In the 1990s, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and his wife faced a rumor that the pro-life couple had a late-term abortion and covered it up. The rumor came as the Santorums were grieving the loss of their baby Gabriel who was diagnosed with a fatal condition and died shortly after birth.
Santorum, a pro-life Republican who is running for president, now believes former President Bill Clinton may have been the one who spread the rumor, according to the National Review. The former Pennsylvania senator told the Washington Free Beacon that he wants the former president to “come clean” about whether he planted the rumor or passed it on.
“It was so painful to my family, specifically to my wife, I can’t even begin to explain,” Santorum told the Free Beacon. “You lose a child and you go through the grief and depression from that, and then somebody tells you that you killed your child.”
The accusation surfaced again last week after newly released audio recordings about the Clintons included a mention of the Santorums and their baby. The Federalist reported that long-time Clinton family confidante and presidential biographer Taylor Branch spoke with Bill Clinton about late-term and partial-birth abortions in 1997 and then recounted his conversation on the audio recordings.
The Free Beacon reports that Clinton made a cryptic comment to Branch indicating that he suspected Santorum and his wife had an abortion and were lying about it.
Clinton made the comments not long after a national debate in 1996 and 1997 about a partial-birth abortion ban. Santorum helped to lead the fight to end the gruesome abortion practice, but Clinton vetoed the bill.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
In the newly released audio files, Clinton reportedly complained that the partial-birth abortion debate made “a statesman out of Rick Santorum.”
“Politically speaking, the pro-life forces have been far more sophisticated and smarter than the pro-choice forces in this battle,” Clinton said, according to Branch.
Santorum said he has always wondered where the rumor about their son started, the report states.
“This is a chicken and egg issue for me,” Santorum said. “Did the White House put this forward as retribution for going after them on the override of their veto, or did Clinton just get the story and come to that conclusion after he read it? One of those two things happened and I’m not sure that I would put it past the White House that the first is true.”
The rumor originally surfaced in the late 1990s in a front-page article of the Philadelphia Inquirer, accusing the Santorums of having a late-term abortion, according to reports. Santorum told the Free Beacon that he suspects Clinton may have leaked his suspicions to the newspaper.
The report continues:
“Obviously, Clinton did not have a very favorable opinion of me, and it’s because we were winning the PR war,” said Santorum. “It would not surprise me if, in response for losing the PR war, he would try to discredit the person that was leading the charge.”
Santorum said he and his wife “offer forgiveness” to Clinton for what he said, but called for answers on “whether it was his White House that planted the story.”
“My only concern is for Clinton to be transparent about what transpired at that time, but I have no expectation that Clinton would tell the truth of whether he did or not,” Santorum said.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.
The Santorums said they tried to save their unborn son’s life. They sought the advice of top medical experts and went through several surgeries to help their son, according to Karen Santorum’s book, Letters to Gabriel. The Santorum’s son Gabriel was born at 20 weeks and lived for two hours outside the womb.
“[Gabriel’s] life was so brief, yet his impact so great. In two hours we experienced a lifetime of emotions,” Karen Santorum said. “Love, sorrow, regret, joy—-all were packed into that brief span. To have rejected that experience would have been to reject life itself.”
