Rick Santorum in Des Moines, Looks Like He’s Running to Me

Former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum, spoke at Walnut Creek Community Church in Windsor Heights, for a training event sponsored by Iowa Right to Life.

A couple of things I want to note, first I believe Rick Santorum is running for President.  Now that is pure speculation on my part, something that was mentioned prior to him speaking.  First, he offered to come speak, he wasn’t invited.  It could be just because he’s speaking in Dubuque later today, but making a nod to the prolife crowd here in Iowa is a good move.  Secondly he’s making media rounds, he was on Jan Mikelson’s show on WHO Radio this morning, he’s making himself available to The Des Moines Register which got the event off to a later start.

So I’m diving in with others in speculation about his visit to Iowa.  Put to quote former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who himself was in Iowa a couple of weeks ago, “any time you come to Iowa people think you’re running for President.”  So he had made a point not to come to our fair state very much.  Anyway, he’s isn’t denying it, so I think he’s running.  Don’t interpret that as an endorsement, though I do think his ideas and voice will be good for the party.

Secondly since I had to leave early I missed my opportunity to thank him on behalf of a Hawkeye Nation for his alam mater’s (Penn State) hospitality last Saturday.  I hope he  enjoyed the game as much as I did, but I doubt that he did.

He zeroed in on the healthcare debate saying it is ground zero for the prolife movement and that we can win this debate.  On Sarah Palin and “death panels” he did note that there would be “incentive for the doctor to call for one of the panels, if there is a change in their patient’s health status.”  He also noted that Barack Obama said that doctors do things for financial status.

Referring to the V.A. system where they could change criteria to determine who had access in order to save money, we can’t do that with our current healthcare system if the public option is passed and we end up with a single payer healthcare system.  He said that we can’t dictate access, but instead would have to ration care due to budget constraints.  Who would be the ones who are the most impacted by such a thing?  “People at the beginning of life, and at the end of life.”

He said we see examples of this in Europe, in particular, in the Netherlands.  During World War II they stood up to Hitler and said we are not going to euthanize or perform abortions and now look at them.  What happened?  Santorum noted socialized medicine was implemented later.  Costs went up, and things had to be cut.  They then had a “culture of not treating people.”  Now you have legal assisted suicide and children born with defects not being treated.

He challenged those of us who don’t think it can happen in the  United States to look at Oregon.  He then cited a woman with terminal cancer who was denied care by the state, but the state offered her free suicide.  He said with government-run healthcare that “the focus will be on quality of life not dignity of life.”

Another thing to note when he discussed the Senate’s partial-birth abortion ban debates during the Clinton years on up to 2003.  He said, “I thank God that Bill Clinton vetoed the partial-birth abortion ban.”  He then explained that otherwise it would have been an obscure, minor bill.  Instead it brought the abortion debate to the forefront.  It opened people’s eyes.

“It ignited the moral imagination of our nation.” Which is what ultimately he wanted those in attendance to do.  He called all prolife activists to be “passionate, accurate, caring and loving” for the prolife movement is “a movement based in love.”