Research studies and children with Down syndrome

Most Saturday morning I catch up with emails, I get a lot from different on-line support groups, one of them is for parents who home school their children with DS.

They were talking about a great reading program for our kids, and of course I rushed over to see it, I think Meghan needs a little more help there. This program www.readamerica. net like many that specialize in helping kids with cognitive issues, is based in England. I am finding that many of the recommended curriculum's for Meghan are based in Britain, have to wonder why they never recommend USA curriculum, hmmm.

Through my reading I came to another website which took me to another one and then to this one: http://www.dsrf-uk.org. Seemed interesting, they were talking about nutritional supplementation and why it sometimes will not work for our kids, and then there was this link:
http://www.dsrf-uk.org/PDF/Nutritional_Supplementation_in_Down_Syndrome.pdf

I was reading through it, trying to recall chemistry and anatomy and physiology class vocabulary and lessons, because it is very technical. If you get upset easily like me, you may want to stop reading here.

They began to speak about the differences in fetuses who had trisomy 21 and those that did not. About a 1/3 a way through the page, I came upon the term "aborted fetuses showed" and my heart sank, of course they were doing research on aborted babies, where else would they get the tissue. At that point tears ran down my face because I know how many woman abort their babies simply because they have trisomy 21. Do they then allow doctor to take their aborted children and use them for research? It is too heart-wrenching to me to consider the truth in this, that they do not take their child and give it a burial, they leave the remains for research? Dagger to my mothers heart. I am just sick over this.

Do we as human beings have so little regard for all life that it is acceptable to abort our babies because we see them as imperfect, as burdens, unworthy to sit at our dinner tables? So it seems to me. When researchers talk about their gains in understanding Down syndrome better, do they always mean using aborted fetuses, babies, children, for said research. I guess I was naive, I did not consider that at all, I thought the research was done with the help of living, breathing people, (some is of course, Meghan particpated in some research here on cognition) and now I know and wish I did not, and now you know too. With a 92% abortion rate in America, it is pretty high in the UK as well, but I do not have those statictis, that is a lot of research material, isn't it. I may vomit now.

Then I am going to hug my three precious girls close and thank God they are here, living, being loved, giving love, and cherished.