The Department of Health is about to approve a scheme designed to bring about a world in which people like my youngest daughter will cease to exist.
In January, the National Screening Committee cleared a new blood test for expectant mothers, said to be almost 99 per cent effective in detecting if an unborn child has Down’s syndrome. Ever since then, those behind the test have been lobbying Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to authorise its use throughout the NHS.
Unlike amniocentesis, the method of extracting amniotic fluid through a needle into the womb, this new process detects the composition of the unborn child’s DNA in the mother’s own blood