Do women really have a choice whether to abort or not following an antenatal diagnosis of a disability?
Are we walking blindfold into a society where eugenics is gently-presented, sugar-coated and unthinkingly accepted?
Are we fooling ourselves that we are exercising choice in our pregnancies, where actually choice, the choice to continue with certain pregnancies is being removed?
This week a new 'safer, earlier and 99% accurate' blood test was unveiled by Great Ormond Street Hospital. I can detect Down's syndrome along with other chromosomal conditions. I've been asked countless times by the media to quote my thoughts about the test. What concerns me most is how the test is implemented.
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| Are women given unbiased support to make informed choices at point of diagnosis? |
It’s easy to assume that the moral dilemma of whether to abort your unborn baby that you’ve learned has a disability, is confined to a shouty debate between pro-choicers on the right to end a pregnancy at any stage, for any reason, and equally vociferous pro-lifers camped outside abortion clinics with their gory billboard campaigns, designed to shock and scare.
