There is an obvious difference between medical and non-medical counseling. Everyone acknowledges that medicine is a very specialized field. Walk down the street and ask 100 people what Goucher syndrome is and the only people who are going to have an answer are those who have it and those who have MDs. Even that might be an over-estimation. If your baby is diagnosed with an incurable genetic disorder, you really need someone with medical experience to help you figure out what exactly this means. Admittedly, WebMD and Wikipedia might help you out if you don't have access to counseling, but not everyone is aware of these resources, the internet is not always reliable and even when it is reliable, it cannot always explain complex medical problems in a way that a layman can understand (go to WebMD, type in a symptom, I'm sure it will tell you one possibility is terminal cancer). There's nothing paternalistic about requiring counseling in an area in which most people have no working knowledge.

The same does not hold true of non-medical reasons for abortions. If you are having an abortion because you can't afford to have a kid, you aren't ready to have a kid, or you just don't want your husband to know that you were cheating on him, these are all areas where most people have a working knowledge. Additionally, the woman probably has a much better concept of their own finances or emotional state than any ob/gyn that might be required to counsel them. Furthermore, unlike questions about what having Goucher's Syndrome means, these questions are highly personal, and rarely have a "right" answer. As such, having some counselor second guess this sort of decision smacks of paternalism.

On the other hand, most people are

There is nothing wrong with medical, non-judgemental counseling for women seeking abortions.

The problem is that anti-choice activists want to control the counseling message. They don't want a woman to have complete information, they want her to have biased or just plain wrong information. Such as the myth that abortions increase the threat of breast cancer, depression or suicide. That a three-month old fetus is"viable" and in pain.

If they really want counseling, they should counsel the woman on the risks of pregnancy including diabetes, incontinence, and even death. They should give her a detailed accounting of the costs of raising a child and show how little of it is covered by government assistance or healthcare. Or how many in the anti-choice camp have used terrorism to kill doctors, nurses and young women seeking help.

> ask 100 people what Goucher syndrome is and the only people
> who are going to have an answer are those who have it and those
> who have MDs. Even that might be an over-estimation.

Unless you ask me. I'm not a physician, and I don't know anyone with this disease, but I happen to know something about Gaucher's disease. One-size-fits-all rules are rarely appropriate.

You have the right answer to the question in the column. Unless they are genetic counselors themselves, women are not experts in the consequences of a rare genetic disorder on their family's future. They ARE experts -- the only possible experts -- in their life situations, goals, plans, religious beliefs, and relationships. I'm the world's leading authority on what's best for me.

So although I would voluntarily seek counseling before I made the decision to end a pregnancy, it's really condescending for the government to say that I need to talk to some expert in order to know my own mind. (This is aside from the fact that the "counseling" mandated by most state laws is just anti-abortion propaganda, and bears no resemblande to supportive medical guidance...that's a whole 'nother issue.)

I personally believe that anyone seeking to abort solely on the basis of a genetic test should be required to meet multiple individuals who have the genetic condition in question and their parents. Why? Because I (along with my husband and kids) am one of those genetic mutants that people want to abort/euthanize, and just because my life is DIFFERENT does not make it inferior. I look at the problems other people face and would much rather keep my challenges instead of swapping for another's difficulties.

Another reason is that how can you say this genetic disease is okay, but the other is one that requires abortion? Should we sterilize/require abortions for everyone who has a gene that causes addictive behavior? It could possibly mean a huge decrease in drunk/intoxicated driving deaths, murders and robberies related to obtaining drugs, and numerous other crimes, once 25 years of aborting all babies with an addiction gene has passed. In addition, there would be fewer cigarette addicts, and thus fewer lung cancer and emphysema deaths. Everybody in the US knows someone with an addiction to something, can you imagine your life without every single addicted relative or friend? Are they worth less than the lives of the people who are killed by addicts? What if they passed a law stating that any baby with a gene that predisposes to homosexuality had to be aborted? Would that be okay? What about autistic/learning-disabled people if a prenatal diagnostic test is found? Should Thomas Edison and Bill Gates or any of the other numerous [slightly flawed] geniuses have been aborted because they aren't a parent's dream child?

Another reason for advocating truly informed consent is that there is currently a ***shortage*** of children with Down Syndrome for people wanting to adopt them. If you knew that there was someone who deeply wants to be the parent of a Downs baby, wouldn't you think twice about aborting them? Isn't it also important to know that people with Downs are the sweetest people on earth and they can graduate from college and hold jobs (especially if most OB/GYNs don't know that)?

In my mind, the only people qualified to say whether a life with health challenges and different abilities is worth living are those who actually are living with those challenges and the people who love them. Until you have walked a mile in our shoes (or wheeled through a mile of hospital corridors), how can you say that life in a wheelchair or life in an adult diaper isn't worth living? Don't knock it if you haven't tried it or been forced to try it.

The question of the cost of caring for genetically different people is a whole 'nother can of worms, and should be discussed along with the idea of killing everyone as soon as they are diagnosed with cancer...it's expensive paying for chemo and radiation and surgery and all those other treatments and those treatments are barbaric anyway. (That's sarcasm along the lines of _A Modest Proposal_.)

Christina (diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome)

Your argument is a straw man, Christina. Nobody here is advocating a duty to abort fetuses found to be potentially disabled. On the contrary, you seem to be advocating a duty not to abort potentially disabled fetuses, which is just as unreasonable.

Speaking from my experience as someone with a borderline autistic disability (and really, who doesn't have one these days?) if I were to father a child, and that child was found to have the same disability I have, I would wish to spare that child the misery of this existence. That having been said, it wouldn't be my choice, as the buck stops with the mother whose body the fetus is being loaned to.

As for the Down's scenario, why restrict ourselves to Down's? If it's irresponsible to abort a fetus with Down's that, as a child, would be wanted by some family, wouldn't it be irresponsible to abort any fetus that could potentially be wanted by someone? There's no obligation to fulfill anyone's wishes against your own.