![thedailywhat:
Santorum Santorum Says of the Day: On today’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer asked presidential candidate Rick Santorum to clarify his controversial statement from yesterday, that “free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions.”
But rather than double back, Santorum instead chose to double down, saying that certain types of prenatal testing that are used to detect fetal abnormalities should not be offered for free as they “encourage abortions.”
“We’re talking about specifically prenatal testing and specifically amniocentesis,” Santorum said, “which is a… procedure that creates a risk of miscarriage when you have it and is done for the purposes of identifying maladies of a child in the womb, which in many cases, in fact, most cases, physicians recommend, particularly if there’s a problem, recommend abortion.”
A study conducted in 2006 by researchers at Mouth Sinai found that the risk of miscarriage from amniocentesis — a procedure necessary for the detection of chromosomal abnormalities (such as Down syndrome) and fetal infections — is 0.06%. In fact, there was no difference in “loss rate” between patients who had undergone amniocentesis, and those who had not
Santorum, whose daughter was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Edwards syndrome, took issue with President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which guarantees free-of-charge access to prenatal testing.
[cbsnews / politico / mediaite.]
Edward Syndrome has a median survival of 5-15 days. DAYS. Very few kids make it to a year, and less than 1% make it to 10 years. And that’s for all the fetuses who make it to birth and aren’t stillborn. The syndrome comes with a variety of possible heart and other organ defects that vary between mildly painful and lifethreatening, plus lots of not-life-threatening but uncomfortable things like permanently spastic, cramped muscles.
Rick Santorum isn’t some hero who is saving babies. He wants everyone to be forced to make the same choice his family made: to have a kid who will always be in pain.
As a disabled person with a syndrome people would like to identify prenatally so they can prevent people like me from happening, I’m sensitive to the arguments against prenatal testing. I am. I think it’s ludicrous to try to eliminate difference this way. But evolution and mutations don’t have a goal, they simply exist, and some are objectively shitty—cancer, for example, or genetic disorders that mean you live for an average of 10 days and die in pain. I never want to take away someone’s right to decide that the best way they can parent is by ending a pregnancy after a diagnosis like this, even if it means people selectively choosing not to have people like me. That isn’t my choice, and it isn’t a choice I can make for anyone else. If only Santorum felt the same way.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lznmajB2ec1qzpwi0o1_1280.jpg)
Santorum Santorum Says of the Day: On today’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer asked presidential candidate Rick Santorum to clarify his controversial statement from yesterday, that “free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions.”
But rather than double back, Santorum instead chose to double down, saying that certain types of prenatal testing that are used to detect fetal abnormalities should not be offered for free as they “encourage abortions.”
“We’re talking about specifically prenatal testing and specifically amniocentesis,” Santorum said, “which is a… procedure that creates a risk of miscarriage when you have it and is done for the purposes of identifying maladies of a child in the womb, which in many cases, in fact, most cases, physicians recommend, particularly if there’s a problem, recommend abortion.”
A study conducted in 2006 by researchers at Mouth Sinai found that the risk of miscarriage from amniocentesis — a procedure necessary for the detection of chromosomal abnormalities (such as Down syndrome) and fetal infections — is 0.06%. In fact, there was no difference in “loss rate” between patients who had undergone amniocentesis, and those who had not
Santorum, whose daughter was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Edwards syndrome, took issue with President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which guarantees free-of-charge access to prenatal testing.
Edward Syndrome has a median survival of 5-15 days. DAYS. Very few kids make it to a year, and less than 1% make it to 10 years. And that’s for all the fetuses who make it to birth and aren’t stillborn. The syndrome comes with a variety of possible heart and other organ defects that vary between mildly painful and lifethreatening, plus lots of not-life-threatening but uncomfortable things like permanently spastic, cramped muscles.
Rick Santorum isn’t some hero who is saving babies. He wants everyone to be forced to make the same choice his family made: to have a kid who will always be in pain.
As a disabled person with a syndrome people would like to identify prenatally so they can prevent people like me from happening, I’m sensitive to the arguments against prenatal testing. I am. I think it’s ludicrous to try to eliminate difference this way. But evolution and mutations don’t have a goal, they simply exist, and some are objectively shitty—cancer, for example, or genetic disorders that mean you live for an average of 10 days and die in pain. I never want to take away someone’s right to decide that the best way they can parent is by ending a pregnancy after a diagnosis like this, even if it means people selectively choosing not to have people like me. That isn’t my choice, and it isn’t a choice I can make for anyone else. If only Santorum felt the same way.
