Letters
Volume 187 - Issue 9

Antenatal care implications of population-based trends in Down syndrome birth rates

Author:  Mary C Joseph

Med J Aust 2007; 187 (9): 543-544. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01405.x
Published online: 5 November 2007
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To the Editor: Coory and colleagues revealed a disturbing attitude to children with Down syndrome in their recent report in the Journal on trends in Down syndrome birth rates in Queensland.1

The authors inform us that, of the 70 children with Down syndrome who would have been born without a particular form of “antenatal care” (selective termination), 21 were aborted, but another 22 could (and, by implication, should) have been aborted, had the recommended “antenatal care” by private obstetricians been replicated across the whole of Queensland.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has condemned selective termination as discrimination against children and “a serious violation of their rights, affecting their survival”.2 The Committee’s recent General comment on the rights of children with disabilities affirmed that these children have a right to positive antenatal care.3

The concluding comment of Coory et al that “When the costs of screening are offset against the life-time costs of caring for a person with Down syndrome, screening is less costly . . .” is deeply disturbing. Surely a person with Down syndrome is entitled to the same recognition of inherent dignity and worth as are all other members of the human family.

The authors acknowledge that their view may be regarded by some as “distasteful”, but offer the defence that they are merely advocating that “. . . all expectant parents should be provided with the same information and have the same access to services so that they all have the same choices”. But termination is not a value-free choice. By suggesting that the best outcome of screening is a reduction in the births of children with Down syndrome by cutting these children’s lives short, the authors make a moral judgement that steps outside medicine and contravenes universal human values.

The human rights of children have been recognised by the international community since the 1924 Geneva declaration of the rights of the child4 and continuously re-affirmed to the present day. It is frightening to see how much progress we have still to make when authors such as Coory and colleagues can argue that reducing the births of children with Down syndrome by the practice of selective termination is a positive thing.

Author

  • Mary C Joseph
  • 1. Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence: aprilmary@gmail.com

Competing interests

I work as a research and project assistant for the Life Office, an agency of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

References

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