GOP Candidate Rejects Obama's Plan for Prenatal Testing

Sunday in Ohio, political Republican GOP candidate Rick Santorum announced that he would not support President Obama's policy for health insurance companies to pay fully for specific types of prenatal care, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Amniocentesis is one of the types of specific prenatal care that Santorum does not support to be covered by the government. The health care reform bill passed by Democrats in 2010 covers amniocentesis testing. However, Santorum believes that this helps to increase the chances of miscarriages as reported by CBS. Although, in 2006, a study found that amniocentesis testing did not change the rate at which miscarriages were experienced according to Newser.

The "bottom line is that a lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions,” Santorum said according to Newser.

In fact as CNN reports, nearly 90 percent of all fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb will be aborted.

Santorum does speak from personal experience on the controversial topic.  

According to CBS on “Face the Nation,” he addressed that one of his children died within two hours of birth. Also CNN mentions, his daughter Isabella was born with Trisomy 18, a chromosome disorder that in most cases causes the child to be stillborn or die within the first few years of life. A number of recommendations that doctors gave before the birth Isabella was to have her aborted, as reported by CNN.

Santorum continues to challenge the president’s partial birth policy that allows late-term abortions to legally occur after it is discovered that the child will be born with a birth defect or disability, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. In the same article, Santorum links Obama’s support for late-term abortions to being a Christian who follows “phony” Christian “theology.”

On “Face the Nation,” Santorum concluded that he accepts that people have the right to make the choice about amniocentesis, but he doesn't approve of the government fronting the full cost.