Bill to provide info about Down Syndrome to prospective parents receives pushback

[TexasTowelie]

Austin -- Abortion rights groups and physicians pushed back against a proposal heard by a House panel Wednesday that would require health care providers to give certain information about Down Syndrome to prospective parents.

The bill’s author, Rep. Geanie Morrison, R-Victoria, said the bill would mandate health care providers and genetic counselors to provide information about “physical, developmental, educational and psychosocial outcomes, life expectancy, clinical course and intellectual and functional development for individuals with Down Syndrome,” to prospective and new parents with a child diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

Carrie Kaufman an OBGYN representing the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Texas Pediatric Society, the Texas Society of Genetic Counselors, and the Texas Academy of Family Physicians and the Texas Medical Association said doctors should be able to decide when and what information to give to their patients.

Morrison’s proposal would set a “dangerous precedent to mandate how and when that communication takes place within our doctor-patient relationship,” Kaufman said.

Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/04/bill-to-provide-info-about-down-syndrome-to-prospective-parents-receives-pushback.html/

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Why would a bunch of anti-choice politicians dictate this?

"Your child has downs syndrome, and it's gonna be awful for the following reasons..."

"Unfortunately it sucks to be you, because you live here in Texas where you can't do anything about it anyhow."

[Ilsa]

2. Geanie Morrison is an idiot. She'd

Scream bloody murder if someone got between her and her dr.

The genetics counselors already do this anyway. Why do prospective parents go to genetic counselors or have testing if they don't want to get as much info as possible? Why does she think it needs to be spelled out in law?