Reply to And that's why I'll never understand why people kill little babies who were not born yet...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]What if a diagnosis was missed prenatally, and discovered at birth? Would you give your newborn a lethal injection to the heart then? Or is it only compassionate when your child is still inside your body? [/quote]

This.  And also, what if the diagnosis made prenatally was wrong.  We were advised to consider terminating a pregnancy after prenatal testing revealed Trisomy 18.  We were told that it was unlikely our daughter would be born alive.  And that if she were, she would probably die within her first weeks of life.  We were counseled to terminate to avoid putting our daughter through unnecessary pain.

They were wrong.  I delivered a perfectly healthy baby.  That baby is now 18.  She is a national merit scholar who just received a full academic scholarship to college.  Medicine isn't perfect.  I can't help but remember that we considered ending the pregnancy.  I am pro-life.  But I will say that it is really easy to be pro-life when you aren't faced with the choice.  I wavered on my pro-life stance and considered abortion after the diagnosis.  I am thankful every single day that we chose to continue the pregnancy.  I honestly wish I hadn't even been offered the choice.[/quote]

National Merit scholarship winners haven't been chosen yet. Nice try, though, at making your story even more compelling.

[/quote]

That glitch makes me think that the story was made up entirely.[/quote]

Not only does her story resonate with me, but my brother was a similar misdiagnosis.

He had spina bifida, and a host of related congenital abnormalities.  My parents were told he was incompatible with life, and pressured to abort and spare him a slow, agonizing death in the womb as urine built up in his body, a stillbirth, or a death shortly after birth.  They refused.  When he was born, they assumed they would hold him as he died.  He did not die.  He went through a series of surgeries, including a 19 hour marathon the weekend I graduated from college, and today he is a bearded, brilliant composer and computer science major.

Such misdiagnoses are not uncommon.  In fact, many eugenic abortions result in the destruction of perfectly healthy babies.

As screening becomes more widespread, the choice to abort a disabled or potentially disabled child is turning to a duty to do so:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/opinion/article/The-abortion-debate-that-wasn-t-1178454.php

[/quote]

What I can figure out is why any normal person would think I would make up something like that.  Seriously?  Because I said "national merit scholar" instead of "national merit finalist"???  I didn't know much about the program at all until we found out she qualified.  My older kids certainly never even came close.

Also, why is my story difficult to believe? Is it because it makes you uncomfortable?  Good!  It should.

I didn't offer many details.  But I would have been happy to  have done so.  My daughter's blood work was concerning.  When I was pregnant with her (over eighteen years ago), ultrasounds weren't done as routinely.  At least they weren't in my OB's office.  The numbers in her blood work were off enough that we were sent for an ultrasound.  During the ultrasound, the doctor found cysts on her brain as well as some abnormalities in her heart.  The blood work and the ultrasound showed clear markers for Trisomy 18.  We were counseled to consider terminating.  Thankfully, we chose to continue the pregnancy.  And we had a perfectly healthy baby.  Of course not all stories have a happy ending.  But pretending that mistakes don't happen is irresponsible.  They happen.  And even if they happen very rarely, isn't even one mistake too many?[/quote]

So you never had an amnio that would make an actual diagnosis of Trisomy 18 and were counseled to terminate based on 2 screening tests? If that's the case, you had very poor doctors who didn't follow the standard of care.[/quote]

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