95% of Spanish women abort when the chromosomal alteration caused by Down syndrome is detected.
Prenatal diagnostic techniques have improved greatly in recent years and now the detection of chromosomal abnormalities is more effective. Adding to these advances the approval of the current Spanish Abortion Law the births of children with Down syndrome has decreased significantly.
In 2006, 56% fewer cases were registered than in 1980. This decrease is more pronounced in the case of mothers 35 years and older, which is 85%.
The majority of mothers at the age of risk undergo an amniocentesis (despite being an invasive test that is not risk-free) and 95% of them undergo an abortion when the positive result is known. María Luisa Martínez Frías, director of the study conducted by the Spanish Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations (ECEMC), stressed the incredible decline experienced since 1980 and said that, in her opinion, "we are looking for the perfect son".
María Orera, medical director of Laboratorios Circagen, commented that “Now we can identify 50 genetic diseases from amniocentesis; in five years we will be able to reach 200 and, in 15, maybe we will cover them all ".
According to Orera the initial objective of prenatal diagnosis has deviated linking it almost exclusively to the voluntary termination of pregnancy: "Its ultimate goal is not to end genetic diseases, as this would have eugenic connotations. It may be that there comes a time when children are no longer born."
I sincerely agree with María Orera that we are at the gates of entering the dangerous field of selection of the human species. Such is the population's perception of the ability to choose that there have been cases of parents who have requested a termination of pregnancy because they are pregnant with a baby of unwanted sex. That is to say, since she is not a child, which is what she wanted, we requested abortion.
