In a survey published in 2008 of the 18 (now 20) countries in EUROCAT, 88% of neural tube defects were detected prenatally and 88% of these were aborted. Of Downs Syndrome cases, 68% were detected prenatally and 88% of these too were aborted.
Iceland (population of 330,000) has virtually eliminated Downs Syndrome births though in such a small population there are only one or two cases every year. However in Denmark around 98% of Downs Syndrome fetuses are aborted , in France around 77% and even in the US around 67% are aborted.
The mother chose to terminate the pregnancy in 88 percent of cases when the child had anencaphaly, when part of the child’s brain is missing. They also chose abortion in 75 percent of cases where doctors detected bilateral renal agenesis – when the child is missing both kidneys.
Artificial selection
As technology develops, and more fetal abnormalities can be detected, and as abortion becomes less stigmatised, it is not only serious abnormalities which lead to abortion. With abortion on demand, even conditions which are eminently treatable (cleft palate for example) are leading to the choice to abort. The availability and practice of abortion is itself becoming the main vehicle of artificial selection. Correction of fetal defects is usually not possible. Even if genetic “tailoring” for designer babies is not quite there yet, the incidence of fetuses being born with even minor defects is inevitably declining.
Selective abortion is artificial selection, and that is, after all, just eugenics.
Related:
On birth rates, abortions and “eugenics by default”
Tags: Downs syndrome, Eugenics
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