1.  Year 13 Ethics

2.  Who are you?  Who do you want to be?  Your passions  Your fears  Your hopes  Your dreams

3.  Collect a Year 11 Trinity Text Book.  Read the stories of Alex and Tess on pages 27 & 28.  Complete the activities with a friend.  Make notes in your book about Down’s Syndrome.  NB the art work on the back of the Trinity text book is from Tess’ Level 1 art board. She got Excellence for Level 1 Art.  Alex is flatting and works part time at the Catholic Diocesan Centre.

4.  The Nathaniel Centre: www.nathaniel.org.nzwww.nathaniel.org.nz  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M-- xOyGUX4&safe=active http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M-- xOyGUX4&safe=active  http://nsu.govt.nz/current-nsu-programmes/antenatal- screening.aspx?gclid=CP28nv7Yh7YCFYohpQodizUAZA http://nsu.govt.nz/current-nsu-programmes/antenatal- screening.aspx?gclid=CP28nv7Yh7YCFYohpQodizUAZA

5. Prenatal diagnosis has become common due to the recent developments in genetic knowledge and technology. Presently hundreds of genetic conditions can be identified through prenatal diagnosis.

6. The major diagnostic tests are diagnostic ultrasound, amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling (CVS).

7.  In recent years the need to have results early has become seen as a right.  The pregnancy is confirmed early and scans are done earlier. Now we want to check out the health of our baby earlier.  The ability to have things such as first trimester ultrasounds have helped to reshape prenatal diagnosis.

8.  Prenatal testing, once limited to women considered "high risk", is increasingly a routine part of all pregnant women's antenatal care.  High risk mothers were those who were often older and or had family history of certain things or who were unwell in their pregnancy or whose baby did not appear to be progressing well.  In the United Kingdom do-it-yourself urine tests to screen for Down syndrome are being developed.

9.  For some prenatal screening is seen as responsible pregnant behaviour.  Alongside this prenatal testing is seen as a "beneficial medical advance“.  Disability continues to be constructed in negative and prejudicial ways.  Why are women tested?

10.  Testing is frequently presented as a compassionate enterprise, assisting families to avoid the birth of a child with disability. Early testing is sought to avoid the difficulties of late terminations.  Prenatal testing is seen as ‘reassurance’ and it is for your ‘family’s well-being’. It is about providing you with ‘choice’.  If abortion is offered it is seen as ‘therapeutic’.

11.  There is an implicit message in prenatal testing that society believes that raising a child with disability, is such a burden that it is appropriate and some would say morally correct to take measures to ensure that the pregnancy is terminated and the child is not born. ?????Do you understand what implicit means?

12.  The idea that people with a disability contribute to their families and to the community and that the experience of disability adds to our understanding of what it is to be a human being, is readily dismissed as irrational or sentimental.  Even where it is acknowledged that parents can find the experience rewarding, they are considered "lesser" rewards.  It might be conceded that once a child is there you have no choice but to make the most of it, but it is an experience which it is sensible to avoid.  What do you think???? Discuss with someone.

13.  What do you think the impact on society and family is if you have a disabled child?  Negative or a chance to grow and expand horizons?  Define normal  Define usefulness  Define ‘value added’ in a family.

14.  Statistics indicate that less than 2% of couples in Victoria (Australia) continue pregnancies following a diagnosis of Down syndrome (Ford 1999:69).  Proponents of prenatal testing often offer the high rates of termination as proof that they are meeting consumer demand.  Some suspect something different in these statistics. They are concerned that decisions made in haste and without adequate information about what disability is likely to mean for their child and for themselves as parents.

15.  Some pregnant women have been tested, had confirmation of a baby with Down’s Syndrome and then a subsequent abortion all in one day.  Victoria Australia.  Warning! Diagnosis does not tell you how your life will be, for this you need time and to meet and or read about other families.  Disability does not have to equal disaster.

16.  Prenatal diagnosis raises profound questions about the value of children and the sort of human community we are creating.

17.  This article was originally published in Interaction 13(4) 26- 33 (2000) and is reproduced with the permission of the author. References are available on request.  Dr Lisa Bridle is a Clinical Coordinator/Lecturer at the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability (QCIDD), University of Queensland. She formerly worked as a bioethics advocacy worker for Queensland Advocacy Inc.  © The Nathaniel Centre 2007

18.  Genetic testing in the area of human reproduction falls into three broad categories. 1. Prospective parents wanting to know the likelihood of future children having disabilities or diseases, and on the basis of such knowledge, deciding whether or not to have children. 2. Parents who have already conceived wanting assurance that their foetus is healthy. For this group, the outcome of genetic testing of the foetus (known as pre-natal diagnosis) may involve them in deciding whether or not to abort. 3. Technological innovations now allow for the testing of embryos prior to implantation in the womb – a practice known as Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Disability and a Catholic Ethic of Caring John Kleinsman Issue 9, April 2003

19.  The ethical issues associated with prenatal screening have come to the fore in New Zealand in March 2007 the Ministry of Health released "A Report of the Antenatal Down Syndrome Screening Advisory Group to the National Screening Unit, January 2007  Given the ready availability of abortion within New Zealand, we should be extremely concerned.

20.  Your teacher will give a sheet with some quotes from this document.  Glue it into your book.  Read it, annotate it and discuss its meaning.

21.  Dignitas Personae is fundamentally positive about the place of medical science and technology and its importance in the "equitable extension of necessary medical care to all people.“

22.  Dignitas Personae place the issues associated with bioethics firmly and overtly within the Church's rich tradition of social justice. We have a duty to stand with those who are most vulnerable.

23.  Dignitas Personae challenges us to enrich our debates by placing them in a global social justice context that takes proper account of the common good and the right all people have to access basic health care.