Patricia Bauer, an American journalist and mother of Margaret, 21, who has Down syndrome, wrote a revealing piece in the New York Times about "how painful it is to hear someone you love called a tragic mistake." In this article, she exposes how "society implicitly pressures women to abort disabled children once genetic testing makes detection possible during pregnancy—effectively erasing an entire category of people deemed unworthy of existence, and branding those disabled children who are born anyway with a mark of shame. Prenatal tests come without the education women and doctors desperately need. Doctors offer judgments saturated with prejudice. Who worries that women receive truthful information before deciding their children's fate?"
No child arrives with a money-back guarantee. The desire to control our children's destiny is natural. But it must be balanced by reality. What troubles me is that these tests encourage us to think of children as products that can and must be perfected. This fundamentally transforms the parent-child relationship and destroys the concept of unconditional love a child deserves. I see women taking test after test simply because everyone does. Do they ever stop to ask themselves what they would do if one came back wrong? That there is no guarantee of a perfect child? Having a child is an act of faith.
Interview with Patricia Bauer in "Noi genitori e figli," supplement to Avvenire, no. 93 (2006).