The genetic counselor handed me a tissue.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Whitten,” she said. “Eighty to ninety percent of people terminate these pregnancies. You can, too.”
Twenty-three years ago, my husband, Tom, and I had just received prenatal screening results indicating our unborn child probably had Down syndrome. Instead of offering us actual counseling, she played a video about Down syndrome — and it was terrifying.
It suggested our baby could die before birth. It listed the chances of death in infancy and before age 3. If the child survived, a seemingly endless list of medical problems scrolled across the screen.
I sat there crying and upset, largely because I was scared. But having spent my career in television and film, I also could not stop wondering who had produced such an awful video. The production quality was terrible. The information was worse. It turned out, the doctor who was about to perform the amnio to confirm the prenatal screening had made the video himself.
