Pretty much everything I have seen thrown at Santorum ends up being deflected by the one time senator. Rather than address the questions being asked, Santorum often throws a curve ball by asking another question, not the one being posed, and goes off on a a tangent, as is seen here with the question about multiple marriage.
Unlike Romney, Santorum will end up turning voters off because of his extreme religious positions that he insists on keeping in the public light. Romney, on the other hand, freely admits that he is a Mormon but doesn’t shove his beliefs in everyone’s face.
O’Reilly called Santorum out on his position on contraception. He asked Santorum if he was ready to be demonized over things like this. Again, Santorum played the deflection game.
The culture warrior issues will defeat Santorum because he is far from the mainstream and simply refuses to accept that while people may carry whatever belief they want, these beliefs have no business being part of public policy.
How far to you think Santorum will go? I think he will get sent home from New Hampshire with his tail between his legs.
holy crap, did he say is “government going to be big and intrusive and tell people how to manage their lives”! Umm, isn’t that what he does regarding contraception, abortion, marriage, etc etc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Elena, talk about someone who just doesn’t get it. Geez!!!!!
Yet another reason to privatize contraception, abortion, marriage (get gov’t out of marriage and reform those tax laws.) Then, those that don’t want to pay for it, don’t have to. That’s a good way to get government out of it and make sure that no one can object to “society” paying for it or demanding influence.
If a church wants to keep marriage one man/one woman…great.
If a church wants to marry gay people…that’s their business.
If a church wants to marry groups of people… hey…they’re consenting adults.
But don’t expect all states to recognize those marriages.
If you want to change the definition of marriage…he’s right. If you are going to allow 2 men or 2 women to get married, nothing prevents the change to include 2 men/1 woman or any other mix. Only fair.
Civil unions…. good compromise. But don’t force a religious organization to marry those whose union would be objectionable to the tenets.
Abortion is privatized.
Contraception is part of Title X. It has been around for decades and very much is part of national interest. People who don’t believe in it don’t have to practice it. Otherwise, they can get over it. This is the modern world. People who are vegan have to also pay for meat inspection. Again. Get over it.
How does govt get out of marriage or civil union, or at least the contract end of it? I have no problem if they get out of marriage and retain civil union control. All states need to recognize civil unions. They don’t need to be involved with marriage?
There already are church marriages that do not involve the state. What difference does it make if only that church recognizes the marriage?
We all know that isn’t what Santorum is really saying. He also wants to repeal the repeal of DADT.
I love watching ANYBODY try to argue about the federal government role in marriage. Santorum deserves to stand there and squirm. He just doesn’t get it.
don’t really want to get into this one too deeply. I don’t take Mr. Santorum very seriously other than that I respect his efforts on partial birth abortion. It is a barbarism and the Democrats who attempted to protect it are beneath my personal contempt.
But, having said that, I must observe in reaction to my friend CS’s comments that, whatever one’s views about civil unions, there never has been any suggestion (except from ignorant or calculating rabble rousers) that the government (state or federal) can require that churches marry anyone they choose not to marry. That has never been a serious possibility.
After Santorum Left Senate, Familiar Hands Reached Out
Richard Perry/The New York Times
By MIKE McINTIRE and MICHAEL
In the years before he lost his Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2006, Rick Santorum worked hard to win hundreds of millions of dollars in additional Medicare money for hospitals in Puerto Rico.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/us/politics/after-senate-santorums-beneficiaries-became-benefactors.html?_r=1&hp
According to the article, Santorum made lots of money from companies who benefitted from his work in the Senate, especially in health care. This is big government crony capitalism.
He was trying to have a civil and useful conversation regarding the ultimate ends of such thinking.
Rational people might believe that is a fair and appropriate thing for a politician to do.
Irrational people might dismiss any conversation outright…
@Mike, ok, and….?????? Are we forced to like his position?
@Scout
Is it the D & x method or is it that many people find 2nd and third trimester abortion repugnant?
Truthfully, I don’t think one method is a bit worse than the other. The anti-abortion camp won the war of words on ‘partial birth’ abortion. When we start talking about later abortions, the entire procedure is grisly and horribly sad. I especially feel sorry for women who feel they must choose to terminate a very much wanted pregnancy because of fetal anomoly. Funny that this tragedy is never brought up in the Tiller type conversations. These women still have abortions if they feel they must. It is just more complicated.
I think Santorum would be better off talking about how he intends to improve the economy.
You’re drawing me in to a discussion I was trying to avoid, Moon. Of course, I set myself up for that. It’s a very difficult topic, especially if a man is involved. I tend to pay more attention to what women have to say about the issue.
I was, however, trying to be fair to Santorum, whom I generally regard as a lightweight opportunist of no political merit, one who richly deserved to be booted out by the voters in ’06.
Nonetheless, I personally agreed with his opposition to partial birth abortions (leaving to one side the question of whether federal law should be where one defines specific medical procedures) and thought he made people like Barbara Boxer look silly during the floor debate (her position seemed to be that life begins when you take the baby home with you).
@Scout, and I always try to avoid the actual abortion debate…in other words, I won’t convince you and you won’t convince me logic. But I couldn’t leave that one alone.
I don’t know what medically replaced what was emotionally being called ‘partial birth abortion’ but whose actual name was d & x procedure. I would be willing to be that some other procedure came along to accomplish the same purpose or they went back to something more horrific like ‘salting out.’
I don’t recall Barbara Boxer commenting but it was probably during one of my “don’t watch” spells on this subject. The anti abortion folks really outsmarted the Reproductive rights crowd on this one. It makes great sound but does nothing to stomp out 2nd trimester abortion other than make it more expensive.
I immediately think about those with negative genetic testing. Much of that doesn’t show up until 2nd trimester…the real hard ball stuff. I have known a couple of people who had to have that done. To say I would never stand in judgement of them is an understatement.
Of course, I first formed my initial impressions about abortion in general because of thalidamide. As a kid, I followed the perils of Miss Sherrie all the way to Sweden because the American system let her down because of politics. I expect seeing kids born with flippers for arms and legs affected an entire generation of young women. Geez, life is tough enough without that.
And as an aside, to those who would disband the food and drug administration….you might want to think that one over.
Back to life beginning….there seems to be quite a conundrum going on over life…being a process or an event. If we look at the 14th amendment in terms on children born in America and the danger some present as “anchor babies,
” life is an event. If we are speaking of reproduction, it is a process.
Scout,
I knew of a couple that found themselves in a horrific position in the 6th months of a VERY wanted pregnancy. They never imagined that they would be faced with such a terrible dilema. Until you have walked in someones shoes, its important to stave off judgement. This was not a story in th enews, but a very real couple who were very catholic and very pro-life.
Scout,
Wow, this article sounds almost identical the what I heard first hand from this couples cousin whom I knew was facing this very procedure due to severe issues with the baby. The difference is that they did not know til a very late ultrasound in the latter part of the fifth month of pregnancy.
Like I said, don’t be so quick to judge couples faced with what seems like only horrible choices.
http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/companion.asp?id=20&compID=39
For months, I hid from the world, avoiding social outings and weddings. I just couldn’t bear well-meaning friends saying, “I’m so sorry.” So I quarantined myself, and would try to go about my day — but then, bam, heartbreak would come screaming out of the shadows, blindsiding me and leaving me crumpled on the floor of our house. It wasn’t that I was questioning our decision. I knew we did it out of love, out of all the feeling in the world. But I still hated it. Hated it.
I wrote my doctor a long thank-you note on my good, wedding stationery. I thanked him for his compassion and his kindness. I wrote that it must be hard, what he does, but that I hoped he found consolation in the fact that he was helping vulnerable women in their most vulnerable of times. He keeps my note, along with all the others he’s received, in a large bundle. And he keeps that bundle right next to his stack of hate mail. They are about the same size.
The trio of lawsuits that has been filed points to the Supreme Court’s decision three years ago that overturned a similar so-called partial-birth abortion ban in Nebraska. The court, in Stemberg v. Carhart, ruled in a narrow, 5-4 decision that the ban was unconstitutional on two grounds: the lack of an exception to protect a woman’s health; and the fact that the ban would prohibit even the most commonly used and medically safe abortion procedures throughout the second trimester of pregnancy. Many legal scholars think that this federal ban will also be ruled unconstitutional on those same grounds.
Because of the lawsuits, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 cannot be enforced, though it could be years before the abortion debate winds its way through the system and heads back to the Supreme Court. By that time, the composition of the court could be entirely different. “We are looking for a permanent restraining order,” says Petra Langer, the director of public relations and government affairs for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. “Who knows what the long-term situation will be? If George Bush is reelected, all bets are off, unfortunately.”
But even the short-term situation is bleak. The doctor who performed my termination has stopped doing the procedure, worried that he might get caught up in a lawsuit. He is not a lawyer or a politician, and he doesn’t know what this law means for him right now. “I may go to jail for two years,” he tells me. “They can suspend my medical license. It would cost me a fortune to have a lawyer to defend me.”
His fears are justified. “There are bunches of doctors out there who could be prosecuted today under this legislation,” says Roger Evans, a lawyer for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The three injunctions cover only doctors who are affiliated with Planned Parenthood clinics, who are members of the National Abortion Federation, or who are one of the individual plaintiffs in the Nebraska suit. This leaves “scores of doctors who, if they perform an abortion that falls under the very broad definition of the banned procedure, could be prosecuted,” he says.
The doctor who performed my termination talks about the women he has helped through the years — the pregnant woman who was diagnosed with metastic melanoma and needed immediate chemotherapy, the woman who was carrying conjoined twins that had only one set of lungs and one heart, the woman whose baby had a three-chambered heart and would never live. Now, he is turning these women away. “Now, today, I can say no, but what is she going to do?” he says sadly. “What is she going to do?”
Elena – I don’t mean to minimize the moral dilemma that parents sometime face in these decisions. For me, however, as a matter of personal moral choice, the starting point is: if it has a heartbeat, you can’t kill it. I have nothing but sympathy for parents who have faced very difficult medical decisions. I also realize that my baseline position might quickly get less clear to me if I were in their shoes. So I have a certain humility about these issues. I also realize that my position is not particularly battle-tested, being a male, and never having been in a position where I’ve had to balance the baby’s health and outlook with the Mother’s life. The purpose of my comment was that I was trying to acknowledge something positive in Santorum from my perspective. I heard him in the Senate when partial birth abortion was being debated. I thought he was clear, passionate, and exposed effectively the fuzziness of the defenses of his opponents. Generally, however, I find him shallow, inflammatory, not particularly well-informed, and certainly someone who should not hold national office. As I said to MH, I did not want to make this about abortion practices, but I concede that I opened the door to it.
As the boomers age, we will be fighting some fairly serious right to die issues. I expect we will be doing battle with the same politicians.
Scout,
I truly do appreciate your feelings, it is no simple issue, else why would it be called a moral dilema.
My issue is partly with all this new technology. When you are pregnant it is expected that you will undergo all the possible testing possible. When I was pregnant with my second child at age 36, you would have thought I had spoken heresy when I said I was not interested in amniocentisis or the new blood tests.
I am as pro choice today as I was when I formed my opinion as a teenager. When I was in my late twenties, a friend was pregant. She was 42 and had already had one miscarriage. She went through the new CVS testing and it came back horribly wrong. She called me hystericaly crying. She was distraught, how could this be happening. The results said her baby’s genetics were incompatable with life. This new testing was so that parents could make decisions without having to wait til the 4th month when amnio was the only way to tell about fetal anomolies.
Now remember, I am pro choice (NOT pro abortion, a label that really pisses me off). I told my friend to take a deep breath and tell me more details. If this baby was suppose to be dead, why was it still alive, could this test be wrong? I told her to wait and get a second opinion, do some research, find out what the percentages were for an incorrect test. She did get that second opinion and more specialized testing was done from the original test.
Well, it turned out, there was a rare chance that the test could be wrong and it was. I don’t remember all the medical reasons but to make a long story short, she gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl who is not in her teens!
Ultrasound is still the best way to determine what real medical issues face a developing baby in my opinion, and often, these things cannot be seen until a certain later point in pregnancy. Women are offered all these tests but when they come back conclusive, what are you suppose to do with the info? Wait in fear? Wait for a still born birth, wait for the worst outcome ever of what you thought was going to be a joyous occassion?
I am pro choice, for everything that means, sometimes it means making a horrible choice, sometime it means getting a second and third opinion to ensure the information you have been given is correct. I have never carried a baby that I knew would die either in the womb, or within mintues of being born, and I pray I never will.
I have a friend who had cvs. It was when that genetic testing was new and there simply was information that they didn’t kjnow the meaning of. My friend had to wait until week 17 for amnio and everything came out fine. In fact, I just attended his 26th birthday. It wasn’t a mistake. It was just too new to interpret all the data. My friend wasn’t resentful at all. The was glad the options were there. It was still an unsettling upsetting time for my friend. It wasn’t something she was taking lightly.
My question is this–it appears that the state is encrouching more and more on the realm of genetic testing. It makes me uncomfortable that anyone would attempt to influence a woman who had to deal with a bad fetal anomoly other than someone in the medical profession. I fear that is going to be happening soon. It probably was happening, outside of Dr. Tiller’s facility. Isn’t there a new place in Maryland that handles those unfortunate pregancies?