Is the HHS Targeting Babies With Down Syndrome? Link Between Prenatal Testing & an Increase in Abortions?

While many of us have been focused on the HHS mandate if we take another look behind the curtain there is something else that Sebelius, the HHS secretary, has adopted in its entirety which is at the least as troublesome if not more so than the mandating of contraception, abortion, and sterilization coverage. Sebelius has adopted a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine’s report on “Clinical Preventive Services for Women,” which funds prenatal testing, which could lead to more abortions.  

From National Catholic Register:

“Buried in the IOM report is the recommendation for no-cost, well-woman visits; these visits include prenatal care — and thus prenatal testing for ‘genetic or developmental conditions,’” according to attorney and bioethicist Mark Leach in Public Discourse. “This prompts the question: How does prenatal testing prevent Down syndrome?” 

The report states: “Another type of well-woman, preventative-care visit is in the routine prenatal care for pregnant women. ... The recommended content of the visit includes specific tests and procedures (e.g., blood pressure, weight, urine test, uterine size and fetal heart-rate assessment, glucose-tolerance testing, and screening for specific sexually transmitted infections and genetic or developmental conditions).” 

Since Down syndrome is present from conception and cannot be treated in utero, it would appear that the birth of babies with Down syndrome is prevented by making certain that all women receive prenatal screening, which in 90% of cases leads to abortion. Congress just passed legislation prohibiting the abortion of babies because of their race or sex with no provisions against abortions for genetic anomalies. Targeting a child for elimination based upon an irregular number of genes is not only legal in America — it may be paid for by our tax dollars. 

When Rick Santorum made the claim that prenatal testing led to abortion in 90% of cases where the baby has been diagnosed with Down syndrome a number of people made the assertion that Rick Santorum didn't have his facts straight - that he was wrong. But was he really?  The proof is in the pudding - or the research shall I say.  A 2004 study published in the Journal of Fetal Medicine supports Santorum's supposedly false claims.  Ironically the facts refute the denouncers of Santorum, those who claim to *know* the truth but are proven wrong yet again.  

A 2004 study published in the journal Fetal Medicine explored the connection between prenatal-screening policies in Europe and termination for neural-tube defects and Down syndrome. Excluding data from Ireland and Malta, where abortion is illegal, results showed that more than 90% of women terminated following a prenatal diagnosis. So, having a screening policy results in more prenatal detection, and almost all babies with Down syndrome are terminated.

I do think that prenatal testing can be a good thing.  But as with all things it is always possible to use a good thing to do evil.  In this case there certainly is evidence to suggest that there is a connection between prenatal testing, the diagnosis of babies with down syndrome, and those babies' deaths.  

Could it be the intent of the Obama administration to prevent children with Down syndrome from being born? If so, it would not be the first time a eugenic agenda has darkened American public policy. Tucker Carlson pointed out in a 1996 Weekly Standard article that Joycelyn Elders, in 1990, when she was Arkansas state health director, testified before Congress that “abortion has had an important, and positive, public-health effect,” in that it has reduced “the number of children afflicted with severe defects.”

“As evidence, the future (U.S.) surgeon general cited this statistic: ‘The number of Down syndrome infants in Washington state in 1976 was 64% lower than it would have been without legal abortion,’” Carlson wrote. 

Why is it that when it comes to progressives and their "compassionate" killing of babies with disabilities the bottom line is about money, saving money so society won't have to deal with "blighted" children but when it comes to all the social programs they act like money comes out of some bottomless pit and waste it on lots on needless government programs like their is going to be no tomorrow?  That is some screwed up and truly demented thinking.  Thanks to them countless numbers of babies with disabilities have had no future and will have no tomorrow to look forward to.  

Leticia continues in the article to talk about the bottom-line benefits and Jerome Lejune, who discovered Trisomy 21, the cause of Down syndrome who was greatly distressed that his discovery was being used for
eugenics, for the extermination of the disabled around the world.  CONTINUED