The new ethical controversy?

[vivant]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

How ethical is it to be able to screen for disabilities like Down Syndrome and parent's reactions to them?

I personally don't feel that *as a parent* it is ethical to screen for this and other disabilities. That said, I don't judge parents who do and I can certainly sympathize with wanting to know in advance so that there was time to adjust and possibly mourn the loss of dreams of having a 'normal' child ... by aborting a fetus OR by just taking the final months of pregnancy to come to terms with the possible projected outcome: a disabled child.

As a medical professional and/or member of a greater society, I have more room to justify the ethicality of these screenings. I'd go so far as to say that we ARE ethically bound to offer these screenings.

Welcome to the muddled mess that is my mind.

I didn't screen or test during my pregnancies, and won't with future pregnancies. But I know that I can handle what comes my way, and I acknowledge that not everyone is like me. We all have to trust our guts and do what feels right *to us* damning what anyone else things or judges to be right *for us*. FWIW in regards to a later post, I don't partake in traditional immunizations either and I tried to generate a separate thread to expound on that but apparently I'm too new to create a thread of my own LOL.

-V-