By Dave Andrusko

Amy Julia Becker

I had coffee this morning with someone who, through the experience of a shared tragedy, has become a good friend. A woman of deep faith she spoke briefly but poignantly of how she'd wrestled with infertility. In her youth this had led her, not unexpectedly, to ask of God the "why?" question.

I mention that because almost the first thing I saw today in my electronic inbox was a story forwarded to me that appeared in yesterday's New York Times. "Deciding Not to Screen for Down Syndrome' was a guest column appearing in the Times' "Motherlode: Adventures in Parenting" section.

As the column's editor, Lisa Belkin, explains, "Amy Julia Becker is expecting her third child in January. She is 32 years old, and her age, plus the fact that her first child was born with Down syndrome, magnifies her odds of a chromosomal abnormality in this pregnancy, leading her doctors to suggest prenatal testing. In spite of the odds -- or perhaps because of them -- and her husband have declined the tests. In a guest post today, she explains why."

I want you read to Mrs. Becker's deeply moving and illuminating column found at http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/deciding-not-to-screen-for-down-syndrome/?pagemode=print, so I will make just a few cursory but hopefully helpful comments.

She reminds us that new tests are far more accurate in pinpointing whether an unborn child has Down syndrome. But as the mother of Penny, a child with Downs, when Mrs. Becker went in to her doctor's office she tells us her dread "didn't come from the thought that this new baby might have an extra chromosome. My dread arose from the prospect of talking to a doctor about prenatal testing. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends prenatal screening for Down syndrome for all pregnant women, regardless of age." She knows, as we know, that such a diagnosis is a death knell for 85% to 90% of these children.

Her post grabs your mind for many reasons but perhaps most because she brilliantly intersects the habitual negativity of so many physicians and the blessings of being the parent of child with Downs.

For instance, Mrs. Becker quotes a medical-school professor at the University of North Carolina. He told his class, ''In my opinion, the moral thing for older women to do is to have amniocentesis, as soon during pregnancy as is safe for the fetus, test whether placental cells have a third chromosome 21, and abort the fetus if it does.''

Against that recommendation for death, Mrs. Becker responds with faith, hope, and most of all evidence of charity/love--from Penny.

"The data told us that learning would be harder for her than for a typically developing child. It is, and yet she is able to write all the letters of the alphabet and tell stories and make up songs. And no list of developmental problems told us that empathy would be easier for her, that her eyes would well with tears and she would run to console her little brother when he falls and cries, that even as a 2-year-old she would see a picture of a wounded man and say: 'Me help! Me help!'"

Can't top that. Please go to http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/deciding-not-to-screen-for-down-syndrome/?pagemode=print.

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