Down Syndrome Abortions

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🤷 How many babies are aborted in the United States after receiving a Down Syndrome diagnosis? We already know that 5500 Down Syndrome Babies are born. We also know that 90% of women who have the diagnostic testing performed while they are pregnant choose to have the baby killed. But how many are actually killed?
Another way of asking my question is how many Down Syndrome Babies would be born if abortion wasn’t an option?
Please give me hard facts or point me in the right direction:thumbsup:
thanks, Mark Renaud
 
I asked this same question of the genetics counselor that workied with my wife and I when we found out our daughter that my wife was pregant with had DS. This is not actual data, but information that came from her based on her employer, which was Kaiser Permanente in California. Based on the AFP test, over 80% of women abort their children who “may” be born with DS. The sad thing is that the AFP test has anywhere from a 25-60% false positive rating, depending on who you talk to.

According to wikipedia, a study done in 2002 says that 91-93% of all pregnancies in the United States with a diagnosis of DS are terminated by abortion.

A woman of normal child bearing age has a 1 in 865 chance of having a baby with DS. As she gets older those chances are higher. Any woman who has a child with DS then has a 1 in 100 chance regardless of age of having a second child with DS. Keep in mind that different websites will quote slightly different statistics, but they are all pretty close.

If I can find anymore information, I will come back and post it.

After re-reading your question, I think I misunderstood what your were asking. If 90% are aborted, then 5500 represents 10%. That would mean that 49,500 were aborted. Where did you get 550 from? Is that per year?
 
I wish there was a way we could get the word out to mothers.
Plus there must be a way we can put a stop to the doctors actually suggesting abortion. Doctors are suppose to support life not encourage terminating life.
There are too many doctors suggesting abortion without even any medical reason. I say this because it happened to me.
When my doctor announced the test results to me,saying I was pregnant. His next question was,“Do you want to keep it?”
When I asked why he’d ask me that he simply said,“I just have to ask that’s all.”
Of course I went home worrying about everything that could possibly be wrong with my baby. And wondering if I should have a baby.
This was all because of my doctor’s question. I of course decided I would have the baby no matter what. But can you imagine someone who may be scared to death for whatever reason.
This should not be allowed. Doctors should not be suggesting or even asking,“Do you want to keep it?”
 
RichT said:
I asked this same question of the genetics counselor that workied with my wife and I when we found out our daughter that my wife was pregant with had DS. This is not actual data, but information that came from her based on her employer, which was Kaiser Permanente in California. Based on the AFP test, over 80% of women abort their children who “may” be born with DS. The sad thing is that the AFP test has anywhere from a 25-60% false positive rating, depending on who you talk to.

According to wikipedia, a study done in 2002 says that 91-93% of all pregnancies in the United States with a diagnosis of DS are terminated by abortion.

A woman of normal child bearing age has a 1 in 865 chance of having a baby with DS. As she gets older those chances are higher. Any woman who has a child with DS then has a 1 in 100 chance regardless of age of having a second child with DS. Keep in mind that different websites will quote slightly different statistics, but they are all pretty close.

If I can find anymore information, I will come back and post it.

After re-reading your question, I think I misunderstood what your were asking. If 90% are aborted, then 5500 represents 10%. That would mean that 49,500 were aborted. Where did you get 550 from? Is that per year?
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Rich, I appreciate your response. Can anybody else comment with certainty? Are we actually killing almost 50,000 babies every year who have been diagnosed with Down Syndrome?

From Mark, Thanks!
 
Mark, after looking ot the numbers, I would say that yes, it is entirely possible we are killing that many babies with DS every year. If we multiply 4000 abortions a day times 365 days, we have over 1.4 million abortions each year. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 13% of these abortions are due to a potential health risk. That would be 189,800. So yes, there is certainly room for 45.500 babies with DS to fit.

I would wonder, however, how many of those so called diagnosis were accurate, comsidering the potential for false positives from the AFP test. I don’t think we will see really accurate numbers, but the numbers are alarming none the less.
 
RichT said:
Mark, after looking ot the numbers, I would say that yes, it is entirely possible we are killing that many babies with DS every year. If we multiply 4000 abortions a day times 365 days, we have over 1.4 million abortions each year. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 13% of these abortions are due to a potential health risk. That would be 189,800. So yes, there is certainly room for 45.500 babies with DS to fit.

I would wonder, however, how many of those so called diagnosis were accurate, comsidering the potential for false positives from the AFP test. I don’t think we will see really accurate numbers, but the numbers are alarming none the less.
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Rich, thanks for the info. In reality, obviously one is too many!:😦
 
hays1122 writes:

“This should not be allowed. Doctors should not be suggesting or even asking,‘Do you want to keep it?’”

This is a medical question, not a moral one. A doctor cannot treat a patient without knowing that patient’s wishes. What if the woman chooses to carry her pregnancy to term, all the while dealing with the stress and heartache of possibly/probably giving birth to a baby who is mentally or physically challenged to some degree? That information is of great significance with regard to the mother’s health and to the fetus’ health.

A doctor has an ethical responsibility to ask questions such as this of his patients. Anything less is inferior medical care.

marietta
 
marietta said:
hays1122 writes:

“This should not be allowed. Doctors should not be suggesting or even asking,‘Do you want to keep it?’”

This is a medical question, not a moral one. A doctor cannot treat a patient without knowing that patient’s wishes. What if the woman chooses to carry her pregnancy to term, all the while dealing with the stress and heartache of possibly/probably giving birth to a baby who is mentally or physically challenged to some degree? That information is of great significance with regard to the mother’s health and to the fetus’ health.

A doctor has an ethical responsibility to ask questions such as this of his patients. Anything less is inferior medical care.

marietta
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And when a parent brings a two week old infant in to the doc, that doc should also ask “do you want this child to live”.

When you bring grandma in for her checkup, doc should also make sure you want to keep the old gal around.

Good heavens, suggesting killing an human being is so far remove from the hippocratic oath that it seems the oath means NOTHING to some doctors.
 
Mark_Renaud said:
🤷 How many babies are aborted in the United States after receiving a Down Syndrome diagnosis? We already know that 5500 Down Syndrome Babies are born. We also know that 90% of women who have the diagnostic testing performed while they are pregnant choose to have the baby killed. But how many are actually killed?
Another way of asking my question is how many Down Syndrome Babies would be born if abortion wasn’t an option?
Please give me hard facts or point me in the right direction:thumbsup:
thanks, Mark Renaud
Click to expand...
Wow. :eek: I didn’t know that 90% of women who get a Down’s Syndrome diagnosis for their baby aborted their baby. That is just shocking and incredibly sad. 😦
 
Holly3278 said:
Wow. :eek: I didn’t know that 90% of women who get a Down’s Syndrome diagnosis for their baby aborted their baby. That is just shocking and incredibly sad. 😦
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That extends to other “severe genetic abnormalities” - we kill 9 out of 10 imperfect babies in this country. It is horrible.
 
marietta said:
hays1122 writes:

“This should not be allowed. Doctors should not be suggesting or even asking,‘Do you want to keep it?’”

This is a medical question, not a moral one. A doctor cannot treat a patient without knowing that patient’s wishes. What if the woman chooses to carry her pregnancy to term, all the while dealing with the stress and heartache of possibly/probably giving birth to a baby who is mentally or physically challenged to some degree? That information is of great significance with regard to the mother’s health and to the fetus’ health.

A doctor has an ethical responsibility to ask questions such as this of his patients. Anything less is inferior medical care.

marietta
Click to expand...
With all three of my children, my wife was aksed if she planned on keeping the baby. I was so disgusted with this question it made me sick. This is not a medical question, it’s a sad sign of the condition of our society. And then, during the pregnancy of my daughter with Down Syndrome, my wife was given the chance to abort on at least three occasions by the so called high risk pregnancy doctor. I started to feel like our HMO was forcing their doctors to say these things so children like mine wouldn’t burden their system. After the last time he gave her the chance, I had words with him. Believe me, he walked on egg shells after that. If we would have known better, we would have requested a new doctor. There are far better approaches to this situation.
 
Ag_not said:
For many parents it was fears linked to the quality of life the child could expect.

Things seem to be improving the other side of the pond.
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********. That is some poor moral interpretation, and probably false too. They just don’t want THEIR quality of life to go down! “Oh no, I’ll have to wipe my child’s butt until he/she is an adult!”

No, it has nothing to do with the kids quality of life, and everything to do with theirs.
 
RichT:

If, upon being asked if you and your wife chose to keep your baby, you were " . . . so disgusted with this question it made [me] sick", then why were you not compelled to change practitioners *after you were first asked? *

Doctors will better know how to advance with a pregnancy if they are informed as to the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual condition of the woman and, secondarily, the man (if he is even present in the scenario). Yes. Secondarily.

You always have options. You always have a choice. If your gut told you to seek prenatal care elsewhere, why did you ignore it?

marietta
 
marietta said:
RichT:

If, upon being asked if you and your wife chose to keep your baby, you were " . . . so disgusted with this question it made [me] sick", then why were you not compelled to change practitioners after you were first asked?

Doctors will better know how to advance with a pregnancy if they are informed as to the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual condition of the woman and, secondarily, the man (if he is even present in the scenario). Yes. Secondarily.

You always have options. You always have a choice. If your gut told you to seek prenatal care elsewhere, why did you ignore it?

marietta
Click to expand...
For starters, these questions were asked by the nurses who would call to confirm the results of the pregnancy tests. This had nothing to do with potential issues with the baby. They were part of a large HMO, so although disgusted, we didn’t make too much of it. The bottom line it that this line of questioning is not necessary from a nurse calling to confim the results. Why not just confirm the results and then ask when the woman would like to schedule her first exam? We never had any issues with the doctors. Of course with the question already asked, the doctor never had to ask. Besides, we were members of a large HMO and really didn’t have that many alternatives.

And, your comment about the man even being present is another issue with todays society. You make is sound as though the man wont be present. Out of three children, I think I missed two pre-natal exams. So yes, some men do show up. Don’t just assume they wone be there.

Look, all I am saying is that there are different ways to approach this situation. As a parent of a special needs child, I know this from actual experience. Our genetic counseler handled herself very professionally throughout this whole time and never once asked us if were going to keep the baby. In fact she shared positive information about children with Down Syndrome.
 
AaronK88 said:
********. That is some poor moral interpretation, and probably false too. They just don’t want THEIR quality of life to go down! “Oh no, I’ll have to wipe my child’s butt until he/she is an adult!”

No, it has nothing to do with the kids quality of life, and everything to do with theirs.
Click to expand...
What a contemptuous thing to say. So you know the mind and soul and heart of every woman informed she was carrying a child with down syndrome do you???

Actually dont respond. Im leaving this thread now. You have raised an ire in me with your arrogance that no longer becomes me. The failing is on my part, not yours. I should be rationally able to engage you over that remark but because of my past and work I cannot. My fault.

God Bless you.
 
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