above from her mom by way of her grand mom. Two wonderful pics in the same day taking me back to one of the happiest times of my life, and happy because of, not in spite of, my daughter.
After school, I picked my daughter up from cheerleading practice; she was sitting in my mother’s car (who was there to pick up my daughter’s cousin) chatting away as she held her cousin’s chihuahua on her lap. We picked her brother up from cross-country practice and both enjoyed a smoothie. She reminded me I needed to buy a new hairdryer, so we went to a CVS to buy that. We ate tacos for dinner, where she instructed the server to make sure hers wasn’t too spicy. We came home and as I typed out this blog post, she texted me that she was studying for a test tomorrow and asked me to make her her lunch for school.
I imagine there are thousands of other families who had a similar day just like mine, aside from possibly getting two super cute photos from their kids’ toddler years. But, this guy, despite being described as a scholar, likely never even considered that he was talking about a condition that he, in fact, knew absolutely nothing about.
His loss. Fortunately not mine. And fortunately not our world’s, for the lives of those with Down syndrome being in it.
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