Former Sen. Rick Santorum is a potential Republican presidential candidate and, today, he challenged another potential presidential hopeful, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels on a key bill that could make or break his potential campaign.
Daniels, who has advocated a truce on social issues like abortion so the next president can focus on the economy, has on his desk a bill the Indiana legislature approved that would limit abortions in several ways but also cut off taxpayer funding for the Indiana affiliate of the Planned Parenthood abortion business. Santorum, who has a strong pro-life record and is making pro-life issues a main focus of his likely GOP bid, says Daniels should sign the bill into law.
Santorum doesn’t think the Planned Parenthood of today is much different from the age of Sanger’s controversial views. He called on Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) to sign a bill in his state that would “defund” Planned Parenthood for Hoosiers, pointing to what he calls the group’s shady past and sketchy present.
“I can’t imagine any other organization with its roots as poisonous as the roots of Planned Parenthood getting federal funding of any kind,” Santorum said. “This is an organization that was founded on the eugenics movement, founded on racism — I mean, it’s horrific. It’s origins are horrific. And you can say, ‘well it’s not that anymore.’ It’s not far from where it was in my opinion.”
“They’ve stayed in that same general area of saying that there are certain people in society that we should — you heard Ruth Bader Ginsburg say it in her comments about you know “undesirables” in society,” he said. “I just don’t think that’s what federal government or state government money should be going to.”
“Well, look at — and I know they dispute this — certainly a lot of evidence that the location of their clinics happen to be in places, historically places, where there are high concentrations of minorities for example,” Santorum said of Planned Parenthood.
