Misdiagnosis search

Somebody found my blog by searching for "misdiagnosed deformities resulting in elective abortion".

I'll divide the instances I know of into three catagories, based on what the societal drive to eliminate unsatisfactory fetuses costs the woman in question, ranging from needless distress through the needless death of her baby to the needless loss of her life. Since these losses are cumulative, I'll start with those who just suffer needless distress: those who are pushed to abort for a supposed feal abnormality, who manage to at least escape the more dire fates of their sisters, and who end up with a baby to love after all. This post will deal with women who were urged to abort, but who held firm.

Stephanie was told that her unborn baby had multiple abnormalities. One medical staffer actually tried to simply make an abortion appointment on her behalf. She got one false diagnosis after another, one recommendation for abortion after the other. The joy of her pregnancy was turned to stress and anxiety, and all for naught: Her baby was born with a bit of an enlarged head, but everything turned out to be fine.

Nancy was told that her baby had severe chromosomal abnormalities, incompatable with life. Her doctor urged her to arrange an abortion, even though she was 26 weeks pregnant. Devastated by the news, Nancy nevertheless did some research and rejected abortion, whereupon her doctor increased the pressure on her. Nancy stood firm, and gave birth to a normal baby.

Sandi was told that her baby had a fatal form of dwarfism. When she refused abortion, her obstetrician refused to care for her any longer. The treatment team she ended up with met with her regularly to again try to persuade her to abort. Though her baby was small and born a bit early, she had no major health issues at all and is a healthy little girl.

Carolyn was told that her baby had a 99% chance of dying in-utero and was urged to abort. Her daugher is a healty, normal little girl.

This article notes many women urged to abort, mostly for false or exaggeratedly grim maternal diagnoses. However, Case #5 is of a woman who was told she was infected with the cytomegalovirus, which could cross the placenta and harm the unborn child. She was urged to abort, and actually went as far as to make an appointment. A physician who was her neighbor learned of her situation and referred her to another doctor, who was able to give her a more realistic assessment of the risk that her baby had been harmed by the virus, and if so, how seriously. She decided to continue the pregnancy, and gave birth to a healthy little boy.

Laura was told that her unborn baby had died. She rebuffed the doctor's attempt to "emtpy her uterus", and ended up giving birth to a robust little boy.

Annette was urged to abort a baby she was told had severe spina bifada. She refused an abortion and gave birth to a healthy little girl.

Here is a collection of stories collected from Usenet groups.

How often are abortions done for a false prenatal diagnosis?

Somebody found my blog after searching for, "How many find out after abortion their was nothing wrong with the baby".

I'm more at home giving anecdotal evidence, such as these excerpts from the stories on the Be Not Afraid site. Then there's this story by a woman who was falsely told her baby had died in-utero.

Midtown Hospital, a National Abortion Federation member, got caught performing abortions for fetal indications without confirming the diagnoses. In many cases, pathology exams revealed that there had been nothing wrong with these fetuses.

Then there is the tragic case of Allegra Roseberry, who was lied two on two counts:
1. She'd been told that her pregnancy would disqualify her from an experimental cancer treatment program, even though the protocol had no exclusions for pregnancy.
2. She'd been told that her previous cancer treatments had "doomed" her baby.
After the abortion killed Allegra, her husband had an autopsy done on the baby and found out that she'd been perfectly normal.

Marla Cardamone was told that her medication had caused her baby to be deformed, even though the ultrasound, which her mother obtained after her death, showed no abnormalities at all.

See:

Fetal Diagnoses Leading to Unnecessary Abortions

The Doctors are Often Wrong

Does anybody have any studies on the frequency of false diagnoses and/or misdiagnoses leading to abortions the women never would have submitted to had she been give accurate information?

UPDTATE: Katy added some great links in the Comments, which I'm adding to the post to make them easier to find:

This study in a Pedi. Heart journal talked about prenatal diagnosis of specific heart ailments; 19 out of 61 babies were aborted. In 9 of those cases, the autopsy confirmed the presence of the anomaly, and 1 did not have *that* anomaly, but did have another problem; the remaining dead fetuses were not autopsied. In discussing the difficulties surrounding the diagnosis (gestational age and fetal position, primarily), they gave an 80% accuracy of diagnosis. Some of the remaining 20% may have had some anomaly but not that particular one; but then, they possibly were not as bad as thought.

This European study (of which only the abstract is available free) has this tidbit which showed up on Google: "Among these misdiagnoses only 1 had a termination of pregnancy..." I wish I had access to see how many misdiagnoses there were, and how many women would have had an abortion.

This abstract says, "Excluding five cases with a secundum atrial septal defect, there was complete agreement between the ultrasound examination and the autopsy findings in 74 (73%) of 101 cases. In 18 cases, there were minor discrepancies between ultrasound and autopsy findings. The main diagnosis was thus correct in 92 cases (91%)." It doesn't say for certain that the other 9% of dead babies had a defect worthy of death.

This study (only the abstract is free, but you could purchase the full article), concludes, "Diagnostic accuracy has improved over time but may well be lower than many clinicians assume for some important conditions and may not match public expectations."

I perceive part of the problem of determining this question is a lack of study into it -- after all, what doctor who performs abortions wants to find out that he gave an incorrect diagnosis and killed a perfectly healthy baby? or who wants word to leak out that accuracy of ultrasound or other prenatal tests are not what one might expect? One BMJ article said that while abortions for suspected fetal anomaly have increased, autopsies have decreased (they suggested autopsies, to find out the likelihood of fetal anomaly reoccurring in a subsequent pregnancy, rather than as a way of verifying the original diagnosis). I would suspect that there has been improvement in the area of diagnosis since many of these studies were carried out, so what was true 10 years ago, may not be true now. However, if an abortionist talks a woman into an abortion because he says he thinks there's something wrong with her baby (like Dr. Tiller), the desire for fetal death outweighs the desire for accuracy. I would place higher faith in the average OB who truly wants an accurate diagnosis, than in a pro-abortion doctor.

So, in clinical studies, the rate of accuracy of ultrasound (which would typically be done by specialists, I assume, prior to termination -- or at least a second opinion) may be much higher than that which would be done in an abortion clinic or even a regular OB's office.