Critics charge breakthrough test ‘close to Nazi eugenics’

AN JOSE, Calf.— (MCT) Raising the prospect of a world without birth defects, a Stanford-created blood test that can detect Down syndrome and two other major genetic defects very early in a woman’s pregnancy will be available this week.
The simple blood test spares women the risk and heartache of later and more invasive tests like amniocentesis.

But it has startling social implications — heralding a not-distant future when many fetal traits, from deadly disease to hair color, are known promptly after conception when abortion is safer and simpler.

The $1,200 test, which analyzes fetal DNA in a mother who is 10 weeks pregnant, is being offered to doctors March 1 by Verinata Health, a biotechnology company in Redwood City, Calif. It licensed a technique designed by Stanford biophysicist Stephen Quake.

“It’s a game changer,” said Stanford University law professor Hank Greely, who studies the legal and ethical implications of emerging technologies. The controversy over abortion “is about to be hit by a tsunami of new science.”

Read More: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0212/abortion_game_changer.php3