LIFE DIGEST: New test may mean more abortions of Down children; Thomas: confirmation fights are all about abortion
Nov 21, 2005
By Tom Strode
Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (BP)--A new advance in technology may mean a new setback for one group in the human family.The recent announcement of a screening test that can identify unborn children with Down syndrome in the first trimester has raised the specter of even more babies with the condition being aborted. Already, doctors estimate about 80 percent of mothers who receive positive results for Down syndrome in the second trimester decide to abort their effected children, according to The New York Times.

Sponsors and researchers involved in the $15 million study involving more than 38,000 American women hailed the results, which found that combined blood and ultrasound tests are able to identify Down syndrome 11 weeks after conception, The Washington Post reported Nov. 10, the day the research results were released in The New England Journal of Medicine.

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