I am going to start a new series on this blog about things Rick Santorum has said that will harm him and the Republican Party in the General Election if he gets the Republican nomination. I am a Conservative Republican and don't necessary disagree with these statements but they will hurt us a lot in the Fall. We need to know it now before we nominate him. He is a good man but sometimes his very conservative values will come across in the media and with independant voters as preachy, judgmental and arrogant. In 2006 in an interview he said:
Interviewer Question:
So would birth control be covered by that notion of freedom without responsibilities?Rick Santorum:
I vote and have supported birth control because it is not the taking of a human life but I am not a believer in birth control. -artificial birth control- Again I think it goes down the line of being able to do whatever you want to do without having the responsibility that comes with that. …
This is from a personal point of view, from a governmental point of view I support ahh, title 10 I guess it is, and have voted for contraception and although I don’t think it works, I think it’s harmful to women, I think it’s harmful to our society to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or or or tolerated particularly among the young.
I think it has… we’ve seen very, very harmful long term consequences to our society. Birth control enables that and I don’t think it is a healthy thing for our country.
While he may very well be correct this will not help the Republican Party with woman voters and the Republican Party has historically had a gender gap.On the merits of his answer he doesn't even mention the possibility that millions of married couples (lots of them Republican) use birth control! This is one of the reasons he lost his bid in Pennsylvania to be reelected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. It takes a lot to defeat a sitting Senator but Rick managed to have that happen to him.
