The Blame Game: Prenatal Genetic Testing and Abortion

Monday, April 18. 2011

The Blame Game: Prenatal Genetic Testing and Abortion

Amniocentesis (Photo credit: Saturn Stills/ www.sciencesource.com)

Do you get that feeling? You know when you hear about a new prenatal test and you shake your head, let a little grumble escape from your mouth, and then you notice the sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach. Many pro-lifers get that feeling because they know that a new prenatal test performed even earlier means more innocent babies aborted. I normally don't talk about something as mushy as feelings, but today, I want to talk about that feeling.

A few months ago scientists announced a new way to genetically test a fetus as early as 12 weeks. Unlike amniocentesis, or chorionic villus sampling (CVS) each with a risk of miscarriage, this new method finds fragments of the fetal DNA in the mother's blood. This test is not the same as a serum test often called a quad-screen or AFP. This is a test that actually tests minute quantities of the fetus' DNA in a maternal blood sample. So prenatal genetic testing is likely to go from invasive procedures like amniocentesis and CVS to a simple blood test with no risk to the life of the fetus. Instead of a shout of joy from the pro-life community, this news received the whispered grumble, the shaking of the head and the sickened stomach. Why? Because most pro-lifers view any prenatal test as a precursor to abortion.

Admit it. We all do it. We lump prenatal testing and abortion together. We assume that with one comes the other. Sometimes the line between the two is so blurred, we lay the blame for the killing of an unborn child on the testing. In a piece on prenatal testing at LifeNews.com, Kristan Hawkins, a pro-life advocate whose son Gunner has cystic fibrosis, wrote about how genetic testing is killing babies:

As I have written before, I have become deeply involved with the current healthcare reform debate arguing that the system desired by the President and Democratic Congressional leaders will lead to rationing of care and slower development of potential life-saving treatments for children like Gunner. Recently my research into this issue has led me down another path: pre-natal genetic testing....

One theme is apparent; unlike with cancer where we are “racing to a cure,” these scientists offer hope that we can eliminate diseases by terminating those with them. An AP article yesterday, on February 17th, headlined, “Testing curbs some genetic diseases.” Couldn't the article title have been, “Testing snuffs out those with genetic diseases?"

I am not angry at the AP writer for the writing the story as I was excited for finally someone has admitted that genetic testing is killing little girls and boys like Gunner. [my emphasis]

I have the utmost respect for Ms. Hawkins and I feel her anger and frustration. Having tested pregnant mothers and their partners for cystic fibrosis mutations, I am fully aware of how this information is being used. But I disagree that it is the "genetic testing [that] is killing little girls and boys like Gunner." Genetic testing may be cited as the reason to kill a baby with a genetic disease, but the REAL killer is abortion on demand. Without legalized abortion, prenatal testing would be what it should be, a way to find out more about the life going in the womb, especially if something is going wrong. Without legalized abortion, the use of prenatal testing would be naturally limited to conditions that could benefit from some kind of prenatal intervention.

In fact the Catholic Church has no problem with prenatal testing, unless it is done with the intent to abort if the results are not what the parents want. Prenatal testing is only immoral when the parents are already planning to abort when the testing is acquired. I have a suspicion that this scenario happens less often than we think. After reading many heartbreaking accounts of women who have been pressured and harassed by medical professionals to abort their "genetically-defective" children, I suspect that most women go into prenatal testing because their doctor recommends it and then are bullied into abortion when the test results aren't perfect.

The problem is abortion and a medical establishment that uses it as a "solution" to medical problems. Always has been. Abortion takes clinically useful information and makes it deadly.

Why do I feel compelled to make this distinction? Because I know that someday doctors will likely be able to treat genetic disease in utero. Possibly even with gene therapy. I envision a day where drugs that are currently being tested to reverse the cognitive symptoms of Down Syndrome are used in the womb to halt the effects of an extra chromosome 21. That cannot happen without an accurate prenatal genetic test If we have labeled that prenatal testing as immoral because of its association with abortion, we close down an avenue for healing.

Morally, we need to separate the prenatal testing from the abortion. We can not equate prenatal genetic testing with murder. If we do, we may lose valuable future opportunities to heal in the womb.

I do wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Hawkins' assessment of the way eugenic abortion is portrayed. Aborting a child with a genetic disease DOES NOT cure the disease. It only gets rid of the people with it. That wouldn't work with cancer, but somehow when it comes to life in the womb, death is described as a "cure."

Now there are those pro-lifers who would to like to restrict access to prenatal testing of any kind because it can lead to abortion. I understand that as a practical means to protect life in an imperfect world where abortion on demand is a reality. I just want to make sure that in doing so, or thinking it should be so, that we lay the moral blame where it belongs, with the abortion, not with the testing itself. It is important to recognize that sickening feeling we get around prenatal testing is due to the abortion that may follow and not due to the actual testing. After all, we Catholics pray our Rosary outside abortion clinics, not outside our local genetics lab.

This was a repost of a guest blog I did over at Creative Minority Report. Check them out!

Posted by Rebecca Taylor in Abortion at 13:41 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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We were offered multiple genetics tests with two of our girls. (#3 had a cystic hygroma at 12 weeks, #4 fell off the growth chart around 20 weeks) We considered having the tests done, but weighed the risks/rewards. With abortion not being an option, we looked at how the results would be used. Could it be used to treat the baby in some way if it showed some sign of problem? No? Then don't bother, since it increases the risk of miscarriage.

Of course, even without having the tests done, abortion was still offered (pushed a little, until they recognized that we truly are pro-life). #3 could have had Down's or a couple of other genetic diseases. #4 could have had cystic fibrosis. We accepted that possibility, and since there is currently no treatment it made no sense to endanger their lives.

The tests themselves don't cause more abortions, but too often the results of the tests are used to justify abortion.

If these tests were available to us six years ago we might have used them...not to choose abortion but to better prepare ourselves for caring for a child with special needs.

#1 Matthew A. Siekierski (Homepage) on 2011-04-19 05:40 (Reply)

I know that sickening feeling all too well. What launched me from being just pro-life to being active in the pro-life movement was hearing my thesis committee chair (who fortunately lacked the funding to take me on as a student years before), at a lecture, say that the only medical application of her research into the genetics of cerebellar development was to advise parents on when to abort. She was being funded by the March of Dimes, so every time I walk by one of their ads that says "One day, all babies will be born healthy..." I can't help but mentally ad "...because we help kill all the ones who aren't."

You're absolutely right, though. The problem isn't the testing. It's abortion on demand, but it's also a medical culture that's far to comfortable with telling women to kill their children for the smallest reasons, either because they're afraid of a lawsuit down the road, or they don't want to deal with a difficult case, or they really don't value human life...or, to be charitable, because they really are trying to spare women heartache or the cost of treating special needs children. It just scares me (not being a mother yet) that the person my future children should most fear is the doctor that's supposed to help bring them into the world.

#2 DMJSD on 2011-04-20 05:32 (Reply)

Rebecca,

I agree with your assessment and have spoken out about this both on my own blog and in my medical school courses. The one caveat I have when reading your post is the fact that even if we have excellent, minimally invasive genetic tests, there are very few cures. Why is this? Because there is no funding for curing Downs or other genetic diseases. Money is continually being funneled into prenatal testing, but very little, if any, money is being put towards actually developing a cure. I have research on this very technique that you speak of, and I have wrestled with these questions as well. Jerome Lejeune, of happy memory, spent his life towards this, and has his invaluable research been furthered? No! So until there is funding towards cures for these disease and active research being pursued, I am going to be very wary of any new prenatal diagnostic testing that comes out.

Thanks for your great blog!

#3 Brian (Homepage) on 2011-04-20 06:17 (Reply)

Excellent comments. Thank-you.

Brian, I agree with you that the cures are slow. I think it is because of abortion. If 90% of Downs children are aborted, there is not an urgent push to find treatments or cures. In other words, the medical community is embracing abortion as the cure when it is nothing of the sort. So again I blame the abortion.

I think the wary feelings are valid. I get them too. I have to force myself sometimes to remember that it is the abortion that is the evil.

#4 Rebecca on 2011-04-20 08:39 (Reply)

Rebecca,

I completely agree that abortion is to blame for the low funding for research into cures for genetic diseases. I would also say that I do not see prenatal testing as something evil. Quite contrary. As I said, I did research while in Pittsburgh on this very area and even had a paper published in relation to prenatal genetics.

The issue that I see is that even if prenatal testing in theory is amoral, in the real world it has great moral implications. And it is in this arena that I feel the wariness. As future physician, I know I will need to be carefully discussing this issue with my patients so that they can make the complete informed decision about whether to pursue testing or not. I know for my own sake, with my first child, and with my wife's current pregnancy, we have decided not to do any prenatal screening because there is so little we would do with the information.

#4.1 Brian (Homepage) on 2011-04-23 07:50 (Reply)

Years ago, during my second pregnancy I was strongly urged by several 'medical professionals', from Doctors on down to a testing clinic receptionist, to have a whole battery of these tests because my first child has a chronic neurological condition.
What became most terrifyingly apparent to me during this process was that the sincere, gentle and very sweet Genetic Counselor had little to NO understanding of statistical significance. Her interpretation of the percent chances of certain diseases was off by orders of magnitude.
Subsequently, several other women in the labs where I worked were pregnant and had this same experience with different 'Genetic Counselors' at different facilities.
I think that one of the true scandals of the testing industry is that well meaning, sweet young women are hired to 'break the news' on test results who have little to no medical background and who aren't equipped to provide any scientifically accurate interpretation of these results.
Its difficult for me not to see this as one more arm of the abortion industry in action. Encouraging women to abort their children based on the flimsiest 'evidence' of genetic defect.

#5 Silvia (Homepage) on 2011-04-22 05:48 (Reply)

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