In 1996, after undergoing intrauterine surgery to correct a genetic defect in her unborn, Karen Santorum, the wife of Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican senator at the time, developed an infection. It quickly resulted in a dangerously high fever, which doctors concluded — no nice way to say this — her child was killing her.
She was given antibiotics to fight the pathology, and they proved ineffective. She was told that, unless the fetus was removed, unless labor was induced, she would die.
In her book “Letters to Gabriel,” Mrs. Santorum, who is and was virulently pro-life, wrote about that time in her life, “We’re not inducing labor, that’s an abortion. No way. That isn’t going to happen. I don’t care what happens.”
But her husband did care.
Days later, addressing the criticism about whether what happened next was an abortion, the senator said, “The baby was going to die no matter what, and if she hadn’t already gone into labor, it would have been the equivalent of murder not to put her into labor. We did everything medically possible to save both.”
“The equivalent of murder” — his words — had doctors not done everything to save his wife’s life.
As it turns out, her body went into labor on its own. What she so feared was happening without her consent. She asked her doctor to give her something to stop the labor because she knew this was tantamount to an abortion.
They refused, for two reasons:
1) There was no guarantee they could stop it, and
2) She would probably die if they did.
In her book, she described the conversation with her husband.
“Rick cried and spoke to me softly,” she wrote. And speaking of their three living children, he added, “They can’t live without their mother. Karen, you make our lives complete — please, it’s time — I love you so much.”
He convinced her that she needed to live for the living members of their family and not die for the one who would be born dead.
He made a choice.
Let’s be clear: Karen Santorum did not have an abortion — certainly not in the sense that it was planned, orchestrated, induced, or desired. The abortion, if you want to call it that — and I’m not sure I do — was what doctors call septic and spontaneous.
Her body decided on its own what it wanted done.
This was 1996, though, and this now would be a distinction without a difference, especially to those in Santorum’s party who think women get abortions because they don’t want to be inconvenienced by motherhood, or want to further their careers, or simply don’t have the capacity to understand their roles as vessels in God’s great plan.
More troubling, since the Dobbs decision, allowing the outlawing of abortion rights, legislators in many states are writing laws that are both draconian and unconscionable. Fifteen of 22 states that have or are considering such legislation ghoulishly do not included exceptions for rape or incest. And while they all, at present, include an exception for “life of the mother,” there is no agreement on what those parameters are. Does it mean the woman will die immediately without medical intervention to abort the fetus … or within a few weeks, a month? How long must a doctor, for example, wait before administering a labor-inducing drug that will save the woman’s life? Santorum’s doctors, while she was who knows how close to death, didn’t have to do the political math on that. They acted.
But medicine is as much an art as it is a science. What about mothers whose conditions are not so clear? In an ectopic pregnancy, there may be cardiac activity in the fetus — even though the fetus cannot survive outside the uterus — so what do doctors do? If the fetus is permitted to stay in the fallopian tube and the tube bursts, there can be internal bleeding and the mother may die. Ninety percent of the time that doesn’t happen, but who gets to make the bet that the tube won’t burst? The doctor? The woman herself? The governors of Texas and Oklahoma?
And then after the decision is made, what about the bounty hunters in those states who have been incentivized with cash bonuses to find abortion misdeeds, and who will be allowed to haul doctors and, in this case, the Santorums in front of medical boards and courts to explain their actions? Karen Santorum would have to explain how she did everything possible to get her doctors to prevent labor. Rick Santorum, who had told his wife, “Please, it’s time,” will be interrogated about whether that statement aided and abetted an abortion.
The irony and possibility of Rick and Karen Santorum having to go through such an ordeal is richly deserved. After all, this is a guy who once said of women who are pregnant due to a rape, “I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you.”
Nevertheless, it’s ghastly.
No couple should have to go through that.
The Santorums have their own narrative about what happened.
I believe them.
But it doesn’t matter if I do.
It doesn’t matter if you do.
Their daughter, whom they called Gabriel, died two hours after being born.
Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. In addition to “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Road Comic,” “Four Days and a Year Later” and “The Joke Was On Me,” his first novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages,” a book about the worst love story ever, was published by Balkan Press in February. See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.
From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2022
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