Dave Strunk gets right to the point on the implications of improved technology for early-detection of Down-Syndrome in utero:

We are selfish and we hate suffering, so if someone else will make us suffer let's end them before we have to lay eyes on them.

That's the sad truth more often than we're willing to believe. In public discourse, we collectively rebuff with indignation the idea that any woman would kill her fetus merely because it was going to inconvenience her. And yet for the abortions of which I'm personally aware, such was sadly the case.

It's a terribly heartbreaking thing to see otherwise reasonable people get sucked into defending abortion on the grounds that the whole practice should be fully legal because it might need to be available to save the life of the mother or due to the inviability of the fetus. Besides, you don't want to be one of those backwards people who isn't for women's rights, do you? Why do you hate women, you mouth-breather!?

The whole argument is a red-herring, really. "Life of the mother" and "inviable fetus"? From the arguments of abortion advocates, you'd think that categorization only included abortions where the mother was in grave danger or the fetus wasn't going to make it to term anyway. Yet it's actually a generalized category that also includes the 90% abortion rate for amniocenteses that return positive for Down syndrome. Did you know that? In your casual support for "choice", did you know how often that choice is being used because the child already failed to live up to his or her parents' expectations?

(Full disclosure: My sister has Down syndrome. When my mother got the diagnosis during her pregnancy in the 80's, she faced unbelievable pressure from several doctors to terminate over the child's diminished quality of life.)

Perhaps another dose of reality is necessary here. Margaret Sanger, the infamous founder of Planned Parenthood, on her motivations:

[We] sought first to stop the multiplication of the unfit. This appeared the most important and greatest step towards race betterment.

Does that shock you? I'd encourage you to enlighten yourself before casually supporting a movement born from the passions of a racist intent on ridding the world of those she determined were unfit. (Knowing the founder and the beliefs she imputed to the organization, it should come as no surprise that Planned Parenthood centers are always located in areas with high minority populations.) She was on a mission "of preventing the birth of defectives or those who will become defectives". And she sure found a lot of people defective. Non-whites and children with Down syndrome and other disabilities, physical or mental, were deemed "biological and racial mistakes". How sad that a single woman's hateful notions have inspired a movement of well-meaning people who think they are actually championing rights.

If it seems you make my life truly miserable, you really make this world a living hell for me... do I have the right to end your life? No? Why not?