Prenatal Breakdown Summary

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The article, “Prenatal Tests puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus,” begins with a soft lead. It focuses on Sarah Itoh, a child with Down syndrome. I found this to be effective because of the nature of this article, it is talking about a child with Down syndrome and it shows off a little bit of her personality. The nut graph of the article comes after the author describes that Sarah likes school and how Math was hard, but it is getting better. I believe the nut graph is:
“Until this year, only pregnant women 35 and older were routinely tested to see if their fetuses had the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome. As a result many couples were given the diagnosis only at birth. But under a new recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians …show more content…

The rest of the article focuses on this prenatal testing and the ways parents who have children with Down syndrome are trying to reach out to those who’s pregnancy have tested positive for Down syndrome. There were problems with the attribution. Throughout the article the author mentioned facts but gave no attribution. For example, “The 5,500 children born with Down syndrome each year in the United States suffer from mild to moderate mental retardation, are at high risk for congenital heart defects” (Harmon, 2007), no where does the author state where this information came from. It makes it hard for those reading the article to believe what is being said and also makes it less credible. The quotes that were attributed seemed to be affective. The parents that were quoted had an emotional impact and truly believed they were fighting for their children to have friends. Like when one mother said “it’s just faces disappearing” (Harmon, 2007). However, I would have liked to see more opinions and information from an expert that specialized in Down syndrome. There was only on expert who mention Down syndrome as neither bad or good, but other than that all experts were discussing the prenatal testing available now to test for Down syndrome or the negatives to Down