A reader responds to my post on Down Syndrome:
I found your link to the Down Syndrome article very interesting. There
is a "quad-screen" test that our obstetrician (otherwise unimpeachably
good) half-heartedly tried to push on [my wife]and me that basically
has not practical purpose unless you want to abort "defective"
children.
Most of the articles they had us read about this, though, suggested that
you can't eliminate Down Syndrome through eugenicism -- in many cases it
is not inherited, but is caused by damage to the chromosomes that occurs
due to the particular circumstances of each conception or even random
chance. A few other related chromosomal disorders are similar. On the
other hand, eliminating green eyes or a particular skin-color is well
within the real of this "gene-therapy" stuff. Scary.
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