New blood test for fetal DNA can identify Down Syndrome at 10 weeks into pregnancy --

[BainsBane]

9. I am not criticizing or challenging a woman's right to choose

at all. I am talking about scientific efforts to engineer out disability: Eugenics. I am not criticizing individual women's choices. I am saying I am troubled by a social tendency to use science to do away with disability and imperfection, to engineer a superior human race.

As women we have the right to make our own medical decisions, but we also have the rights to free speech and express concerns about scientific ethics.

Would you feel the same if there were a rash to abort all girls, as exists in some countries? Perhaps you would. I am not saying it should be illegal to make such decisions, but rather than I find the social tendency problematic. I would hope people would be capable of understanding nuance rather than insisting no one should speak on any matter that in any way relates to abortion. We are approaching a time period where there will be testing to determine eye color, tendency toward obesity, and other physical characteristics. Women will have the right to choose to abort fetuses for whatever reason they want, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't engage in discussion about what that social practice-as opposed to individual choice--means for humanity.

Corporations don't create these tests to promote a woman's right to choose. They do it to make profits and also because they reflect broader social attitudes about disability.