Doctors put price on lives of those with Down's Syndrome

Published: September 23rd, 2016

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- Abortion
- Bioethics

Senior doctors attracted strong criticism this week, after suggesting that the NHS should work out the cost effectiveness of treating those with Down’s Syndrome.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists raised the prospect in a consultation into a widely-criticised pre-natal test for Down’s, which the NHS is set to approve.

Non-Invasive Pre-Natal Testing (NIPT) is being hailed by scientists for its accuracy in detecting Down’s, but critics have highlighted how its implementation will lead to more babies with the condition being aborted. Currently, 9 out of 10 women who are told their child will have Down’s, decide to abort.

Don’t Screen Us Out is campaigning for the government to consult those with Down’s syndrome, and their families, about NIPT. It also urges the government to do more to support those with the condition.

'Rigorous economic analysis'

To keep costs down, the test is likely to be offered only to pregnant women who are considered at high risk of having a child with Down’s.

But the Royal College said that if this is the case, then a "more rigorous economic analysis has to be made that includes the lifetime costs of caring for children and adults with Down’s syndrome."

It added: "Such an economic analysis may (or may not) suggest that testing for all is cost-effective."

'Utterly shocking'

In response, Dr Elizabeth Corcoran, of the Down’s Syndrome Research Foundation, said: "It has always been our fear that these types of calculations and economic analyses go on behind closed doors between policy makers, but here it is in black and white."

She went on: "It is utterly shocking that in this day and age someone can put a cost value on someone’s life just because they have a disability. It is worse still that this comes from a respected Royal College that is a professional beacon for doctors."

'Murky world of eugenics'

Paul Critchlow, 48, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, has a 24-year-old daughter named Emily:

"As a parent of a young person with Down’s syndrome, I am appalled at the suggestion that the lifetime cost of caring for children and adults with Down’s should be a factor in determining whether or not they should even be born."

He said that the Royal College had "no remit to intervene in this way". He added: "By suggesting that lifetime cost should be factored in, is frankly a step too far and leads us into the murky world of eugenics – who deserves to live and what that life should look like."

He added: "It is unethical and immoral to even consider the attempt to calculate the lifetime cost of any human being and then measure it against the likely benefit of that person’s life."

'Reasoning is the same that the Nazis used'

Dr Peter Saunders, CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, argues that the NHS's discussions around NIPT echo the attitude towards the sick, elderly and disabled propagated by the Nazis.

"[T]he area where ‘cost-benefit’ calculations are most evident, and discussed quite shamelessly in the medical literature, is prenatal diagnosis and abortion for congenital abnormalities," he writes.

"One might argue that these doctors' groups are different from the Nazis - they are not dragging adults and children with Down’s Syndrome to the gas chamber - and clearly that is true.

"But my point is that their reasoning is the same reasoning that the Nazis used – that if the cost of care is higher than the cost of killing then homicide is justifiable on economic grounds."

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