Gov. Sarah Palin continued her pregnancy after learning that her son would be born with Down syndrome. That fact has become an important part of her public persona since Senator John McCain announced that she was his vice-presidential pick. And it got me wondering how much religion plays a role when families decide whether to proceed with Down syndrome pregnancies.
When Palin heard the diagnosis (after prenatal testing, reports People magazine), she said it was “very, very challenging,” confusing, and initially made her sad, according to an April article in the Anchorage Daily News. After she gave birth to Trig in April, the Daily News reports, she emailed a letter to friends and family, written in the voice of and signed, “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.” It read, in part: “Many people will express sympathy, but you don’t want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this.”
From that letter, it looks like Palin’s faith—she has called herself a nondenominational “Bible-believing Christian”—probably played a role in her family’s decision to continue the pregnancy. But what about other women?
I know from reading some of the heartrending posts on this forum for women who terminate pregnancies for medical reasons that no one takes the decision lightly. But I wanted to see if there was scientific data on whether religiously minded people are more likely to continue a Down syndrome pregnancy than others.
The first thing I found was that termination rates for prenatally diagnosed Down syndrome pregnancies are pretty high, though statistics vary. In a 1996 study in Hawaii, 84% of such pregnancies ended in termination. A California data set, also from 1996, showed a termination rate of 58%, while a 1999 study from Great Britain showed a 92% rate.
But rates of religious affiliation are similarly high—in the United States, at least. According to a 2008 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, more than 80% of Americans identify with one religion or another, and even among the 16% who describe themselves as “unaffiliated,” a large majority say they believe in God. My unscientific conclusion from looking at these numbers? Many people who end pregnancies diagnosed with Down syndrome probably consider themselves to be religious or say they believe in God.
I called Laurie Zoloth, director of bioethics at Northwestern University’s Center for Genetic Medicine, for some perspective. She was quick to remind me that when it comes to pregnancy termination, not all religious beliefs point in the same direction. “Being a very religious person might lead you to think [pregnancy termination] is a necessary answer to a human situation,” she says.
The Catholic Church teaches that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception,” including cases involving Down syndrome or other abnormalities. Two-thirds of white evangelicals say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. And yet, many religious traditions have only recently begun to grapple with the tough choices families face after learning the results of prenatal tests.
American Muslim scholars, for example, offer no clear guidelines on terminating Down syndrome pregnancies, saying that individual families should consult religious and legal experts. Buddhists around the world disagree about abortion, but even one Tibetan Buddhist teacher who is strongly antiabortion also advises that decisions about abnormal pregnancies are ones “we make for ourselves.”
Zoloth, on a strictly anecdotal basis, says that she believes families who choose to continue with Down syndrome pregnancies are “disproportionately” religious, coming from strong Christian or Jewish backgrounds. But John Evans, a sociologist of religion at the University of California at San Diego, tells me there is no data on this point, in part because ethics panels would veto studies that involve asking such sensitive questions.
Talking with Zoloth and Evans confirmed for me what is obvious from reading individual stories of families who have faced Down syndrome pregnancies: The decision to continue with the pregnancy—or not—is a complex and profound one, with many factors coming into play. And as one Catholic mother writes, you don’t always feel the way you expect to when faced with the question of termination.
“I think for many people, [a Down syndrome pregnancy] is a critical test of your own capacities and sense of life’s meaning and values,” Zoloth says. “Many people make those decisions by recourse to their religion, but not all. Many make recourse to other sources of faith, and perhaps their own sense of humanity.”
No matter what the guidance from our own belief systems or personal convictions, it is a choice that may surprise us if we ever have to face it.
(PHOTO: DAYLIFE.COM)
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