Y2K Bug Blamed For Miscalculated Down Syndrome Risk

Albanach writes: "The BBC are reporting in this story that the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, England is blaming the Millennium Bug for getting wrong 150 tests for Down Syndrome with four mothers going on to give birth to affected children." The article actually idicates that four women were pregnant with Down Syndrome babies, and that two of them brought the pregnancies to term.

Comments

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Defective humans were born before they could be murdered!

This is worse than the WTC attack!

This is the best effect of Y2K I've seen yet if it prevented two babies from being murdered.

I've worked with mentally handicapped kids, and believe me, they're glad they were born, they enjoy life, and they're a lot nicer than most people I know.

Re:Oh no!

[Wakko Warner]

I strongly object to the tone of your write-up suggesting a causal link between the negative Downs tests and the pregnancies being carried to term. There is no suggestion of this in the article.

The suggestion is in the writeup on slashdot. I basically got a whiff of genocide from timothy's writeup; I don't know about you.

- A.P.

This is not a bad thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has ever worked with Down's babies and children know that they are wonderfully special and deserve all the love they can get. Any mother who knows she is carrying a Down's baby and chooses the terminate shouldn't be a mother.

Re:Does it matter?

[cavemanf16]

My only question is why not have a down syndrome baby?

Because apparently, it's inconvenient and stressful to have give birth and raise a child with less than 50% of the mental capabilities of a healthy child. Gee, that must just suck that you're so inconvenienced. I guess those 'terminated' pregancies (i.e. - dead babies) will just have to join their wrongfully killed brethren from the WTC's too. Sometimes this world's hypocrisy makes me sick. Instead of this story being upbeat about how many babies were born WITHOUT Downs Syndrome, it's a story about how many false results resulted in inaccurate 'terminations.'

Why post this article?

[FortKnox]

I have to condone /. editors for posting this.
Emotions are still running very high because of Tuesdays events, and this is just enticing a Prolife vs Prochoice troll war on /.

Lets take it easy people, we're all still a bit touchy, so don't start arguing about this.

What's really dumb is that there is cool articles that aren't being posted, like how Kim Schultz, famous German hacker turned internet millionaire is offering $10million to info about the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. But instead we get something to make the /. audience more emotional.

What's next?

[rkischuk]

The Code Red virus saves a rainforest when idiots opening attachments trigger the massive forwarding of an environmentalist email petition?

Re:hmmm...

[Computer!]

That was not flamebait. It was an attack on the author, and the concept of human life seen as a mistake. In other words, it wasn't flamebait, but flame. Sorry for having an opinion, and using quotation marks. Assholes.