Rick Santorum Woos Pro-Life Crowd in Wisconsin With Speech Blasting Abortion
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 30, 2010
Milwaukee, WI (LifeNews.com) — Former Pennsylvania senator and potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum wood pro-life advocates Thursday night with a speech blasting abortion. Santorum was the featured speaker at a fundraising event for Wisconsin Right to Life.
Santorum, who has maintained a national presence since he was defeated for re-election, is considered a credible potential candidate because of his strong ties to the pro-life community.
The former member of Congress looked back and reminded the large crowd how he led the fight to ban partial-birth abortions.
"In 1996, I stepped up as the leader on the partial birth abortion issue," he said, adding that it was a great educational effort as well because "with the partial birth abortion issue, there’s one thing you can’t miss — the baby."
Santorum also had a personal connection to the fight against the gruesome abortion procedure.
"My wife Karen was 19 weeks pregnant with our fourth child, the age at which many partial birth abortions are performed," he said. "Two weeks later, Karen gave birth to our son Gabriel. And we were told he would not live. We held him for two days, and then he died."
The experience led Karen in writing a book "Letters to Gabriel;" and inspiring many others.
The Santorum family later had a baby girl with Trisomy and were told she would not live and that it was a condition incompatible with life. Doctors gave the family no hope and prescribed a lethal dose of medication telling them it would comfort baby Isabella.
"Baby Bella may not be able to talk or walk, but she can love. She has changed the hearts and minds of many," he said.
Moving forward, Santorum said the passage of the pro-abortion government-run health care bill "put the lives of vulnerable people like Bella at risk."
"Health care passed by congress has completely changed our health care system- we are now simply budget items," he said.
Santorum also noted that the bill contains measures promoting rationing and said 10 percent of all the deaths in the Netherlands were due to voluntary euthanasia.
To counter the pro-abortion agenda Obama has promoted, Santorum called on pro-life advocates to get involved in the November congressional elections.
"The upcoming elections are the most important of our nations history, and for the pro life movement," he said. "You can make a difference. And we can to change this country into one that respects all human life."
Saying Wisconsin is an important state in the national pro-life election effort, he finished the speech by recalling the famous Mother Teresa line: "God does not call on us to be successful. He has called us to be faithful."
Related web sites:
Wisconsni Right to Life – https://www.wrtl.org
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