Santorum addresses attack on his pro-life record

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was the keynote speaker at an Iowa Christian Alliance event this evening and much of his 32-minute speech was spent talking about his pro-life record as a member of the U.S. House and then the U.S. Senate.  As Santorum told the crowd, he felt compelled to talk about it because of some “robocalls” which were made into Iowa preceding his visit, accusing him of being a “pro-life fraud.”

AUDIO: Santorum’s speech

“It wasn’t what I was planning on talking about, but I have to do a little aside because I understand that there have been some robocalls being made to people, talking about my pro-life convictions,” Santorum said about two minutes into his speech.

At the 16 minute mark of the speech, Santorum was addressing the specific criticism of his decision to endorse Senator Arlen Specter’s reelection bid in 2004.  “That was against the advice of my wife.  You would think after 20 years I would know better, but I was wrong in retrospect.  Now, the odd thing is I actually did it was for the pro-life cause…The reason I did was because he gave us a promise as chairman of the judiciary committee….to support two Supreme Court picks that the president was going to have after 2004 — Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.  Good intentions, not always a good result.”

This is what Santorum had to say about the people who may be behind the robocall:   “Those…who say I’m not pro-life enough — I appreciate their zealotry.  I love their commitment and I will not criticize them for holding anybody to the highest standard and, look, I make mistakes.”

Santorum, at about 4 minutes into the speech, said Pennsylvania was a “tough state” politically for pro-lifers.  “I was a busy man.  I was an ambitious man. I was a pro-lifer, but I dared not talk about.  I never said the word abortion on the floor of the House of Representatives, not once in the four years that I was there and the first year I was in the United States Senate, I felt the same way.

“There’s one thing about representing a state like Pennsylvania: it’s a tough state.  You know, to win in a state like Pennsylvania, you have to be very smart politically I was told over and over again.  You’ve got to know what battles you have to pick…and certainly, don’t pick the pro-life issue…and I was content to do that.  Vote pro-life, work behind the scenes, try to get some votes.”

Santorum told the crowd his life changed in 1995 when he and his wife joined a new church and they began what Santorum described as a new “faith walk.”

“As I grew, I recognized the blind spots as a husband, as a father, as a leader,” Santorum said, leading into a story of leading debate as the senate attempted to override President Clinton’s veto of a partial birth abortion ban.

“I had not said a coherent sentence in my entire congressional career on the issue of abortion and there I was, hour after hour, leading this abortion battle,” Santorum said.

Santorum also spoke about the fatal defect that caused his third child to die soon after he was delivered.  “We didn’t have an abortion.  We didn’t give him a death sentence.  We gave him a name: Gabriel…He was born premature…He lived two hours.  I got to hold him for two hours. I got to love him for two hours.  How many lives know only love?”