The Ecumenical Week of Life will be held in Germany from 14th to 21st April. With the slogan “Wanting a child. A wanted child. Our child”, the focus of the reflection will be a critical review of prenatal diagnostic methods. The opening celebration will be officiated in the Catholic Cathedral of St Peter’s in Triers by the president of the German Bishops Conference (Dbk), cardinal Reinhard Marx, and by the president of the German Evangelical Church Council (Ekd), bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm. In the presentation, Marx and Bedford-Strohm speak of the “other side of the coin” in current diagnostic techniques, because “in the early stages of pregnancy women and couples are exposed to deep internal or external pressures”: actually, mothers and fathers sometime find a social mentality “that measures a child’s life on different criteria. As when they say that nowadays a child born with a disease or who could become disabled is unnecessary”. This kind of attitude and the harsh situations often resulting from prenatal diagnosis lead women and couples into deep conflict. But “every child has the same dignity, regardless of any diagnosis or prognosis”, the prelate and the cardinal stated. On the new website www.woche-fuer-das-leben, attention is focussed on the problem of prenatal diagnoses where one can have the option to have an abortion if carrying a baby with Down syndrome.