Since the advent of forms of prenatal diagnosis, such as amniocentesis and ultrasound, it has become possible to detect the presence of congenital disorders in the fetus before birth.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends offering various screening tests for Down syndrome to all pregnant women, regardless of age.
[12] Since the development of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), multiple studies have investigated whether the number of those born with Down syndrome has been affected.
One 2020 European study found that NIPT reduced the number of babies being born per year with Down syndrome (DS) by an average of 54%.
In 2016, the same research team found that 33% fewer babies were born with Down syndrome per year in the United States as a result of disability selective abortions.
[13] Statistics today conclude that 90 percent of fetuses that are diagnosed with Down syndrome via fetal genetic testing are aborted.
[14] One notable case is that of Denmark, where prenatal testing has been widely adopted and disability selective abortion is common.
Since nation-wide testing was first offered, the number of babies born to parents who chose to continue a pregnancy after a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome in Denmark has fluctuated from zero to 13 per year.
[19] Support for disability-selective abortions stems partially from arguments that those born with disabilities have a quality of life that is reduced to the extent that non-existence is preferable, and terminating the pregnancy is actually for the sake of the fetus.
When describing their oppositions, these activists usually do not say they favor selective abortions in and of themselves, but oppose selective-abortion bans because these laws conflict with reproductive rights.
[citation needed] Feminist arguments on the topic largely oppose viewing disability selective abortions as a moral failure, but rather as a means for livelihood.
[22] In a feminist scholarly article[22] Claire McKinney quotes a 1999 study, finding that 76% of surveyed mothers who did not have a child with Down syndrome were employed, compared to 56% of those who did.
[23] A separate 2008 study found that families living below the poverty line with children who have disabilities are "more likely to experience material deprivation, such as food insecurity, housing instability, lack of health care access, and telephone disconnection" than are families living below the poverty line without children with disabilities.
[citation needed] Reproductive rights activists say that selective-abortion bans do not serve to save people with disabilities but instead, seek to incrementally restrict abortion.
[26] In that case, the courts ruled that states cannot place an "undue burden" on the right to abortion before fetal viability.
Groups like Americans United for Life have been very successful in making abortion more difficult to access through the incremental approach.
The majority of respondents in a survey said that they sought an abortion either because they could not afford a baby, were not in a relationship with someone with whom they felt comfortable co-parenting, or because they were done having children.
[30] Also, the majority of genetic testing cannot be done before twelve or fifteen weeks of gestation, meaning that abortions in response to disability would primarily occur well into the second trimester of pregnancy.
[30] This evidence suggests that the vast majority of abortions in the United States occur before someone could know whether the fetus they carry has a genetic condition.