The American Spectator

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Aborting the Disabled

By George Neumayr on 10.18.05 @ 10:30AM

Patricia Bauer, a former Washington Post reporter and the mother of a child with Down syndrome, writes on the Post's Op-Ed page today about the societal pressure to abort a disabled unborn child. People look at her child "curious, surprised, sometimes wary, occasionally disapproving or alarmed." At a recent dinner party, an Ivy League professor, specializing in ethics naturally, instructed the table that parents have a duty to undergo prenatal testing to ensure that disabled children don't enter the world. "When I started to pipe up about our family's experience," writes Bauer, "he smiled politely and turned to the lady on his left."Â

A pediatrician in Los Angeles, who used to see many children with disabilities, now sees none. He informed Bauer that on the west side of L.A. they are just not born anymore. Â