SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Iceland is close to eliminating Down syndrome births due to widespread prenatal screening tests and nearly 100% of women choosing an abortion in the case of a positive test for Down syndrome:
With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.
Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.
While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.
[...] Other countries aren't lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome [open, DOI: 10.1002/pd.2910] [DX] of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it's 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity -- and Down syndrome is included in this category.
The Prenatal Diagnosis link in the summary was replaced with a working version.
National Review has a counterpoint opinion piece about the CBSN article. Snopes has a page debunking inaccurate headlines about the article.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:47PM (3 children)
As a follow up, I did the math anyway. So 62 kids were selected for execution via extremely high false positive test results, of which 61 are not diseased healthy kids and 1 kid is actually diseased. So gotta kill 61 healthy little kids to make sure one diseased kid is killed.
The problem with the infotainment propaganda about downs syndrome is the rate is very age dependent and below age 43 the odds of your kid being the sole diseased one are LOWER than 1 in 60 and above 43 the odds of your kid being the diseased one is higher than 1 in 60. The ratios are ridiculous and under age 23 the odds of your kid up for execution being the diseased one is less than 1 in 2000... The doc says he has to kill your kid because there's a 1 in 60 chance but the wikipedia says the odds of YOUR kid being the diseased one is less than 1 in 2000.
So if you're thinking logically if the doc wants to kill your kid, if you're under 43 the odds are with you if you tell him hell no, and if you're over 43 the odds are against you.
This is aside from the risks of the test process itself
The whole thing is pretty much a scam. Like claiming the only way to measure your kids height is to have a marksman shoot an apple off his head with a bow and arrow or some similar scam. I'm sure there's a lot of money to be made in the abortion industry, of course, and most of the healthy kids being executed are white, which anti-white people surely enjoy.
(Score: 1) by Scottingham on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:20PM (2 children)
The fuck are you going on about?
An abortionist conspiracy to kill white babies? Do even hear yourself?
Anyway, highly entertaining, keep up the good work.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:33PM (1 child)
Yeah you're right, the dominant political progressive establishment loves white people, LOL.
Regardless, if I have to make the point painfully explicitly without surrounding it by great pile of data and math, there was a lot of wonder at why the abortion rate for downs syndrome children isn't 100%, and the reason why is the false positive rate is spectacular and about sixty healthy kids are killed for every downs syndrome kid killed, AND Downs trends strongly with age, such that very superficially if you don't know the numbers or the math you can be confused why mothers aren't killing all their downs kids, but there's an excellent game theory argument such that if you're under 43 and your doctor wants to kill your kid you should respectfully decline his assistance because your kid is almost certain to be healthy especially if you're really young (like 22, rather than 42.9999 years), and if you're over 43 years the odds are better that the doc is actually correct and there's a better than 50:50 chance if you kill your kid on doctors advice, it had Downs when it died. 50:50 seems kinds bad odds to kill your own kids, at least to me, but whatever.
Anyway that's why less than 100% of downs kids are killed. Medical diagnosis seems incredibly poorly done compared to something like diagnosing a broken arm which the usually get right, and that in itself is very interesting. You're almost better off consulting an astrologer or politician than a doctor at least WRT killing downs syndrome kids.
With a side dish that the law of small numbers makes the whole debate rather meaningless. You can't make much policy or learn muc from anecdotal observation based on seven dead kids in Iceland. Consider that Baltimore is about twice the population of Iceland and has over 300 murders per year but even with that higher number we can't agree on policy (well, agree on any policy that actually works, LOL, obviously).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:49PM
You cray cray dood