Beeson & Singer/ prenatal diagnosis

kelley kwalker2 at gte.net
Fri Aug 10 15:28:36 PDT 2001


this isn't evidence that many many people abort at the sign of a club foot. it is evidence that some people abort at the sign of a club foot in two societies that have different health care systems than we do. you've already identified that medical establishment as a problem here; why assume that they are less of a problem in the UK and Israel where they exert more control most likely.

to provide some context, in light of my criticisms of this data, i found that one study suggests that 10% of parents with a child diagnosed with cleft palate/lip terminate the pregnancy. this doesn't suggest "many many".


>>Here is one for cleft lip.
>>The birthrate of babies with cleft lip fell between 1982-1992 from 820 to
>>464 per year and the birth of babiese with Talipes (legs are not
>>straight) fell from 2041 to 747.

--i can't judge this data in the absence of other data. did all birth defects fall at a similar rate or just those that are detectable prenatally? do you know the causes of the decline?

--are these rates, as in per 1000 live births+ still born? or are these a subcategory comparing number of cleft lip births to 1000 CA births + still births?

--are cleft lips the only problem, or was it part of, say, Roberts-SC phocomelia syndrome which generally results in infant death?

--rates also change according to the number of women of child bearing age in the population. a rate can go down simply because that number changes.

--is this b/c of the UK health system, where they judge an abortion less expensive than the surgery?

--were this in the US, wouldn't it be less expensive to have an abortion since it's cheaper to abort than to have a child and pay for the surgery. this does not necessarily translate into disrepect for the disabled.

http://www.freelists.org/archives/tri-med/05-2001/msg00231.html



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