Prenatal Testing Persuasive Essay

Child is a gift from God. Every parent hopes for a healthy child. However, abnormalities in the fetus growth becoming common nowadays. These may be due to physical, radiation and chemical factors. These factors will cause deformities such as genetic mutation which causes mental retardation, abnormal body buildup and other conditions which bring a lot of troubles in the future to the child themselves and their parents. Modern technologies and innovations in the medical field had developed a method to detect the abnormality before delivery and prevent this future tragedy to happen. This method is known as prenatal screening. There are several advantages and disadvantages of prenatal screening.

Many people have a negative outlook on prenatal genetic testing but that is because they are not educated on the goals

Here is a real life story of a woman who has been greatly affected by genetic testing and has seen both the good and the bad of genetic testing. This is a story that was posted in an article called “6 Moms Share Their Real Prenatal Testing Stories” on the website “What to Expect” from Courtney from Lake Stevens, Washington about how genetic testing has affected her life. So for Courtney, a few weeks after her 13 week ultrasound and her quad screen her doctors told her she had a positive screen for Down syndrome. So at 17 weeks she had to go back in for another ultrasound and genetic counseling which according to kids health.org is counseling that allows a genetic counselor to evaluate the results of a genetic test with the parents and helps the parents understand and reach decisions on what to do next. Her ultrasound looked great but still had a positive screen for Down syndrome. So she was was recommended for either an amnio or verifi test. Courtney then went to genetic counseling and choose to have the verifi test done over the amnio. A week later her results came back negative for Down syndrome and confirmed the baby was a girl. Courtney said “I am glad we opted to get the verifi test done especially after the stress of getting a positive screening before. I like how that if the NIPT did turn out positive for Down syndrome, I could have prepared ahead of time for the care of a special needs child would require, rather than feeling completely caught off-guard at birth.”

In Improvements in Prenatal Genetic Testing Raise Ethnic Issues, R. J. Crayton produced an article about prenatal testing and whether or not parents should be allowed to have these tests done. First the situation of a high risk baby who will have a disability or defect after birth, so the parents decide to abort the child is being viewed as an inequality to the disabled community. Secondly, certain adoptions are put on hold since the biological parents chose to not carry the unborn child through the entire pregnancy, however, the surrogate mother wants to carry the child through the entire term. Lastly, research shows that the results can be a false positive, so unintentionally the parents decide not to keep the unknown, but healthy baby.

Genetics has become a very important topic of discussion in the healthcare field. There are more and more diseases being linked to certain genes in the DNA. Carrier: Untangling the danger in my DNA, by Bonnie J. Rough, is one example of the modern problems people have to deal with in regards to genetics and genetic testing. The author writes about the problems she faced. She had some very difficult decisions about her possible offspring as well as herself. Rough writes about her struggle with deciding if she should get a genetic test for a gene that causes a disease that has been passed on through her families for generations. The reader also learns about her and her husband’s experience of getting pregnant and the steps they took to try

Discovering you are pregnant with a child is supposed to be one of the best days of your life, but finding out your baby has the one extra 21st chromosome could change everything. Author and national correspondent for the New York Times, Amy Harmon, fights for children and families affected by the disease in her article, “Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus.” Harmon recognizes in her article that raising a child with this disease is not easy. She provides evidence of this by including quotes and personal stories from parents and family members whose loved ones are affected by it. She illustrates a genuine passion for the growing number of parents that are “Convinced that more couples would chose to continue the pregnancies if they better appreciated what it meant to raise a child with Down syndrome”(Harmon). To better put it in perspective, an estimated 90% of women chose to have an abortion if they are given a positive diagnosis for Down syndrome.

There is much controversy around the issue of genetic testing. These controversial issues range from being "unnatural" or against god 's will. There are several different ways to tests genetics but they all have one thing in common: they test for changes or mutations in chromosomes, genes, and proteins. These tests can provide answers for many families who want to know whether their children have become inflicted with a condition due to their family 's genetics, the health of the mother during the gestational period, or by some strange twist of the unknown. Despite all of the controversy, Genetic Testing is acceptable for determining whether an unborn child is at risk of developing a debilitating and/or deadly condition, relieving the worry of parents, and preemptively treating any condition that the child may have.

Prenatal genetic testing has become one of the largest and most influencial advances in clinical genetics today. "Of the over 4000 genetic traits which have been distinguished to date, more than 300 are identifiable via prenatal genetic testing" (Morris, 1993). Every year, thousands of couples are subjecting their lives to the results of prenatal tests. For some, the information may be a sigh of relief, for others a tear of terror. The psychological effects following a prenatal test can be devastating, leaving the woman with a decision which will affect the rest of her life.

Although highly controversial, I find germline editing extremely interesting. Just the thought of removing a gene from an embryo is fascinating. In the article they used an enzyme called CRISPR/Cas9 as their scissors in order to cut out the faulty gene, which could’ve lead to heart failure. This genetic editing could potentially save thousands, perhaps millions of people from heart problems. When injected with the CRISPR/Cas9, a RNA strand to direct the cut, and an added piece of DNA to help repair the cell. During this process something interesting happened. The embryo rejected the added DNA and healed itself using the healthy copy of its mother’s DNA. This posed many questions for me. One of the major questions I had was, are designer babies possible? Can someone choose what features their child gets? By continuing my research into this topic I found out that although it would be extremely difficult there is a slight chance that designer babies are possible. Although this possibility is very small and would take

Although there is no technique to prevent the onslaught of Down syndrome, it can nevertheless be identified prior to a child’s birth. Many of the health issues associated with this illness can be treated, and a multitude of resources can utilized

In recent years, fetal gene sequencing has been a controversial topic of debate for various reasons. This sequencing gives parents their unborn child’s full genetic complex during pregnancy. Meaning, parents will know in advance the physical traits, any possible disease development, or other complications. Patient care for future generations can be more accurate and efficient with the use of the scanning. There are conflicts between parents on the beliefs over this type of testing. Due to the immorality of obsessive parental influence, fetal scanning should only be used for medical illness prediction.

Cell-free fetal DNA testing is a relatively new technique used to screen for genetic disorders in a general obstetrical population. This method is proving to be the most sensitive among all existing standard screening methods in detecting Down syndrome, which is the most prevalent genetic disorder in United States. Beside the accuracy, the cffDNA test is noninvasive, it yields results early in pregnancy, and it is safe to the mother and fetus. Furthermore, when used as a primary screening method, it has proven to significantly reduce reliance on more invasive diagnostic procedures. Therefore, the cell-free fetal DNA testing should become the main screening option in obstetrics in order to protect the wellbeing of the pregnant mother and

According to Business Insider Science Edition, “By taking a look at the DNA of a prospective parent together with that of a potential sperm or egg, they can predict, with what they claim is 99% sensitivity, the risk of having a baby with a rare genetic disease.” (Lewis, 2015) With this information parents can then go to make the proper decision on whether or not they are prepared to handle a child with such diseases, or if they should even have a child in the first place. Another quote from the article that shows how gene testing parents is helpful for the children is as following ,”Now, the company has developed a test that it claims can detect about 500 genetic disorders caused by tweaks in a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, and Bloom syndrome.”(Lewis,

Having a child comes with not only positive experiences, but also pressure and other adjustment matters. If you are told that your unborn child is diagnosed with Down Syndrome, your perspectives and concerns may change significantly. Known as a genetic disorder that is estimated to occur in 1 out of every 650- 1000 live births (Bittles & Glasson, 2004), receiving a positive diagnosis of Down Syndrome can be very overwhelming for the parents. Prenatal diagnosis and screening are controversial when we refer to ethical considerations, but the benefits that they provide are undeniable. Prenatal tests do not only facilitate choices through information provision, but also allow the parents to recognise and prepare for the challenges that their unborn child and their family have to face upon their decision making. Whether it is the trauma and grief of abortion or the pressure and difficulty of raising a child with disability, the challenges that they have to face will have a significant impact on their life and it may create new shifts and change their family dynamics forever.

When such a condition is detected, or highly suspected, what then? According to Farrell et al., (2014) physicians are most concerned with the ethical issue of pregnancy termination. In the case of Down Syndrome, this is with good cause. A systemic review by Natoli, Ackerman, McDermott and Edwards (2012) found a weighted mean termination rate following a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome was 67%, with a range of 61% - 93%. The evidence they presented suggested that termination rates varied according to maternal age, race, and gestational age. (These variances alone open another ethical can of worms). But one can see, after only brief examination of this one genetic screen, why physicians, and society in general, should be concerned. There is no concensus regarding whether or not pregnancy termination is ethical in and of itself, let alone when one decides to terminate due to knowledge of specific genetic markers or