So sad

I'm all for being prepared, but there's no question that the intent of this new set of non-invasive prenatal testing (in the article posted below) is not to help parents to be prepared to either parent a special child with Down syndrome or prepare themselves for releasing the child for adoption if they don't feel they can parent that child.  No, it's to lower the risk to 'normal, healthy' fetus when checking for Down syndrome and allow those with Down syndrome to be aborted more easily.


Over 95% of babies diagnosed before birth in the USA are aborted.  Seriously.

Worldwide that number is even higher based on cultural expectations for our kids.

Would the world really be a better place if no one was born with intellectual delays?  Would it be a more perfect and pure place?  Or would we just be digging in our heels, much like Hitler did, to say "let's purify the race and make it as I see it to be perfect"?

What happened to I knew you before you were born (Jeremiah 1:5) and I formed you in your mother's womb (Psalm 139:13)?

I can't imagine my life without my 5 children with Down syndrome. They bring so much joy, so much fulfillment, and I can promise you that they love their lives too.

Who is going to tell them that their mothers should have had a blood screening before they were born so that they didn't have to suffer through their lives???  

That is the message that the new prenatal testing sends.  It says "Let's know for sure with non invasive procedures so that if the child will have Down syndrome we can dispose of it before it is able to be called murder."

It's a sad reality.  And it's not some weird theory of mine. It's the truth of the current viewpoint in the medical world and-- apparently-- in about 95% of people who are told that their baby would be born with Down syndrome... but they instead aborted it.

Just Sad.
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Here's the article, originally published HERE

Blood test developed to check for Down's syndrome in pregnant women's children

A simple blood test to check unborn children for Down's syndrome has been developed that could save pregnant women from invasive examinations that risk miscarriage.

7:30AM GMT 07 Mar 2011

Scientists used a new technique to identify a key DNA difference that flags up a condition that affects 10,000 newborns in the UK every year.

The method enabled them to correctly diagnose 14 Down's syndrome cases and 26 normal ones, highlighting its potential clinical importance.

At present, pregnant women are given the odds on whether they are carrying a child with Down's syndrome and if they want to know for certain they have to undergo one of two invasive processes - either amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling.

The first involves taking a sample of fluid from around the foetus and can, in some cases, cause a miscarriage even if the woman is carrying a healthy foetus. The second requires taking a fragment of the placenta.

Invasive testing takes place in about 30,000 British women a year. About one in every hundred of these will miscarry.

So Dr Philippos Patsalis and colleagues looked for chemical differences in the blood of mother and child as it crossed the placenta.

Down's syndrome which is characterised by severe physical and intellectual impairments is caused by having three copies of chromosome 21, instead of two, and the researchers were able to identify the telltale defect in the unborn babies.

Dr Patsalis, of The Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, Nicosia, said: "The method is simple and fast and easy to perform in every genetic diagnostic lab worldwide because it does not require expensive equipment, software or special infrastructure.

"The test is the first worldwide to demonstrate 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity in all normal and Down's syndrome pregnancies examined."

All pregnant women are offered screening for Down's syndrome which entails an ultrasound scan of the baby and a normal blood test for the mother. From the results, experts can estimate a woman's risk of having a baby with Down's.

Women at higher risk can then opt to go for one of the two invasive diagnostic tests that both involve inserting a needle into the womb to collect cells or fluid from around the baby.

Dr Patsalis, whose findings are published online in Nature Medicine, said: "Downs syndrome is considered to be the most frequent cause of mental retardation, with an incidence of one in 700 child births in all populations worldwide.

"The approach described here has opened the way for non invasive prenatal diagnosis of Down's syndrome to be potentially employed in the routine practice of all diagnostic laboratories and be applicable to all pregnancies.

"Such a non-invasive approach will avoid the risk of miscarriages of normal pregnancies caused by current, more invasive procedures."

He added: "Furthermore, we speculate this diagnostic strategy may prove advantageous in the future over the current biochemical screening methods for Down's syndrome.

"Nevertheless, a larger-scale study will need to be performed to assist the introduction of the diagnostic strategy into the clinical practice of prenatal diagnostic laboratories."