Two weeks after our daughter was born we saw a geneticist – a polite, well-manicured woman in a business suit who would confirm (or not) our paediatrician's suspicion that our child had achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism. Following the examination, she sat us down and began speaking in her best concerned-doctor tone of voice. "I want you to know," she said, "that there really wasn't anything you could have done about this."
What she meant – and what we instantly knew she meant – was that there would have been no way of, and no reason to, screen for achondroplasia ahead of time. No way to terminate the pregnancy and try again, and to hope for something that she believed, or that she assumed we believed, would be better. Guardian
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