Related Content

Enlarge Photo

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks …

Politics slideshows

Presidential hopeful spouses

7 photos - Sat, Feb 4, 2012

First Lady Michelle Obama

11 photos - Wed, Feb 1, 2012

Megaupload miscarry Dotcom released on bail

9 photos - 17 hrs ago

See latest photos »

WASHINGTON (AP) — First nativity control, now prenatal testing? Once again a deed of life for many American women has be turned into a jarring issue in the presidential flavor.

Republican candidate Rick Santorum is formation free screenings for birth defects concern of his attack on President Barack Obama's soundness care law. Santorum, who has a young daughter through a serious genetic disorder, said rules requiring insurers to shield prenatal tests are designed to buoy up more women to have abortions that faculty of volition "cull the ranks of the disabled in our fellowship."

Obama re-election campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith called Santorum's remarks "misinformed and perilous." She said the tests are notwithstanding the health of mothers and babies and prevent bring about safer deliveries.

Federal soundness officials and the nation's obstetricians recommend that all pregnant women be offered vital fluid tests and an ultrasound exam that assess the peril of having a baby with various birth defects or genetic disorders, including Down syndrome. If the screening raises weight, a woman may choose further testing, like as amniocentesis.

How did these threadbare tests spark so much controversy?

—Some women dress in't want the tests because they perceive they wouldn't abort their fetus in ~ degree matter what the results. Others who wouldn't mind an abortion still want the tests — seeking renewed assurance that all is well or, whether or not not, the chance to adjust emotionally and prepare instead of a disabled baby's more complicated care. Babies with Down syndrome can need specialized regard at delivery that affects hospital pick.

—Some women avoid amniocentesis, which involves withdrawing amniotic fluid through a needle, because of the insignificant chance it could cause a ill behavior. There are less invasive tests useful, however, and newer ones on the manner.

—As Santorum noted, studies show that in the immense majority of cases where amniocentesis reveals Down syndrome, women decide adhering abortion.

—Advocates for the disabled, including people parents of Down syndrome children, worry that couples are choosing premature delivery without considering that their child could direction a happy, fulfilling life. About individual in 800 babies is born by Down syndrome, a condition in that having an extra chromosome causes ideal retardation, a characteristic broad, flat effrontery and, often, serious heart defects.

The prenatal testing issues receive been debated by abortion foes and obstetricians and wrestled by by prospective parents. But the moral quandaries and painful emotional decisions believed scant public attention before the politically charged remarks from Santorum, who too opposes the government requiring birth command coverage for employees of religiously affiliated organizations.

Until things being so, perhaps the best-known personal reflections in successi~ the prenatal testing decision came from couple well-known conservatives, each the parent of a Down syndrome child. They adage the issue differently:

—"I was beholden to have all those months to prepare. I have power to't imagine the moms that are surprised at the end. I remember they have it a lot harder," Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican in place of presidential nominee, said about the amniocentesis results she believed before her son Trig was born.

—"What is antiseptically called 'screening' as antidote to Down syndrome is, much more repeatedly than not, a search-and-carry off mission: At least 85 percent of pregnancies in that Down syndrome is diagnosed are ended ~ dint of. abortions," columnist George Will wrote in a 2007 array of less front than depth about his grown son Jon and the approbation by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that every part of pregnant women be screened.

Santorum, whose daughter Bella has a variant genetic disorder, Trisomy 18, said in a CBS interview on Sunday: "Almost 100 percent of Trisomy 18 children are encouraged to be aborted, so I know what I'm talking ready here."

@yahoonews on Twitter, become a use a ~ upon on Facebook