CBS News reported earlier this week that Iceland is leading the world in “eradicating Down syndrome births.” 
 
 One might be forgiven for assuming that Iceland has developed an innovative treatment for the chromosomal disorder. It turns out Iceland’s solution is much simpler, and much more sinister: using prenatal testing and abortion to systematically exterminate children with Down syndrome. This isn’t progress; it’s eugenics. 
 
 Prenatal testing is optional in Iceland, but the government mandates that doctors notify women of that option. About 85 percent of expectant mothers undergo the test, and close to 100 percent of those women choose to abort if their child is diagnosed with Down syndrome. Just two children with Down syndrome are born in Iceland each year, often as the result of faulty testing. 
 
 The CBS article does little to accord this subject the moral gravity it deserves. “Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates,” the authors note casually. CBS News’s tweet promoting the story read simply: “Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion.” 
 
 But Iceland isn’t “eliminating Down syndrome” at all. It’s eliminating people. The callous tone of the piece makes selective abortion sound like a technological innovation rather than what it really is: the intentional targeting of “unfit” persons for total elimination. 
 
 What kind of culture does it require to foster such a mindset, to foster a society in which nearly every mother of a Down-syndrome child chooses to abort? Iceland is at the high end of the spectrum in this regard — and was one of the first countries to normalize widespread prenatal testing, in an effort to identify fetal abnormalities and eliminate them through abortion — but it is far from alone. 
 
 Ninety percent of women in the United Kingdom who receive a positive Down-syndrome diagnosis choose to abort. In the U.S., that percentage falls somewhere between 67 and 90, according to a recent meta-study of Down-syndrome termination rates over the last few decades. In Europe as a whole, somewhere around 92 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. This targeting of individuals with Down syndrome is borne out not just in astronomical abortion rates, but in a cultural attitude that often regards them as less than human. 
 
 In France, for example, the State Council banned from the airwaves a video featuring children with Down syndrome talking about their happy lives. The advertisement was meant to comfort mothers who received a prenatal diagnosis and assure them that their children would have beautiful, largely normal lives. The ad was forbidden by the French government because the smiles of the children would “disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices” — in other words, because seeing them happy would upset women who had aborted their Down syndrome children. 
 
 Meanwhile, prenatal testing is praised nearly universally for its ability to give women a full array of “options” for their pregnancies, but many women report feeling pressured by their doctors — whether to be tested in the first place or to choose abortion if the test reveals Down syndrome or other abnormalities. It is taken for granted in the medical community that no woman would carry a Down-syndrome pregnancy to term. 
 
 This pressure reveals the pervasive belief that selective abortion is somehow an actual health-care solution. Instead of seeking real treatment for the ailments that plague people with Down syndrome, or even finding potential cures, we have settled for a false vision of progress that kills people with a disorder rather than treating them. 
 
 A counselor at an Iceland hospital sees the issue even more starkly. “We don’t look at abortion as a murder,” she said. “We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication . . . preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder — that’s so black and white. Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.” 
 
 Too many people today believe it is preferable, and indeed more humane, to murder children rather than allow them to suffer. 
 
 It is in this supposed gray area that the desire to promote health and well-being morphs into the insidious view that people with Down syndrome are better off dead — and that we will be a more advanced society for having relieved them of the burden of a “limited” life. Too many people today believe it is preferable, and indeed more humane, to murder children rather than allow them to suffer. But what life doesn’t have suffering? 
 
 Jerome Lejeune, the French geneticist who discovered the chromosomal basis for Down syndrome, once offered this perspective: “It cannot be denied that the price of these diseases is high — in suffering for the individual and in burdens for society. Not to mention what parents suffer! But we can assign a value to that price: It is precisely what a society must pay to remain fully human.” 
 
 The title of the CBS piece asks, “What kind of society do you want to live in?” The article’s implicit response seems to be, “One dedicated to eliminating abnormality and suffering by any means necessary.” But no admirable society eradicates suffering by eradicating those who suffer. To achieve true moral progress, we must reject the killing of the vulnerable and condemn any backwards society that promotes such a regime as a solution. 
 
 READ MORE: 
 
 The Medical Pros Are Wrong on Down Syndrome 
 
 Dear Future Mom and the Sensitivity Police 
 
 France Prepares to Criminalize Pro-Life Advocacy 
 
 — Alexandra DeSanctis is a William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow in Political Journalism at the National Review Institute. ||||| "CBSN: On Assignment" airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and on our streaming network, CBSN. Explore more on this topic in our "Behind the Lens" report. 
 
 With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland. 
 
 Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy. 
 
 While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik. 
 
 "CBSN: On Assignment" headed to Iceland with CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano to investigate what's factoring into the high termination rates. 
 
 Using an ultrasound, blood test and the mother's age, the test, called the Combination Test, determines whether the fetus will have a chromosome abnormality, the most common of which results in Down syndrome. Children born with this genetic disorder have distinctive facial issues and a range of developmental issues. Many people born with Down syndrome can live full, healthy lives, with an average lifespan of around 60 years. 
 
 Other countries aren't lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it's 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity -- and Down syndrome is included in this category. 
 
 The laboratory at Landspitali University Hospital, the country's main medical center, where the majority of Icelandic women's prenatal blood tests are processed. CBS News 
 
 With a population of around 330,000, Iceland has on average just one or two children born with Down syndrome per year, sometimes after their parents received inaccurate test results. (In the U.S., according to the National Down Syndrome Society, about 6,000 babies with Down syndrome are born each year.) 
 
 "Babies with Down syndrome are still being born in Iceland," said Hulda Hjartardottir, head of the Prenatal Diagnosis Unit at Landspitali University Hospital, where around 70 percent of Icelandic children are born. "Some of them were low risk in our screening test, so we didn't find them in our screening." 
 
 When Thordis Ingadottir was pregnant with her third child at the age of 40, she took the screening test. The results showed her chances of having a child with Down syndrome were very slim, odds of 1 in 1,600. However, the screening test is only 85 percent accurate. That year, 2009, three babies were born with Down syndrome in Iceland, including Ingadottir's daughter Agusta, who is now 7. 
 
 Agusta, age 7. On average, Iceland has two people with Down syndrome born each year. CBS News 
 
 According to Ingadottir, three babies born with Down syndrome is "quite more than usual. Normally there are two, in the last few years." Since the birth of her daughter, Ingadottir has become an activist for the rights of people with Down syndrome. 
 
 As Agusta grows up, "I will hope that she will be fully integrated on her own terms in this society. That's my dream," Ingadottir said. "Isn't that the basic needs of life? What kind of society do you want to live in?" 
 
 Geneticist Kari Stefansson is the founder of deCODE Genetics, a company that has studied nearly the entire Icelandic population's genomes. He has a unique perspective on the advancement of medical technology. "My understanding is that we have basically eradicated, almost, Down syndrome from our society -- that there is hardly ever a child with Down syndrome in Iceland anymore," he said. 
 
 Quijano asked Stefansson, "What does the 100 percent termination rate, you think, reflect about Icelandic society?" 
 
 "It reflects a relatively heavy-handed genetic counseling," he said. "And I don't think that heavy-handed genetic counseling is desirable. … You're having impact on decisions that are not medical, in a way." 
 
 Stefansson noted, "I don't think there's anything wrong with aspiring to have healthy children, but how far we should go in seeking those goals is a fairly complicated decision." 
 
 According to Hjartardottir, "We try to do as neutral counseling as possible, but some people would say that just offering the test is pointing you towards a certain direction." Indeed, more than 4 out of 5 pregnant women in Iceland opt for the prenatal screening test. 
 
 Iceland's Down syndrome dilemma 
 
 For expectant mother Bergthori Einarsdottir, who chose to have the test, knowing that most women did so helped steer her decision. "It was not pressure, but they told me that most women did it," she said. "It did affect me maybe a little bit." 
 
 Over at Landspitali University Hospital, Helga Sol Olafsdottir counsels women who have a pregnancy with a chromosomal abnormality. They speak to her when deciding whether to continue or end their pregnancies. Olafsdottir tells women who are wrestling with the decision or feelings of guilt: "This is your life — you have the right to choose how your life will look like." 
 
 She showed Quijano a prayer card inscribed with the date and tiny footprints of a fetus that was terminated. 
 
 Quijano noted, "In America, I think some people would be confused about people calling this 'our child,' saying a prayer or saying goodbye or having a priest come in -- because to them abortion is murder." 
 
 Olafsdottir responded, "We don't look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication... preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder -- that's so black and white. Life isn't black and white. Life is grey." ||||| General 
 
 Fact Check: No, Iceland is NOT systematically eradicating Down syndrome 
 
 By Staff 
 
 Mother and Child The gyneocoly and obstetrics department of the National University Hospital in Reykjavík. The sculpture, "Mother and Child" is by Danish sculptor Tove Ólafsson, who was married to one of Iceland's best known 20th century sculptors Sigurjón Ólafsson. Photo/Vilhelm. 
 
 Recently the US news network CBS News ran a story which took viewers "Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing". This story prompted a swift backlash in the US, with political and religious leaders denouncing Iceland for practicing eugenics. Some commentators went so far as to suggest Iceland was pursuing Nazi policies. 
 
 CBS News claimed in its story that the government pushes pre-natal screening on women, and that "close to 100 percent" of women who received a positive test for Down syndrome opted for abortion: 
 
 "Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy." 
 
 "Nazi policies" 
 
 One of those who reacted to this story was the conservative firebrand Sarah Palin, who has a child with Down syndrome. On Fox News Palin blasted what she saw as as wrong and evil practice , arguing. 
 
 "To try to snuff out a life, in the name of building a perfect race or a perfect country back to Nazi Germany" 
 
 Others, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who reacted to the story on Twitter, described the alleged policy as "sad". 
 
 The story, and the intense criticism it sparked in the US, has generated a debate in Iceland about the screening for Down syndrome and the termination of pregnancies following positive results. Not least because the story, and the follow-up in the US seems to have gotten a number of things about this wrong. 
 
 Read more: Watch: American preacher denounces Iceland as a “feminist hell”, “a nation of bastards” 
 
 So, what are the facts? 
 
 Abortion in Iceland 
 
 The first point, we must keep in mind, is that Icelanders have a different view of abortions than many on the political right in the US. 
 
 In Iceland women's right over their own bodies is generally recognized by politicians, health care workers and the public alike. While Iceland does not have "abortion on demand", women who wish to terminate their pregnancy must have a conversation with a social worker at the hospital before having an abortion within the first trimester, there is no effort to pressure women to change their minds. 
 
 The decision to carry a pregnancy to completion is viewed by the overwhelming majority of Icelanders as a decision that women must make on their own, or with their partners. In Iceland strangers, whether they are religious, political or community leaders, are not viewed as having any say in people's intensely personal and moral decisions like family planning. 
 
 This also applies to questions of Down syndrome. 
 
 Nowhere near 100% choose abortion 
 
 Sometime between the 11th and 14th week of the pregnancy women are offered a pre-natal screening where the fetus is checked for abnormalities, and the findings are shared with the woman. This screening can, among other things, detect whether there is an increased likelihood of the fetus having Down syndrome. Women are not pressured to have this screening, but strongly urged to do so. 
 
 Read more: Icelandic men's national football team in mismatched socks to honor of Down Syndrome Day 
 
 Hulda Hjartardóttir, chief physician at the maternity ward of the National University Hospital told the local newspaper Morgunblaðið that it is plain wrong to claim, as CBS News does, that "close to 100%" of women who are told that the fetus has an increased likelihood of having Down syndrome. 
 
 Women receive information and advice, are nut subjected to pressure 
 
 Hulda explained to the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service that roughly 85% of women choose to have the optional pre-natal screening, while 15-20% choose not to have the screening. The screening reveals whether there is an increased likelihood of the fetus having Down syndrome. If the screening finds that there is an increased likelihood of the fetus having Down syndrome 15-20% of women or prospective parents choose not to undergo any further tests, and simply choose to carry the pregnancy to term. 
 
 The other two thirds undergo further tests and follow up discussions with doctors and nurses where the findings of the tests are explained. If the tests conclude that the child will be born with down syndrome women are told they have two options: to end the pregnancy or carry it to term. 
 
 Misleading presentation 
 
 Hulda told the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service that the presentation of CBS News was "misleading": 
 
 "Yes they are a bit misleading. It is possible to use statistics to say different things, and I think this news program did that. It distorted the reality." 
 
 Hulda told Morgunblaðið that women and parents are then offered the opportunity to meet with doctors and nurses who work with people with Down syndrome. They are also offered the opportunity to meet parents who have children with Down syndrome. No effort is made to pressure the women to make a certain decision, she explains. 
 
 Woman make the decision themselves 
 
 In fact, Hulda stresses that every effort is made to ensure that the decision comes from the woman herself. She told Morgunblaðið that her experience is that no woman takes this decision lightly: 
 
 "It is very difficult to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, whether or not it is for social or some other reasons. If we really support women's right to choose it is extremely difficult to say that one thing is ok, but not another. But this is an extremely difficult decision which no woman makes lightly."
– A story by CBS News about the declining number of Down syndrome births in Iceland has caused an uproar, with conservative critics accusing the story of celebrating abortion and others lashing out at Iceland itself. There's so much to unpack that even the myth-busting site Snopes has weighed in to set some things straight. A look at the controversy: The story: It says that while prenatal screenings have led to a reduction in Down syndrome births in the US and Europe, "few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland." A tweet promoting the story read, "Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion." The screening: The story explains that doctors must inform pregnant women that such screening is available, but it makes clear that women can choose not to have the screening. Roughly 80% to 85% of women agree to it, however, and, of those, "close to 100%" choose to have an abortion if they get a positive test for Down syndrome, per the story. The outrage: Sarah Palin, whose son, Trig, has Down syndrome, likened Iceland to Nazi Germany in an interview with Fox News. "This intolerance for people who may not look like you is so wrong," she says. The sentiment is shared: It amounts to "eugenics," argues Alexandra DeSanctis at the National Review. This isn't "eliminating Down syndrome," she adds. "It's eliminating people." Ted Cruz tweeted: "Truly sad. News celebrating Iceland's '100% termination rate' for children w/ Downs Syndrome." Snopes: The website notes that some critics are distorting what the story actually said, calling out one headline in particular that read, "Iceland kills 100% of babies with Down syndrome in abortion: New report.” Snopes clarifies: "The Icelandic government does not mandate abortions for mothers whose unborn children test positive for Down syndrome, nor do they mandate that a mother is required to take the test in the first place." The stats: A piece at Iceland Magazine takes issue with the CBS assertion that nearly 100% of women who get a positive test have an abortion. It quotes one doctor who says the figure is nowhere near that, and the magazine suggests it's closer to 80% to 85%. And then there's the 20% or so of women who choose not to have the screening in the first place. (The CBS story says the percentage of US women who opt for abortion after a positive test is 67%, while the National Review piece cites stats putting it between 67% and 90%.) Abortion views: Another factor in all of this is opposing views of abortion, of course. A counselor of pregnant women at an Icelandic hospital acknowledges that some see it as murder but says that's not the prevailing view in Iceland. "We don't look at abortion as a murder," she tells CBS. "We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication ... preventing suffering for the child and for the family."