Rick Santorum is getting support from pro-life African-Americans who say he was not out of line in suggesting President Barack Obama should support the pro-life position because he is black.
Santorum drew comparisons to the abortion and civil rights issues last week in comments that had him targeted by liberal groups and the mainstream media for condemnation.
Responding to a question about a statement Obama made during the 2008 presidential campaign saying understanding the basic facts of when human life begins was “above his pay grade,” Santorum said: The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer — is that human life a person under the constitution?” and Barack Obama says no.”
“Well if that human life is not a person then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people,’” Santorum added.
Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, told CNS News today Santorum is right.
“I have to agree with him and say that I find it remarkable, also,” she said. “In light of the fact that coming out of slavery, we were not considered full human beings. We were treated as no better than pack mules, working in fields, without any rights at all.”
“I think that what the media is trying to do is take what Sen. Santorum said and try to spin it to mean something else,” Gardner said. “He was talking about the Dred Scott decision – and in the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court said that blacks were only two-thirds human; that we were not fully human beings. And I believe that (Santorum) was referring to that decision when he made that remark.”
Pastor Clenard Childress, of LEARN, a black pro-life group, also supported the former Pennsylvania senator and potential presidential candidate.
“It’s very interesting that the ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ was referenced,” Childress said. “In that same letter, Martin Luther King references infanticide or child-killing as evil. So what Martin Luther King calls evil, Barack Obama and this administration calls good — because all of their policies have more or less facilitated the growth or the intrusion of abortion in our community and our legislation a hundred fold.”
“It is quite hypocritical that the president would talk about change and social justice and be one of the strongest advocators of the abortion agenda in this country,” Childress added in his comments to the conservative news service.
Meanwhile, Santorum himself is not shying away from the remarks.
He sent an email to members of the political action committee on Saturday saying he would continue “fighting for the unborn” and explaining his comments.
“For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the constitution. Today other human beings, the unborn of all races, are also wrongly treated as property and denied the right to life for the same reason; because they are not considered persons under the constitution,” he said. “To pro-life advocates – like you and me – this is not an unusual sentiment. But to the media and those on the left, this was a charge of racism.”
After Santorum’s initial remarks, which came in an videotaped interview last week with CNS News, he told David Brody of CBN News that he meant what he said, sending the statement: “For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the constitution. Today other human beings, the unborn of all races, are also wrongly treated as property and denied the right to life for the same reason; because they are not considered persons under the constitution. I am disappointed that President Obama, who rightfully fights for civil rights, refuses to recognize the civil rights of the unborn in this country.”
