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Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing [TR]
CBS News ^ | August 14, 2017 | JULIAN QUINONES, ARIJETA LAJKA

Posted on 08/15/2017 7:34:10 AM PDT by EdnaMode

With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.

Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.

"CBSN: On Assignment" headed to Iceland with CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano to investigate what's factoring into the high termination rates.

Using an ultrasound, blood test and the mother's age, the test, called the Combination Test, determines whether the fetus will have a chromosome abnormality, the most common of which results in Down syndrome. Children born with this genetic disorder have distinctive facial issues and a range of developmental issues. Many people born with Down syndrome can live full, healthy lives, with an average lifespan of around 60 years.

Other countries aren't lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it's 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity -- and Down syndrome is included in this category.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abortion; bioethics; death; downsyndrome; eugenics; iceland; prolife
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To: FatherofFive
When all things are relative, nothing is wrong.

A brave new world.


From the article:

Olafsdottir responded, "We don't look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication... preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder -- that's so black and white. Life isn't black and white. Life is grey."

"Life is gray" is often the motto of people looking to rationalize evil.
21 posted on 08/15/2017 7:46:35 AM PDT by needmorePaine
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To: EdnaMode

I’ve known a number of Downs Syndrome people over the years, and all of them were sweet and kind, very pleasant to talk to, and did their jobs well, working in supermarkets, with lawn mowers, in fast-food restaurants, and other jobs they could handle well.

Also, one of my daughters agreed to a prenatal screening, and the doctors told her that the unborn baby PROBABLY had Downs Syndrome.

She thought it over, decided she really didn’t want to kill it, went ahead and had the baby, and he came out perfectly find.

Nothing like baby-killing to please the libs! Just controlling the population to make more room for terrorists and liberal nutballs!


22 posted on 08/15/2017 7:46:43 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: EdnaMode
Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing, Iceland.

Margaret Sanger retired to Iceland, as I remember, seems she is doing well.

23 posted on 08/15/2017 7:47:13 AM PDT by Navy Patriot (America returns to the Rule of Law)
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To: EdnaMode

Building a better world one death at a time.


24 posted on 08/15/2017 7:47:30 AM PDT by BlueYonder
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To: EdnaMode

Holding my breath for the comparison to the Nazi’s attempt at an only Aryan Race.......oh wait, Big Media supports this Mode of Purification....never mind.


25 posted on 08/15/2017 7:47:45 AM PDT by originalbuckeye ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell)
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To: EdnaMode
all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening test

Adding to the nightmare, in Iceland there will leventually be government sanctions against families that refuse to abort, and a social stigma against the reputations of families that refused to abort children deemed 'unfit' by the state to emerge from their mother's womb.

26 posted on 08/15/2017 7:50:03 AM PDT by zipper (In their heart of hearts, every Democrat is a communist)
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To: EdnaMode

This reads that it was written by a pro abortionist, rather than an honest medical researcher/politician Honest journalist


27 posted on 08/15/2017 7:52:33 AM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country.king seal.)
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To: Gay State Conservative
most of them cannot support themselves or care for themselves

And therefore Marxism classifies them as "useless eaters". Hitlerism classifies them as "subhumans".

NAZIism is alive and well on the left, where it has always been.

28 posted on 08/15/2017 7:53:32 AM PDT by NorthMountain (The Democrats ... have lost their grip on reality -DJT)
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To: EdnaMode

The final solution.


29 posted on 08/15/2017 7:55:09 AM PDT by JusPasenThru (America has two types of fascists: fascists and antifascists.)
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To: EdnaMode

“Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing...”

...because said children are being murdered.

There. Factually correct, no?


30 posted on 08/15/2017 7:55:50 AM PDT by simpson96
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To: EdnaMode

35+ years in NY: knew about Down’s Syndrome, but rarely saw cases. Something gnawed at me about the “1 in 300” stats not lining up with reality somehow.
Then I moved to GA: Down’s kids everywhere, like...1 in 300.
Not moving back to NY.


31 posted on 08/15/2017 7:58:43 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (It's not "white privilege", it's "Puritan work ethic". Behavior begets consequences.)
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To: Army Air Corps

The Germans obtained their concentration camp managers from the managers of their eugenics program.


32 posted on 08/15/2017 8:01:49 AM PDT by alternatives? (Why have an army if there are no borders?)
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To: EdnaMode

Fake News.
They haven’t “eliminated Down’s Syndrome”, they’re eliminating those who have Down’s Syndrome.

Der Fuhrer is pleased with their “progress”


33 posted on 08/15/2017 8:02:19 AM PDT by SparkyBass
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To: Dilbert San Diego

“Your child is genetically predisposed to buckteeth. We recommend - strongly, we should add - immediate termination.”


34 posted on 08/15/2017 8:03:29 AM PDT by Quality_Not_Quantity (If we're going to look at nature to justify our actions, then I say let's start flinging poop around)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

“Your child is genetically predisposed to buckteeth. We recommend - strongly, we should add - immediate termination.”


35 posted on 08/15/2017 8:03:33 AM PDT by Quality_Not_Quantity (If we're going to look at nature to justify our actions, then I say let's start flinging poop around)
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To: utahagen

The good mother is my friend who adopted a little girl who’s Ukrainian sperm donor and vaginal canal abandoned their DS child.


36 posted on 08/15/2017 8:05:03 AM PDT by cyclotic (Trump tweets are the only news source you can trust.)
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To: EdnaMode

This is terrible. Downs children are some of the most happiest and loving children I have ever come across.

To terminate their lives is sickening.


37 posted on 08/15/2017 8:07:11 AM PDT by hsmomx3
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To: goodnesswins

it is eugenics and they are in fact lowering the probability of it being passed on to future genetic generations.


38 posted on 08/15/2017 8:09:40 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: Quality_Not_Quantity

That’s where we’re headed. If you’d abort for anything, you’d abort for everything. If it’s not a life, no problem; if it is a right, you shouldn’t kill the baby for any reason you wouldn’t shoot a person walking down the street.


39 posted on 08/15/2017 8:10:36 AM PDT by utahagen (but but)
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To: Quality_Not_Quantity

“Your child is genetically predisposed to buckteeth. We recommend - strongly, we should add - immediate termination.”


That’s what I’m talking about. Where will it end when you start down that road??

And, we can imagine being “strongly recommended” to terminate the pregnancy.

In China, as I recall, with their one child policy, those who violated that policy were penalized with regard to various governmental benefits, schooling for the child, and other sanctions were put in place.

Of course we aren’t a totalitarian society such as China. Not yet anyway. But as we move down that road too, these scenarios become more plausible.

Witness how bakers are forced out of business for not baking a cake for a homosexual wedding. There are already aspects of totalitarianism in our culture. Extend that to decisions about aborting a less than perfect baby, it’s not such a long leap if you think about it.


40 posted on 08/15/2017 8:12:49 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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