Santorum blames ‘abortion culture’ for Social Security woes

In an interview with a New Hampshire radio station Tuesday, Rick Santorum suggested the nation's "abortion culture" is to blame for the Social Security program's financial problems.

Per The Hill's Shane D'Aprile, the former Pennsylvania senator and 2012 presidential hopeful told WEZS Radio that not enough children are being born to support the troubled entitlement system in part because of the rising number of abortions.

"The Social Security system, in my opinion, is a flawed design, period. But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends," Santorum said. "We don't have enough workers to support the retirees . . . . A third of the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion."

Santorum was responding to a caller, who suggested abortion was behind the nation's troubled Social Security and Medicare infrastructure. Per The Hill, the former senator said the caller was "absolutely right."

"We have seven children, so we're doing our part to fund the Social Security system," Santorum added.

His comments come as Santorum attempts to attract attention to his longshot 2012 presidential bid. As The Ticket recently noted, Santorum's media strategy seems to be based on two things: trashing Mitt Romney and making provocative comments. In January, Santorum came under fire when he suggested President Obama should be against abortion because he's black.

(Photo of Santorum at WBEZ: Jim Cole/AP)