Santorum used to be Pro-Choice and his Wife lived with an Abortion Doctor

[bleedingheart]

It is funny what you find when you go digging.

I have always felt that Santorum was and is a fake. His sanctimonious front was created by him because he saw a great financial opportunity. At the time he rose to power in the GOP...he knew that they were the party on the rise and he knew what he had to do to win. So he changed his stripes.

As it always has been...it is always about THE MONEY and THE POWER and pRicky boy knew what to do to acquire both....he is a fraud.

This article called..."The Path of the Righteous Man"...give some insight into his life..but the best part for me was this...

http://citypaper.net/articles/2005-09-29/cover.shtml

"When she met Rick, Karen was living with Tom Allen, an OBGYN who in the early-1970s cofounded Pittsburgh's first abortion clinic. It was a somewhat unusual pairing. Allen was the doctor who delivered Karen. She began living with him while an undergraduate nursing student at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University. She was in her early 20s, he was in his 60s.

"When she moved out to go be with Rick, she told me I'd like him, that he was pro-choice and a humanist," said Allen, an elderly but vibrant man, during a brief conversation on the porch of his Pittsburgh row home. "But I don't think there's a humanist bone in that man's body." "


....then he and Karen get together and he starts changing...

"Santorum's views on abortion changed around this time as well, recalls the cousin.

"Our extended family has many strong women in it, who are intelligent and outspoken. There was one year Rick stopped by a family reunion for an hour or two. It was around the time he was 'rising to power' and becoming rabidly, ridiculously conservative. His views on abortion were quite contentious that year, and for those few hours of his visit, the women all descended upon him like flies, calling him on his change of views. He had always been pro-choice to my recollection. That's why it was such a heated issue that year. The women in my family felt betrayed."
"

[rodeodance]

1. it was Ricks born again moment in time.

[bleedingheart]

2. yep...so conveniently staged to coincide with his rise in the GOP

[grizmaster]

3. Having his kids play with a dead fetus

is still the one that really freaks me out

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61804-2005Apr17.html

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.

"That's my little guy," Santorum says, pointing to the photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father's hand. The senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance in which he talks softly.

He and Karen brought Gabriel's body home so their children could "absorb and understand that they had a brother," Santorum says. "We wanted them to see that he was real," not an abstraction, he says. Not a "fetus," either, as Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described -- "a 20-week-old fetus" -- on a hospital form. They changed the form to read "20-week-old baby."

[trotsky]

4. Yup, that is one of the creepiest things I've ever heard about.

Just plain whacked.

[SallyMander]

5. Whoa, i hadn't heard about this one...

That is F-ED UP!!!!

[bleedingheart]

6. and then his wife wrote a bunch of letters to the dead baby and published

the book...

Amazing how she could home school all those kids and still write books....

[THUNDER HANDS]

9. that's legal?

I didn't know you could bring a corpse home and play with it. I thought it had to be turned over to the medical examiner's/morgue until it was ready for burial.

[happyslug]

13. In Most states it is the family who have to bury the body

And they can do with the body as they see best. This includes leaving it on the side of the road. Obligations to take care of the body only starts if you take control of the body. For example a few years ago there was an accident locally and the body was NOT re-covered for days for the family did not want it, the local coroner did not want it and the police did not want it. No one wanted the body, finally a charity group took control of the body and buried it.

Remember if someone takes control of the body, that person must take care of the body, including deposing of the body (Generally burial, but could be dumped in a local landfill unless they is laws against that in that area). Coroners only take over Custody if they is suspicion of foul play, if it is clear without an examine why someone died they no need for the coroner to take control of the body.

Now many states have passed laws as to what you CAN NOT do with a body, for example if you take control of a body you can not bury it yourself (Laws passed by funeral homes to keep their business) nor can you "abuse" the dody (I do not want to go there, but it can cover anything from eating the flesh, sex with the body or improper disposal of the body). Except for such laws forbidding what you can do, most states do NOT have laws that says what you must do with the body. The reason for this wording is that while Funeral Homes want the business of burying people, they do not want to bury poor people at a lost. Thus certain things MUST be done if you go to a Funeral Homes, but not required if you do not, but to get the body buried you have to go through a funeral home unless you come under an exception to that general law (and the exceptions regard burying indigent people, which often says such indigent people body can be used for medical research without their family's permission provide the medical institution that uses the body disposes of the body).

Thus I do not know of any law that prohibits a parent from taking any body to their home for their kids to see, provided the body is deposed of in a way that meets state law (and in the case of Santorum he did bury the body).

[grizmaster]

14. I think it's child abuse to force your kids to play with a dead fetus

not to mention reckless endangerment of a child. Who knows what kind of potential disease risks exposing your children to a dead fetus entails.

The state should have immediately removed the children from their custudy and charged the parents.

[Carni]

11. Yuck-- what purpose did that serve?

OK I thought the Victorians taking photos of the dead in lifelike poses was weird...this is even more bizarre and unpleasant.

Why would you scare children in such a manner?

OK I just caught that this was a 20 week fetus and not a stillborn full term baby--- this IMO is twisted and sick.

What is wrong with those people???!!!

[Red Right and BLUE]

7. "When she met Rick, Karen was living with Tom Allen

It was a somewhat unusual pairing. Allen was the doctor who delivered Karen."


:Shudder:

Wow, what fine taste pRick has in choosing mates.

[rkc3]

8. Don't you just love the City Paper?

They've been slamming Rick and Melissa hart for years.

I've heard stories about Rick's relationship with his family before - a friend of mine is married to a Santorum family member (like a second or third cousin). He once told me Rick is treated like the plague when he shows up at family get togethers.

Thought maybe he was full of shit - but this article pretty much describes what he told me two years ago.

[blue neen]

10. Fascinating article.

Nice catch, bleedingheart.

Everyone should read the whole article. There is a part explaining how they used their crying son for a photo op.

[kskiska]

12. Wouldn't 20 weeks be considered a miscarriage or spontaneous abortion?

I doubt it would be considered stillborn, since it wouldn't have survived.

[LeftyMom]

16. It's beyond the low end of survivability

22-24 weekers have made it, though there's some debate about whether it's a good idea to try considering their low survival rates (one in five 24 weekers makes it, one in fifty 22 weekers does) poor health outcomes and the insane amount of resources it takes to keep a half-gestated baby alive.

[pdrichards114]

15. Definitely a fetus

20 weeks development would have meant the baby's skeletal structure was still forming; cartilage would have been turing into bones, and it would have been only apprx. 10 inches long if stretched out. He's got emotional problems that run deeper than just being a "conservative"

[kath]

17. And the eyes would be still fused shut, and the skin gelatinous, the lungs not

nearly developed enough to function.

NON-VIABLE, and therefore a fetus.

[grizmaster]

18. having your children cuddle a corpse is about as sick as you can get

hard to believe this nutsack ever got elected to anything