Dail Mail Wows at Downs Increase: Wrong Again!

Research for the BBC, reports the Mail has resulted in: "An increasing number of women are choosing to bring a Down's syndrome child into the world rather than have an abortion. More babies are being born with the genetic condition than before screening was introduced 20 years ago, figures show. And research reveals that many parents believe the social stigma associated with Down's has been removed and the quality of life for these babies has improved."

But as my fellow blogger, Dr Ben Goldacre (that's a GP type doctor, not a quack) at badscience.net observes, the real factor is obscured but the simple application of a statistic.

Live Down's Syndrome births are up by about 4% so that means, according to the Mail, that more parents (mothers in particular are choosing to keep a child with this moderate genetic disorder). As usual no one bothers to check for other contributing factors and the anti-abortion (anti-choice) leaning Mail is delighted at this news.

And as usual, they are wrong.

The simple fact is because of the changes in modern life, women are choosing to have their children much later in life. In fact, in medicine, a woman is considered to be a geriatric mother if she becomes pregnant at over 30.

Holy crap!

This isn't as staggering as it sounds, we're all living a very long time compared with our recent ancestors largely due to modern medicine and better diet.

As abhorrent as it sounds to us in the modern West, what we rightly regard as children today, would have been parents at the ripe old age of perhaps 11 or 12 only a few thousand years ago. Mind you, they would also have likely been dead before they hit 35 too.

Nature didn't intend for the human animal to live as long as it does; so by choosing to fuck with the natural order, we're playing dice with our offspring. No one is sure what causes Downs syndrome, but what we do know is that the instance rises dramatically with maternal age; paternal age is also though to be a factor although less so.

For a woman usual age, the chance of conceiving a child with Down's is about 1-in-1600 but by 43, the chance of is about 1-in-40. Of those women (of all age groups) who do, about 9 from every 10 actually terminate the pregnancy.

Since more women are selfishly putting their careers first than ever before, there's been a dramatic upsurge in Down's conceptions - NOT a reduction in terminations.

The more you put in, the more you get out - it's so simple even I can understand it, which is probably why the fuckwits at the Mail won't hire me.

Will the Mail be publishing a correction? Fuck no!