From a woman waiting for the results of her amniocentesis, who intends to abort if the baby has down syndrome or another defect:
“I would have a very hard time dealing with a retarded child. Retardation is relative, it could be so negligible that the child is normal, or so severe that the child has nothing… All of the sharing things you want to do, the things you want to share with a child – that, to me, is the essence of being a father. There would be a big void that I would feel. I would feel grief, not having what I consider a normal family.”
Rayna Rapp Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: the Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America (New York: Routledge, 1999) 133
At the time the book was written, 1999, the only available test for down syndrome was amniocentesis, which is used at about 16 weeks. By this time, the baby is fully developed. (See picture below of a on the left at only 14 weeks) at this stage, the method of abortion used most is D&E, in which a baby is dismembered in the womb, her arms and legs pulled off and extracted by forceps and her skull crushed.
