"As long as it's healthy."

I mentioned yesterday in a comment how galling it is for many expectant mothers when they hear the phrase "As long as it's healthy, right?"
This silliness is, to me, the equivalent of someone saying "As long as it has brown hair, right?" or "As long as it doesn't have a big nose, right?"
Mothers need to make it known that they reject this offensive phrase by simply replying something like "No, we'll love our child regardless of her medical conditions."
Society worships many false gods, not the least of which is Perfect Health. Society puts more value on the life of a healthy person than the life of a person with even the most minor medical problem. Babies with cleft palettes are the generally the last children to leave an orphanage, and that's an easily correctable condition.
It wasn't just in the Dark Ages of the 1950s when mothers were advised not to look at or hold their Down's Syndrome children. It wasn't just back then that they were given terrible advice on what to do with their less-than-perfect children. But at least back then the children were allowed to live!
Today, mothers are given results of a series of medical tests as though they are Gospel, even though were that test a prescription pill, it would never be FDA-approved due to its rate of inaccuracy. Then, mothers are given the tragic, tragic news: children with Down's can never lead a 'normal life'. They can never be self-sufficient. They will burden your family. They wouldn't want to live that way. The devastated parents are told that something which is evil is not only necessary but compassionate! Of course, this is not an indictment of the entire medical community. There are some fine pro-life doctors and nurses out there, believe me.
Here's the thing about a triple marker. It's not a diagnostic test. It's a screen. It can only assess your baby's risk for birth defects, taking into account several factors which include the mother's age, race, and weight. When the AFP levels, etc., come back, the results of the test are given in 'odds', as in "The odds of this child having a genetic disorder are now greater than/less than/equal to what we thought the odds were before, given the mother's age, weight, etc.
Here's the astounding part: women who test 'positive' (greater odds) only have babies with medical conditions 10% of time time. And 30% of mothers of children with genetic defects will be told their results are negative.
(There is sometimes added a 4th test, making the test a quadruple marker, and this appears to lower the false-positive results.)
Back to my original point, there are many people in my life whom I love and cherish who are not even remotely 'healthy'. To think that this could lessen my love for them is insanity. I won't always be able to do the things I do now. Odds are, neither will you. We are human, and our bodies are breakable. People get sick, people are born with conditions. And it is then that they need us most, and it is then that the human family shows what it is made of.