Prenatal Testing: Helpful or Heartless?

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I am pregnant with my first child, which is both exciting and overwhelming at the same time. I have been doing massive amounts of reading and it seems that there is always something else that I should be concerned about, or shouldn't eat, and so on. The most disturbing of my experiences so far was at the doctor's office after I had my first ultrasound. It was the first time I'd seen a doctor (I'd seen nurses up until then because I'm in a very isolated community right now) and he wanted to inform me about prenatal testing for down syndrome. Down syndrome is a disease caused when a child has an extra chromosome (47 instead of 46) - it can now be identified prenatally through screening and diagnostic tests. Basically, a screening test is noninvasive (blood test or ultrasound measurements) and just indicates the probability of having a baby with DS. This is voluntary (at least, in Canada) but some parents choose to do it to assess their risk. If the risk seems high, the parents can opt to have a diagnostic test done. This type of test involves inserting a needle into the mother's abdomen and taking a sample of either amniotic fluid (the fluid that surrounds the baby), the placenta, or the blood from the umbilical cord. This test is linked to early labor and miscarriage so it's very controversial. As soon as the doctor started talking about this, I felt symptoms of panic. Naturally, every mother hopes that her child will be born healthy and fears the unknown. When he mentioned the testing first, I'll admit that my first thought was "well, better to be tested than not, just to be sure" but when he started talking about the dangers associated with such a test, I was appalled. Why would anyone choose to have a diagnostic test if it could result in the death of their baby? The doctor told us that some people choose to have this testing done because if they do find out that they are having a child with DS (or even if their risk is high) they will choose to terminate the pregnancy. The thought horrifies me. With personal feelings about abortion aside (because I recognize that there are shades of grey that some people do not acknowledge), I feel that having a test done specifically to decide whether or not to terminate the baby is heartless. Also, the timing upsets me a lot. The doctor told me that the diagnostic testing can be done up until 20 weeks... that's halfway through a 40 week pregnancy. Isn't that a little late? I know that I'm almost 21 weeks now and I'm already very, very attached to this little one... I can feel him/her kicking and moving and the thought of ending his/her life is disturbing and makes me want to cry. Does anyone have any more insight into why such testing is available and how popular it really is? Maybe I'm missing something here... Thanks for listening... Ash