COMMENTARY | Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum suspended his bid for the GOP nod to run against Barack Obama when his daughter, Bella Santorum, was hospitalized, according to the Associated Press. Bella suffers from Trisomy 18, a rare genetic disorder in which a baby has some or all of an extra chromosome. While it is always tragic for a parent to face losing a child, the situation highlights a political issue: Santorum's hypocrisy on health care, abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
Santorum's campaign website discusses his views on these matters. He is emphatically against a woman's right to control her own body in reproductive matters and is adamantly opposed to embryonic stem cell research. He is against a single-payer national health care system provided to all citizens. He opposes the first two on religious grounds on the third for reasons of political dogma.
As to abortion, Santorum flip-flops on his opposition, according to a Care2.com report. It's easy for him to rail against abortion when such ranting might win him votes.
It's also easier for him to oppose it because he has the best health care in America available to him and his family -- provided at taxpayer expense, no less. He never had to consider whether care for a terminally ill child would destroy his family financially.
Unless the U.S. enacts a national health care plan most families will never be able to afford the care needed for a child with Trisomy 18. Santorum's family will never lack for health care or face crippling medical debt -- but as far as he's concerned it's fine for your family to have those problems.
Santorum's opposition to embryonic stem cell research is ludicrous for two reasons. First, such research involves the collection of cells from a blastocyst, a blob of about 150 cells so small the human eye cannot detect it, according to the National Institute for Health. Second, such research could save the lives of his daughter and countless others suffering from her condition. It's despicable for him to fight against the best possible hope for a cure to the very condition killing his child.
It makes me wonder how Santorum's opinion might change if he was an average American with a household income of less than $50,000 per year and no health insurance. I bet he'd sing a different tune.
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