By Liz Townsend

A study published by Down Syndrome Education International, a British charity organization, reports that invasive prenatal testing kills 400 healthy babies a year who had been identified as having the condition by false-positive blood tests, The Telegraph reported.

The testing also results in annual abortions of 660 British babies with Down syndrome who would have survived until birth if the pregnancies were allowed to progress, Frank Buckley and Sue Buckley wrote in the online version of Down Syndrome Research and Practice.

The Buckleys published the study in order to spur discussion of the ethics of prenatal testing and abortion for Down syndrome as screening techniques become more advanced and more common. "The authors of this editorial do not consider a diagnosis of Down syndrome to be a sufficient reason to justify termination and so disagree with the basic premise for prenatal screening for Down syndrome," they wrote. "Harming babies who do not have Down syndrome in the process seems to us unjustifiable."

"When widespread prenatal whole genome screening becomes a possibility, many of the troubling issues raised by our experiences of screening for Down syndrome will be brought into sharper focus," the Buckleys continued. "The technology may be with us within 5 years. The authors believe that wider public debate should begin now."

Their concerns about prenatal screening are timely. Statistics published in the National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register in April, covering diagnoses and outcomes for pregnancies in England and Wales, estimated that 92% of unborn babies whose Down syndrome was discovered in utero were aborted in 2006.

Now, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is recommending that all pregnant women should undergo "combined screening" for Down syndrome, which would include blood tests and scans, according to Press Association (PA).

Because of these developments, Down Syndrome Education International sent a letter to the prime minister in September urging the government to review its policies on Down syndrome and prenatal testing.

"We believe that there has been inadequate public debate to support a public health policy designed to genetically screen against the birth of people who typically have moderate learning difficulties and additional risks of health conditions that can be successfully treated," the organization wrote. "Down syndrome screening sets a worrying precedent for the prenatal diagnosis and termination of babies identified by an ever-widening range of genetic risk factors for mental and physical characteristics."

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Part Two -- "Believing nothing I read or watch when it comes to coverage of Sarah Palin