Holocaust and Medicine Legacy for Child Neurology Education and Practice: Contemporary Relevance of a Dark History

Sarah Zhang ’s article in The Atlantic, entitled “The Last Children of Down Syndrome,”1 was sent by a colleague, the father of a child with Down syndrome, and he found it hard to read. More than 95% of pregnant women in Denmark with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate the pregnancy. With prenatal screening becoming more common in the 1980s (offered to every pregnant woman since 2004), Zhang wrote, “a new power was thrust into the hands of ordinary people - the power to decide what kind of life is worth bringing into the world.” Addressing controversial issues, such as quali ty of life, futility of care, and the definition of death, is our moral responsibility as physicians and global citizens and warrants critical discourse, which must include confronting and grappling with the dark history of medicine.

Source: Pediatric Neurology - January 19, 2021 Category: Neurology Authors: Hedy S. Wald, David E. Mandelbaum Tags: Commentary Source Type: research