Published October 28, 2015
In 1971 President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, declaring a “War on Cancer” with the goal of eradicating cancer as a major cause of death. Incredible progress has been made toward that goal because the federal government was willing to exert its influence to strengthen the National Cancer Institute, and also to commit the financial resources necessary to get there. Having just been through a cancer diagnosis in our family, we are grateful that this “war” has been fought with so much success over the last 40 years.
But, we are seeing another kind of war being waged nowadays. It could easily be called a “War on Down Syndrome.” In 2011 the Copenhagen Post published an article headlined “Down syndrome dwindling” and that, as the article stated, was due to the country’s prenatal screening program. They predicted that the last baby with Down syndrome would be born in Denmark in 2030. Similar headlines recently emerged again from Denmark. Earlier in October, the Copenhagen Post again published an article that claimed last year “98% of DS pregnancies were aborted,” and this – the article claimed – is seen as a positive development by a majority of Danes. With 15 years to go to their goal, they might actually be “Down syndrome free” ahead of schedule. The most recent article in the Copenhagen Post (Oct 28, 2015) denies that hospitals have intended “to discourage parents from having children with Down Syndrome,” and claims that the board of health says that “parents should be given what they need to make an informed choice.”
Lest we think this a European problem, consider what is taking place in the United States. In her testimony before Congress in 1990, Joycelyn Elders, who would become the U.S. Surgeon General under President Clinton, claimed that:
… abortion has had a positive, public-health effect (because it has reduced) the number of children afflicted with severe defects… The number of Down syndrome infants in Washington state in 1976 was 64% lower than it would have been without legal abortion.
But well before this, individual states were permitting abortion in cases of fetal anomaly. We can trace this history back to find that:
- In 1967 the American Medical Association passed a resolution endorsing abortion in cases where “an infant may be born with incapacitated physical deformities or mental deficiency.”
- In 1986 the state of California was the first to begin a systematic program of prenatal screening by requiring doctors to offer prenatal screening tests to all pregnant women.
- It is no surprise, then, that in a poll conducted in 1995, 63% of fellows of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists believed abortion was justified in cases of fetal anomalies compatible with life.
- Still, in a 2013 poll, 1 in 4 women who received a positive prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome reported that they felt their medical provider was “insistent” they terminate their pregnancy. They also reported that negative experiences outweighed positive ones by 2.5 to 1!
Sounds like a “War on Down syndrome” to me.
While the “War on Cancer” has been a just war fighting against a deadly disease, the “War on Down syndrome” is horribly unjust. It represents the harshest form of discrimination imaginable against a whole class of persons solely because their DNA doesn’t conform to society’s accepted “norm”.
The collateral damage from this war has been devastating. Recent research by de Graaf, Buckley, and Skokto claims that from 1974 to 2010, the population of persons with Down syndrome had been reduced by 30% because of this “War on Down syndrome” (my words not theirs). This war destroys lives needlessly and harms families, robbing them of an opportunity to know a unique love like they will never know in another child.
As we come to the end of another Down Syndrome Awareness Month, we need to launch a radical counter-offensive on this “War on Down Syndrome.” We need a “War FOR Down syndrome” – a peaceful, but full frontal assault on attitudes of discrimination that are caught in antiquated perceptions of a disability that almost always brings joy to families and not despair.
- We need heroes who will step forward with large financial gifts to advance research so that drugs now being investigated to improve lives can be in the clinic serving patients well before Denmark’s 2030.
- We need to advance research into prenatal therapies now taking place that can be offered to women at the time of an early diagnosis of Down syndrome. With the hope that their child will be born less affected by their disability, parents will certainly make positive choices to accept and love their children rather than end their lives.
- We need to be certain that fair and balanced information is placed in the hands of every woman who receives a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. Fully informed decision will be better decisions. Families also need to be offered the opportunity to meet other families who have children with Down syndrome.
We need to win this War FOR Down syndrome, because if we don’t, what will be lost is irreplaceable. It is the loss not only of a large percentage of our population, but the loss of the American soul. As Jerome Lejeune said many years ago, we know the price of this war — “it is what a society must pay to remain fully human.”
