Bravo for a new Illinois law that protects you from discrimination by employers and insurers for illness and defects that genetic testing might turn up.

If, for example, sophisticated genetic testing shows that you are a likely candidate for a heart attack or breast cancer, you can’t be denied health insurance or have your premiums raised.

These protections join the many anti-discrimination laws and regulations, some warranted, others not. But this is certainly a worthy one. In this, I’m with so-called progressives, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, that support the protections.

But I wonder if progressives are with me when it comes to protecting people whose genetic diseases are turned up by sophisticated testing before they are born. Especially against discrimination of the ultimate kind by the parents, who don’t want to put up with having a “special needs child,” such as one with Down syndrome. About 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion, and, consequently, the Down population has declined by about 8 percent in the past two decades, to about 400,000.

And it could get even worse for Down syndrome babies, which constitute about one out of every 733 newborns. Many of these cases were not detected before birth, but if they were, we can assume that most of them, perhaps 90 percent, would have been aborted. And that’s what will happen as safer tests have become available to replace amniocentesis, an invasive procedure that can complicate pregnancy and harm the child. With the new, safer tests, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is recommending that all pregnancies be tested for genetic abnormalities, instead of only women 35 years or older.

That recommendation and the birth of a Down syndrome infant to Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin should focus more attention on pre-natal testing and its implications for the unborn. The implications could be horrific: Will there be widespread acceptance of the idea that you can abort children who are “defective?” Is it the first step toward eugenics, a Nazi-like social philosophy that advocates the “improvement” of human race through selective breeding?

Is this the direction we want to go?

Already, some people are suggesting that Palin did the wrong thing by choosing to give birth to a child with Down syndrome. The criticism goes beyond the argument that as a governor or vice president she can’t give the child enough attention. The criticism also suggests that it would be “better for the child” if he wasn’t’ born into a life of hardship and pain. This raises the hackles, as it should, of advocates for people with Down syndrome. They argue that the syndrome does not ruin lives, that life still can be, and is, fulfilling and rich. Some advocates not only praise Palin for having her child, Trig, but for bringing him to the Republican convention because it could lead to greater public acceptance of the condition. Here, the advocates are on the side of those who argue that all life is to be cherished.

Ah ha, some progressives would say, fetuses with the Down syndrome aren’t really people—not because they have the extra chromosome that causes the condition, but because all fetuses aren’t really people. And debating whether they are is futile because figuring it out is above our “pay grade,” as Barack Obama would say.

So, what do we do: Pass a law requiring that Down syndrome babies be carried to term? Some pro-lifers would, indeed, pass a law that would require that not just Down syndrome babies, but all babies, be carried to term. As a practical matter, this country is no more ready for a law that would force mothers to carry a Down syndrome baby to term than they are for a law—like China’s—that would force a woman to have an abortion if she already has a child.

For now, awareness must be the answer, as we come to an understanding that the life of a child in the womb with Down syndrome is just as precious and meaningful as such a child outside the womb. One way to do that is to pass legislation co-sponsored by pro-life Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and pro-choice Sen. Edward Kennedy. The Pre-natally and Post-natally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act would require that families who receive a diagnosis of Down syndrome or any other condition, pre-natally or up until a year after birth, be given pertinent information about the condition and connections with support services and networks that could offer assistance. Maybe once they see the possibilities and confront the realities, they would be less likely to choose abortion.

The legislation, which has passed the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and is awaiting Senate approval, is a small, but important step, in getting people to understand that the nature of a human being doesn’t change because it has passed through a birth canal. And that it is the same human after birth as it was before.

Now if we could only get everyone to recognize that even healthy babies before birth are just as precious as post-natal babies, then we’d really be getting somewhere.

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Dennis Byrne is a member of the Chicago Daily Observer Editorial Board.