{"id":3126,"date":"2011-10-27T04:44:09","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T09:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=3126"},"modified":"2011-10-27T04:44:09","modified_gmt":"2011-10-27T09:44:09","slug":"body-language-maternit21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2011\/10\/27\/body-language-maternit21\/","title":{"rendered":"BODY LANGUAGE:  MaterniT21"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, a drug company called Sequenom has made their prenatal blood test, MaterniT21, available in select markets.\u00a0 This is the test I <a href=\"http:\/\/piepmeier.blogspot.com\/2011\/07\/taking-it-personally.html\">made reference to<\/a> in a post or two over the summer:\u00a0 it&#8217;s the test that can examine fetal DNA from a maternal blood sample.\u00a0 What this means is that it can provide the information that, until now, could only be gotten from amniocentesis or CVS, and these are tests that carry a risk of miscarriage.<\/p>\n<p>Well, I say it can provide the information that an amnio or CVS provides.\u00a0 These are tests that examine fetal genetics for a wide range of things.\u00a0 MaterniT21 looks for one thing, and one thing only:\u00a0 Down syndrome.<\/p>\n<p>Amber Cantrell and I have <a href=\"http:\/\/piepmeier.blogspot.com\/2011\/05\/prenatal-testing-alisons-doing.html\"> interviewed<\/a> quite a few women as part of an extended <a href=\"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=2744\">research project<\/a>.  Those who&#8217;ve chosen not to have an amnio or a cvs have said this was because of the risk of miscarriage.\u00a0 A maternal blood test carries no risk of miscarriage, and it can be done quite a bit earlier in the pregnancy than an amniocentesis.\u00a0 Earlier in the pregnancy matters because 90% of people who discover through testing that their fetus has Down syndrome decide to terminate the pregnancy.\u00a0 If you can learn that your fetus has Down syndrome earlier in the pregnancy, abortion is safer and easier.<\/p>\n<p>As you all know, I am a big advocate of reproductive rights, so this isn&#8217;t a post saying that folks shouldn&#8217;t have abortions.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a post saying that I&#8217;m interested in seeing how this new technology affects our conversations about parenthood and disability.\u00a0 We&#8217;re a culture that often lets technology&#8211;rather than thoughtful ethical conversations, for instance&#8211;take the lead.\u00a0 So where will this technology lead us?\u00a0 What will it mean for the decision-making processes of women who are pregnant?\u00a0 What will it mean for people, like my daughter, who have Down syndrome?<\/p>\n<p>Cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/piepmeier.blogspot.com\/2011\/10\/maternit21.html\">Baxter Sez<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, a drug company called Sequenom has made their prenatal blood test, MaterniT21, available in select markets.\u00a0 This is the test I made reference to in a post or two over the summer:\u00a0 it&#8217;s the test that can examine fetal DNA from a maternal blood sample.\u00a0 What this means is that it can provide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1919,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21097],"tags":[345,3109,3290,2079],"class_list":["post-3126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-language","tag-disability","tag-motherhood","tag-pregnancy","tag-reproductive-justice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}