COMMENTARY | With Rick Santorum’s sudden surge in the polls, many issues have been brought to the forefront that no one expected to discuss. Rock Santorum’s views on reproductive rights and contraception are dangerous, and women should be very concerned at the prospect of a Santorum presidency.
Rick Santorum is pro-life, which is a view that he is most certainly entitled to have. When those views enter into the political realm, things can get dicey. Santorum used references to abortion more than any other senator during his tenure in the house , according to the Huffington Post. The problem with Santorum’s views on abortion is that he is opposed to abortion in every situation, even when a woman is a victim of rape or incest, or when a woman’s life is at stake , according to Think Progress.
What the evangelical Catholic is essentially endorsing is to force a 12 year old girl who has been raped by a family member to then carry the resulting pregnancy to term. Is the life of the child born of rape more precious than the life of the girl who was raped, whose life has been forever changed? His answer, shockingly, was that the abortion would only traumatize the rape victim. I suppose that giving birth to the child of one’s rapist would not be traimatic at all by Santorum standards. Santorum’s rhetoric plays well to the Christian right, but it has absolutely no basis in reality.
Much has been made recently about the tragic loss that the Santorums experienced when their son, Gabriel, was born prematurely and died just two short hours later, according to the New York Times. At 19 weeks, the couple discovered that there was a potentially fatal abnormality with the fetus. They chose to continue with the pregnancy, undergoing a surgery to try to correct the problem. Unfortunately, the surgery was not successful. What is important to remember is that while this situation is tragic for the family, the continuation of the pregnancy was a choice that they had.
Rick Santorum’s opposition to terminating a pregnancy even when the mother’s life is at risk is the right belief for him, but it should not be imposed on everyone. When a pregnancy jeopardizes the life of the mother, the mother should have the right to choose her own life. Consider for a moment, a woman pregnant with her third child who may be faced with a risky pregnancy. Is it fair to deny her other children a mother because of Rick Santorum’s politics? That family should have the right to make the right choice for them.
When politicians in this country begin to insert themselves into a woman’s health choices, we have seriously gone off topic. Instead of focusing on the economy, jobs, foreign policy, and all of the other ills that face this nation, Rick Santorum and the GOP would rather spend their time in my womb. It is unfortunate that any woman should have to fear that being raped could also result in her being forced to give birth to her rapist’s child. That is why we cannot afford a Rick Santorum presidency.