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Ohio Bill Would Ban Abortion when a Prenatal Test is Positive for Down Syndrome

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 26 2017, @10:54AM   

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/09/24/ohio-bill-would-bar-abortion-when-prenatal-test-is-positive-for-down-syndrome/

an Ohio bill [would] ban abortions in cases where a pregnant woman has had a positive test result or prenatal diagnosis indicating Down syndrome. Physicians convicted of performing an abortion under such circumstances could be charged with a fourth-degree felony, stripped of their medical license and held liable for legal damages. The pregnant woman would face no criminal liability.

Several other states have considered similar measures, triggering emotional debate over women's rights, parental love, and the trust between doctor and patient.

The Ohio bill's chief Senate sponsor, Republican Sen. Frank LaRose, said Republican lawmakers accelerated the measure after hearing a mid-August CBS News report on Iceland's high rate of abortions in cases involving Down syndrome. The report asserted Iceland had come close to "eradicating" such births.

[...] Doctors and medical students are fighting the measure.

Parvaneh Nouri, a third-year medical student at Wright State University, told lawmakers it would do little to stop abortions but could stop information-sharing between patients and their doctors.

“It destroys the trust of our patients, for which we have worked tirelessly over generations of physicians to cultivate,” she said.

Indiana's version of the law has been blocked by a federal judge while North Dakota's law has gone unchallenged due to the state's only abortion clinic not performing abortions after 16 weeks. An Oklahoma bill that would prohibit abortions based on any genetic abnormalities did not reach the state Senate.

Previously: Down Syndrome Births Nearly Eliminated in Iceland

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Original Submission

• Re:umm (Score: 3, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:33PM

  by FakeBeldin (3360) on Tuesday September 26 2017, @04:33PM (#573231) Journal

  We've had that discussion before. Iceland itself has not eradicated anything, it's its inhabitants choosing aborting when considering the options. [snopes.com]

  Iceland offers free pre-natal screening for down syndrome. Doctors are required to tell pregnant women that they can be screened.
  Some of them do. Some of those that do, get the unfortunate news that there is something out of the ordinary, such as Down syndrome.
  As it turns out, of those that do opt for prenatal screening, AND that screening finds Down syndrome, a large percentage choose abortion.

  Quoting snopes:

  There are similar termination rates after fetal diagnoses of Down syndrome in other European countries. In Denmark, for example, the rate is about 98 percent, CBS News reported. In the United States, for comparison’s sake, the rate of mothers choosing to terminate their pregnancy after receiving a Down syndrome diagnosis is about 68 percent.

  “Babies with Down syndrome are still being born in Iceland,” Hulda Hjartardottir, head of the Prenatal Diagnosis Unit at Landspitali University Hospital, in which around 70 percent of Icelandic children are born, told CBS News.

  Parent

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