{"id":3563,"date":"2007-01-09T12:30:45","date_gmt":"2007-01-09T12:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/widening-the-net.html"},"modified":"2007-01-09T12:30:45","modified_gmt":"2007-01-09T12:30:45","slug":"widening-the-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/widening-the-net.html","title":{"rendered":"Widening the net"},"content":{"rendered":"

Screen all preborn babies for Downs’, doctors say:<\/a><\/p>\n

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For decades, pregnant women 35 and older have routinely been tested for chromosomal abnormalities that might affect their fetus, most notably Down syndrome. Younger women were tested much less often because the risk of birth defects was low and invasive procedures like amniocentesis<\/span><\/a> carried risks of their own.<\/p>\n

But now the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists<\/span><\/a> is recommending Down syndrome screening for all pregnant women, regardless of their age.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Everyone quoted in the article is terribly glad about this, even the March of Dimes rep. <\/p>\n

Who knew that Downs’ Syndrome people were, apparently, such a great threat to humanity? It is creepy and tragic because the reason for the early diagnosis is not so you can spend a couple of extra months preparing for the special challenges, but so everyone can be assured that an earlier, better abortion can be had by all. <\/p>\n

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In explaining the new recommendation, several physicians said the cutoff age of 35 had always been somewhat arbitrary. \u201cMany women are unhappy with it, because it doesn\u2019t mean anything to them; it\u2019s kind of being put upon them,\u201d said Dr. James Goldberg, a former chairman of the obstetrics college\u2019s committee on <\/em>genetics<\/em><\/span><\/a>, who helped develop the new guidelines. <\/em><\/p>\n

For example, Dr. Goldberg said, a 29-year-old woman and her partner might now choose amniocentesis instead of a blood test. In the past, the more invasive procedure was seldom recommended for younger women because it could sometimes result in miscarriage. Now the risk is considered to be quite low, and in any event, Dr. Goldberg said, for some couples \u201closing a normal pregnancy secondary to the procedure is not as problematic as the birth of a Down syndrome child, so they\u2019re willing to take that risk.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I will say that the most startling aspect of this story (because none of that content above is particularly startling) is the graphic: a 3-D ultrasound image of what looks to be about a 10-12-week old fetus. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One has to wonder what came over them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Screen all preborn babies for Downs’, doctors say: For decades, pregnant women 35 and older have routinely been tested for chromosomal abnormalities that might affect their fetus, most notably Down syndrome. Younger women were tested much less often because the risk of birth defects was low and invasive procedures like amniocentesis carried risks of their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWidening the net - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/widening-the-net.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Widening the net - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Screen all preborn babies for Downs’, doctors say: For decades, pregnant women 35 and older have routinely been tested for chromosomal abnormalities that might affect their fetus, most notably Down syndrome. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}