I understand the anxiety of wanting to know your baby is alright, while in the womb. But look–how many couples do I know in my own life whose prognosis from these ultrasounds was poor and the baby was perfect? (Three, since you asked.) Does that reduce anxiety? And since the doctors are quite open about there being no treatments when abnormalities are detected–this seems like one more way to make abortion easier, all in search of the “perfect” child.
Unfortunately, little can be done to treat most of the physical anomalies that may be detected early, such as skull malformations. …When the ultrasound delivers bad news, women who may decide to terminate a troubled pregnancy can make that decision earlier.
Some things are not really a choice at all. Killing your disabled child at an earlier stage doesn’t make it any easier.
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Véronique asks: Did you count me in those three? My youngest was diagnosed by ultrasound with a symmetrical intra-uterine growth retardation, which I later learned — once I went into neonatal bioethics — was very bad news indeed. Thank goodness I didn’t really know what the deal was back then or I would have panicked. Anyhow. Do I need to add that he was born a healthy 7 pounds 4 and completely “normal” (in quotes because he is 2 1/2 today and what toddler is normal, I ask you??)?
Since I started studying bioethics, I have been dumbfounded by the number of people who terminate (abort) on the sole basis of an ultrasound. Granted, the physicians I know would encourage further testing. But I also observed that people who are frightened by the possibility of a disabled child will terminate so fast, it makes your head spin. Almost as if they wanted to do it before they could change their minds. Very troubling.
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Brigitte wonders: Here’s what the doctor in charge of the program says:
When the ultrasound delivers bad news, women who may decide to terminate a troubled pregnancy can make that decision earlier.
“It’s safer to do it early on. There are less complications,” he says.
Safer? Complications? Whoa, where did that come from?
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Andrea adds: No, I didn’t count you, Véronique. So make that four.
by 
This early ultrasound is not about offering “choice” so that women who would terminate could do so earlier, at a safer time.
It is about money. Someone at the Ministry of Health has done an epidemiological study, put some costs and benefits onto it, and determined that money would be saved by offering these ultrasounds.
Children who are born with these kinds of non-genetic anomalies can cost the system a lot of money. If the problem is only physical, it can usually be fixed surgically, but if there is an issue with the brain, then the cost is very large because it might include a life time of costs and special services for children with developmental disabilities.
I saw a study from another province on the costs vs benefits of offering universal genetic screening for the termination of Down syndrome. It cost roughly $35k to screen the required number of women to detect and terminate the fetus with Downs. However, it was estimated that the termination of that life saved the system half a million dollars in social and medical costs.
Today, it is major chromosomal disorders and anomalies detected by ultrasound. What will it be tomorrow? What if someone discovered that their unborn child had a high probability of a mental health problem like autism or schizophrenia? When the costs of testing for these disorders becomes less than the costs incurred to the system by treating them, you can bet that they will be available to all.
In the name of “choice” women are heading in leaps and bounds likely lemmings toward the cliff of eugenics.
What astounds me is the prevailing attitude of “let’s just nip this little problem in the bud” before it turns into a real live viable baby and we (meaning the health care system) have to take care of it. I will never forget my experience with the radiologist who diagnosed our last baby as having a two-vessel cord in utero. I was nearly forty, healthy and happily pregnant, and had no other prenatal testing, and when I asked the significance of the findings of the ultrasound, he told me it could be indicative of a congenital anomaly and callously ended the conversation and the appointment right then. He looked at me like I was a freak because I didn’t want further – invasive – testing. Why would I, if I wasn’t going to do anything about it, except maybe get educated about some possible anomaly? As it turned out, our baby is now a rambunctious, bright, healthy grade-schooler. However, for the last few months of my pregnancy, I lived with the spectre of the possibility of giving birth to a very sick baby. What would happen if someone else had been given the same information as I was about their baby? Would fear of the unknown cause them to do away with that life? Couldn’t physicians – radiologists included – have a more positive view of the unborn life in front of them?
Not just in Canada. In Britain, when I had my ultrasound, the baby was not in the right position to do the nuchal screening (this is to check probabilities of Down’s Syndrome: if your baby scores high you are then offered anmiocentesis). The screener suggested I went for a walk for fifteen minutes in the hope that the baby would move and she could get a better angle. I said, not to worry, I don’t need to have this test. Cue much consternation and euphemisms. My position was, I’m not going to risk having a miscarriage by having an anmiocentesis since there is no way I am having an abortion, so there’s not a lot of point in knowing if I fall into a group where I would be offered an anmiocentesis.
I was given a serious talking to which was made difficult because she was unable to voice explicitly the implications, i.e. she couldn’t bring herself to say, “so that you can abort the baby” or even “terminate the pregnancy”, in itself a euphemism. Eventually, I was made to sign a disclaimer and was then allowed to go home, unscreened.