Iceland to become first country where Down’s syndrome no longer poses a threat
Iceland might soon become the first country where nobody gives birth to a child with Down’s syndrome, as the Independent reports.
Pre-natal tests were introduced at the beginning of this century and most people who received a positive test decided to terminate the pregnancy. The test is called the Combination Test and is optional, but all expectant mothers are informed about them and around 85% choose to take it. It uses ultrasound and blood tests and weighs in the mother’s age to come up with a pertinent result regarding whether the baby will have a chromosome abnormality – the most common being Down’s syndrome.
In Iceland, the law allows for abortion after 16 weeks if the baby has a deformity such as Down’s syndrome. Only one or two children with Down’s syndrome are born in Iceland each year and sometimes this happens as a result of an inaccurate test. “Babies with Down’s syndrome are still being born in Iceland,” Hulda Hjartardottir, head of the Prenatal Diagnosis Unit at Landspitali University Hospital, told CBS. “Some of them were low risk in our screening test, so we didn’t find them in our screening.”
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Helga Sol Olafsdottir is a counselor for women who are considering ending their pregnancy due to a foetal abnormality and often tells mothers: “This is your life. You have the right to choose how your life will look like.” Talking about the issue of abortion she said: “We don’t look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication… preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder – that’s so black and white. Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.”
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