Abortion And Prenatal Testing Analysis

Nancy Klein’s “Abortions and Prenatal Testing” describe the use of prenatal testing to determine if a child will be born with genetic conditions, specifically Down syndrome. Klein describes the fears of parents who believe that with less children in the world with Down syndrome, there will be a decrease in the quality of life of those who are already living with the disorder. Klein also describes the fears that with less children born with Down syndrome, there will be a decrease in institutional support and medical funds for research. These fears bring up questions of whether parents have the right to have abortions to prevent giving birth to a child with Down syndrome, should society protect human diversity or encourage the prevention of …show more content…
I will use the economics term “supply and demand” to justify my argument. Nancy Klein’s article “Abortions and Prenatal Testing” states that about 90% of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion. (pg305c1) Therefore, it could be said that with less “supply” of Down syndrome babies, there is less “demand” for institutional support and funds for medical research. Secondly, when it comes to special group homes for the disabled, I can say from my personal experience in working at one of these homes, that the quality of life for the disabled tenants is greatly decreased. The tenants are always under staff supervision, and very rarely let out to socialize with the world. From my experience I have noticed that the greatest joy of the tenants is to be released to work, usually for only around 50₵ per hour. So it seems they are also being taken advantage of. So we can see that with less Down syndrome babies, less funding is necessary, and specialized group homes diminish the quality of life for their tenants, making these objections inefficient grounds for taking away the rights of parents to abort children based on prenatal …show more content…
I believe that the quality of life should be a factor in deciding on an abortion. If a family can financially and emotionally support a child with Down syndrome, then the quality of life of the child can be thought to be much higher. However, if a family is forced to have a child that they cannot financially or emotionally support, and the family is forced to have the child because no one will do the abortion, then the quality of life would be much lower. Secondly, a child born with Down syndrome is already set to have a lower quality of life for the fact that they will not be able to socialize, work, and play like everyone else. Not only will they have a short life span, but they will have to live that short life knowing that they are different. In both circumstances, the quality of life will be lessened and therefore it should be the choice of the parents when deciding whether or not to have the