Down But Not Out?

I read recently about a new test that allows for early detection of Down Syndrome. The article, forwarded to me by Johnathan, discussed some of the ethical issues involved and provided a statistic that 90% of women who get a positive test for Down syndrome get an abortion. Apparently, however, there is a huge demand to adopt babies with Down Syndrome. There's a big can of worms opened up by this, of course.

I also discovered something intereseting that is related. Here are the statistics on the likelihood of having a child with Down Syndrome versus the mother's age:

• under 30: less than 1 in 1000
• 30: 1 in 900
• 35: 1 in 400
• 36: 1 in 300
• 37: 1 in 230
• 38: 1 in 180
• 39: 1 in 135
• 40: 1 in 105
• 42: 1 in 60
• 44: 1 in 35
• 46: 1 in 20
• 48: 1 in 16
• 49: 1 in 12

One other interesting thing the article raised was that if one of the purposes of prenatal screening is to reduce the frequency of disabilities, what does that say about all the people who currently have disabilities?

Daniel