Jan 17 2003
Lysistrata and Amniocentesis
Random tidbits from a couple of the finer media sources available:
Heard about this on WBUR last night as I was on my way home from work:
From the website:
- Let the Bush Administration know that we oppose their war on Iraq.
- Provide events where citizens can unite to enjoy an evening of spirited, comedic theatre while raising public awareness about the volume of war opposition.
- Provide a humorous entree into a healthy community dialogue: What CAN we do on a local level to stop “diplomacy by violence” in our world?
- Raise money for organizations that work for peace and human rights.
Hopefully a few more towns in the Boston area will put on productions, as I want to go.
Last night we saw the last portion of a PBS show, Fred Friendly Seminars. Specifically, it was the program on Making Better Babies: Genetics & Reproduction:
Every expectant parent wants a healthy baby, and new tests enable doctors to detect genetic abnormalities in the fetus. But if prenatal testing finds such a genetic marker in your baby, what do you do? The nature of the test results can leave parents with bewildering choices. John Hockenberry describes a scenario in which an expectant couple learns that their baby has a small risk of being born with very serious defects, and the panelists explore the often excruciating decisions—even gambles—that prenatal genetic testing can force parents to make.
What little I caught was really very thought-provoking, and even Husband made the (unsolicited!) comment that it was an interesting show. We haven’t yet decided if we are going to have children ourselves (definitely not in the next couple of years); if we do decide to procreate, I’ll be near or in the age range of women for whom amniocentesis is traditionally recommended (35+). A couple issues that were raised in the part of the program we saw were surrounding the decision to have this test, and what to do with the information a successful test provides (”The test can detect chromosomal disorders — such as Down’s syndrome, structural defects — such as spina bifida (open spine, where the vertebrae fail to close), anencephaly (a condition in which the brain is incomplete or missing), and many rare, inherited metabolic disorders.”). Obviously many discussions would need to be held in order to decide if risks outweigh benefits of the test (sounds like they probably do); my gut feeling is that we’d have the tests. A much more weighty issue to wrangle over is what we’d do if the tests indicated “Problems” with our fetus. How on earth do parents-to-be make these decisions, particularly if the results aren’t 100% conclusive (e.g. “there’s a 75% chance of a disorder”) ?? Listening to some of the panelists talk about various scenarios, and in one case about a very personal real experience, I was bowled over with anxiety. How do people even dare to *try* to have children when some of the risks are so high, let alone make a decision whether to abort or not once pregnant and the test results have returned?
My mind boggles; obviously my Biological Time Bomb hasn’t yet been ticking loud enough for me to take much notice - if it had been, I suspect some of my anxiety would be far overshadowed by the desire to have children of our own (or so I’ve been led to believe, at any rate. 
).
Additional tidbits included talk of cloning, and (as indicated by the title of the show), “Making Better Babies.” All-in-all, highly intellectually stimulating (did I just say that about a TV show?). I’m making a note to catch the next in the series, Genes on Trial: Genetics, Behavior, & the Law.
