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 A new study finds that when parents used genetic screening for disease, their unborn children became victims of abortions.

A 2007 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that when couples use genetic screening to test for a specific disease, the number of abortions increases. However, when they meet with an expert on the disease and find out it’s treatable, abortions are reduced. The study involved a treatable illness found among Ashkenazi Jews in Israel and it questions whether genetic screening has gone too far by wrongly influencing a couple to have an abortion. Over the eight year period of the study, about 25 percent of the unborn children found to have the gene that causes Gaucher disease were victims of abortions. Gaucher Disease is a lipid-storage disorder, and is the most common genetic disease affecting Jewish people of Eastern European ancestry. Despite the abortions, half of the unborn children killed will never experience symptoms of the disease and the rest can lead normal lives with proper medical treatment. The study found that only 8 percent of the couples who met with a Gaucher expert and had this information explained to them chose abortion. All the couples who did not have the meeting decided to have abortions.

The London Telegraph also recently reported that a couple was given permission to screen their embryos for the Alzheimer gene after four family members died of early-onset Alzheimer’s.