A new year rolls in, yet we seem closer to 1984 than ever before. George Orwell's 1984, that is. An L. A. Times article, Down syndrome screening advised for all pregnancies, reports:

All pregnant women, regardless of their age, should be offered screening for Down syndrome in their first trimester, according to new practice guidelines issued today by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

That sounds very medical and health-promoting. We all want healthy babies, right? But something has gone horribly wrong:

But the risks in older women have been managed so successfully that the largest number of Down syndrome children are now being born to younger women, according to Dr. Edward McCabe of the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA.

The committee that wrote the guidelines recognized "that counseling has been much more effective in the older group, and now it is important to begin looking at younger women," he said.

Why are younger women having more Down syndrome children than older women? Because the "risks in older women have been managed so successfully," or in other words, "We've managed to convince more older women to have their babies murdered."

We don't have a cool name like Action T4, but the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists seems to have common objectives.

As Wikipedia explains, the following poster, circa 1940, states that "60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."

How long until obstetricians and gynecologists post something comparable in their offices?

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