Rick Santorum Explains Unusual Choice He Made After Baby's Death

The Daily Beast:

How the Santorums handled the death of their baby is intertwined with the couple’s views on abortion, and their decision to risk intrauterine surgery to correct a fatal defect in the womb rather than end the pregnancy. When the surgery led to an infection that threatened Karen’s life, she resisted efforts to deliver the baby prematurely until doctors told her husband the baby would not live in any event, and he would lose his wife as well if the pregnancy continued.

Read the whole story: The Daily Beast

Comments

[foneric]

05:22 PM on 02/18/2012

How is that not considered a late term abortion? That's exactly what it was.

[steimer2young]

12:54 PM on 02/08/2012

If you could do a surgery with the chance to save your child's life, wouldn't you do it? If you were told without it the child will surely die, but with it there is a chance of survival,,,wouldn't you? Where is the hypocisy in choosing a surgery that has the chance to save a life, that without it will surely die?

His wife Karen also did not induce labor to bring on the baby and save herself. The infection puther into labor. She was ALREADY laboring. Because they would BOTh die, not just her if they continued trying to STOP the labor,,,they allowed it to progress. Their son was born alive.

I too delivered a stillborn son this year. It is not creepy at all to cherish and spend what few moments you are ever going to have with that baby in your arms. This is very normal and common in practice. My hospital ENCOURAGED us to spend as much time as we needed. We too have children at home. Our son was not in good enough condition to bring back home. I do understand their choice to do so. They gave their family an opportunity for acceptance and closure. It is hard to grieve something you cannot see that you lost. This was a brief period and was common place of ALL deaths in our country at one time.

[Trittydi]

12:58 AM on 01/23/2012

Hypocrisy is about the ONLY thing republicans excel at.
*

[lvossell]

08:58 PM on 01/22/2012

All of you who are talking about his as an abortion issue are ignorant and have nothing better to do with your time than that make up stuff. These medical issues occur everyday and there are so many people who have successful intrauterine surgery. In the Santorum's case it did not work. Also, you cannot image the pain of losing a child. So unless you have been in those shoes, SHUT THE HELL UP!

[pjlim]

12:03 PM on 01/20/2012

It's only an abortion if someone other than the Saintly Santorums does it........

[Freddie27]

06:22 PM on 01/07/2012

No way should this tragedy become subject to partisan politics. I loathe Rick Santorum and consider among the worst of the Repubs running, but I have nothing but sympathy for the death of his baby.

[jessicadevyn]

01:44 PM on 01/08/2012

Then he and his wife should keep it to themselves like most people who experience miscarriage and abortion. (About 25% of women will go through a known miscarriage, 50% will miscarrying and not even be aware that they were pregnant, and 1/3 of women will have an abortion.) They are not writing books about the subject.

[1aP]

05:01 AM on 01/13/2012

I disagree that people "should keep it to themselves." There are countless pregnancy & loss groups with the hope that someday we will overcome the taboo of talking about these things in a similar way to the cultural taboo-breaking path of breast cancer awareness.

Also, most people in general don't write books. However, plenty DO write about this subject: http://babylossdirectory.blogspot.com/

[beth2216]

05:59 PM on 01/07/2012

this is not giving you the whole story.... The baby had a defect. They did fetal surgery to correct it (yes, it does happen and it has been proven to be very helpful and beneficial in most cases just research it.... spinal bifida and heart defects are correct the most via fetal surgery). Mrs. Santorum got an infection and had to take antibiotics... the antibiotics caused her to go into early labor, which they couldn't stop... the baby was delivered and only live for a very short time...

this is completely different from an abortion. In an abortion the baby is killed before he/she is pulled out... two totally different things....

[jessicadevyn]

01:46 PM on 01/08/2012

No, abortions can be caused by inducing labor too early. That is how abortions pre-medical technology was done. A woman would take an herbal tincture and expel the fetus before it was due. And an abortion to save the woman's life is still an abortion.

[beth2216]

05:20 PM on 01/08/2012

uhh....they still do abortions that way...but they kill the baby before they pull the head out...even though it's illegal, it's still done...

Will, I do feel that there are cases such as where the baby implants in the falopian tubes, that definitely is a reason for an abortion, but they are not as common... Most abortions are done for convenience sake...

However, their baby lived for 2 hrs after he was delivered, so it was not an abortion. He just died because he wasn't able to survived even with medical help....

[Turtleposer]

12:34 AM on 01/11/2012

It's an abortion. They intervened to cause the labor when the baby would not survive outside the womb. The method doesn't matter.

[beth2216]

01:11 PM on 01/11/2012

Definition of an abortion: the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy or miscarriage... first, she didn't miscarry because he was born alive... second, since he was born alive, he is no longer considered a pregnancy but a preemie... Sadly, sometimes preemies do not survive because it is difficult (the younger the harder).
since she delivered the baby completely and didn't end his life in the process (you'll see my reasoning to your comment on my other post), she had a baby. He died 2 hours later which is a sad and terrible thing for parents to deal with.

I feel that people are too hard on them, they tried everything that they could to ensure their child would be able to survive with the defect he was diagnosed with. The surgery (fetal surgery that is) didn't go as expected and Mrs. Santorum got an infection which cause another problem. Due to the antibiotics, she went into early labor- yes they had to continue with the labor and deliver the baby. However, he was delivered ALIVE... sadly he died 2 hrs later.... it's not that hard to differentiate the circumstances when you have the whole story....

[GrumpyinAZ]

05:53 PM on 01/07/2012

But wasn't the creepy part taking the corpse home and sleeping with it?

[playsindirt]

11:21 AM on 01/07/2012

Something about this story smells. Why would doctors perform intrauterine surgery on a baby that wasn't viable? After the procedure, she got the infection - the baby didn't. Sounds to me like they just decided the baby wasn't going to live so they could have an excuse to abort and save the wife. What happened to FAITH in this scenario?

[beth2216]

05:56 PM on 01/07/2012

it's called fetal surgery....google it... it's actually being very helpful in certain defects such as spinal bifida and heart defects...and the outcomes are very good...the baby was perfectly fine before the procedure...unfortunately, she got an infection which happens in all cases of surgery... without the antibiotics she would've died... and the antibiotics caused her to go into labor early... the baby ended up being delivered and he died.... the problem with this story is that the huffington post only gave you a little snapshot of what really happened

[playsindirt]

09:22 AM on 01/10/2012

Thanks for filling in the blanks.

[NMLurker]

11:20 AM on 01/07/2012

Didn't Barbara Bush bring her mis.carried fe.tus home in a jar to show GWB?

[GOPblogger]

11:29 AM on 01/08/2012

Yes, and the baby somehow survived, brain dead yes, but survived and went on to become president.

[StateApparatus]

10:13 PM on 01/06/2012

Decision he made after the baby's death? You mean, after they aborted it. Jeez did someone from the American Family Association start writing headlines for the Huffington Post? RICK SANTORUM'S WIFE HAD A LATE TERM ABORTION TO SAVE HER LIFE.

[beth2216]

05:56 PM on 01/07/2012

the baby was delivered and died shortly there after...there's a difference... with an abortion the baby is killed before it is pulled out

[alsm9]

12:38 AM on 01/08/2012

It wasn't a baby, it was a fetus at 20 weeks. And it wasn't delivered....it was either miscarried or they aborted it...I'd say it was probably the latter.

[JadedLady2]

08:10 PM on 01/06/2012

This is a perfect example of the right........don't do as I do, do as I say do.

[Paul Weikel]

07:48 PM on 01/06/2012

Ok Iknow this is going to sound and likely be hateful, but here goes. Let me guess: After much research and investigation Rs discovered that there is a GAY gene and chose to try to have it corrected resulting in the death of the fetus because gene manipulation therapy is in its infant stages, but as soon as they have it perffected he will ensure that all mother's have thier fetuses checked for the Gay gene and be required under Law ( when he is president) to have thier fetuses altered thus going to interuterine genocide. THUS his personal Homophobia is explained, although it does present for him the sticky wicket that being Gay is not a choice, which is why he doesn't explain what the so called "defect" was. I know complete fiction, but I am sure there is a grain of truth in there somewhere.....regardless I thought regardless of the "defect" be it down's syndrome, progeria, or whatever it is supposed to be "As God Plans it" not as "man decides it" going by his platform so far ( this includes his sordid history)

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

07:43 PM on 01/06/2012

He's bringing up his choice in how to deal with the death of his son while ignoring his choice to allow the induction of labor with the full knowledge that the baby would not survive. He doesn't want to talk about that because he is not in favor of denying that choice to others who want to save the life of the mother at the cost of a pregnancy. He has a disdain for the concerns of others and a sense of entitlement that makes his own actions and beliefs exempt from rules...even the rules he sets.

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

08:09 PM on 01/06/2012

typo: He doesn't want to talk about that because he is NOW in favor of denying that to choice to others who want to save the life of the mother at the cost of a pregnancy. Sorry for the error.

[Janicot]

07:22 PM on 01/06/2012

Morbid, scary, and sick.