Senator Santorum and the C-Span Miracle

On Friday night, Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (R.) and his wife, Karen Garver Santorum, received an award from the Sisters of Life, the order of religious sisters founded by the late John Cardinal O'Connor in 1991. The Sisters were established, according to the late cardinal archbishop of New York, to "restore to all society a sense of the sacredness of human life."

The John Cardinal O'Connor Award was given to the Santorums in recognition of "the courage, nobility, and love with which they live their vocation to marriage and family life," Mother Agnes Mary, the superior general (a former professor at the Teacher's College at Columbia University) of the Sisters of Life said. "They have publicly witnessed to a private suffering shared by many families throughout the world." In 1998, Mrs. Santorum published Letters to Gabriel, a memoir of her pregnancy and the 20-week life of their fourth child, Gabriel Michael Santorum. Gabriel was born prematurely and died two hours after being delivered.

After a few weeks under an extra-hot spotlight, following comments made to an Associated Press reporter (who just happened to be married to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry's campaign manager) about homosexuality and other lightening rods, the senator obviously appreciated the warm, familiar audience of mostly Northeast Corridor Catholics on Friday night. To the receptive audience, most, if not all, genuine pro-life advocates especially the sisters, who as the senator noted with awe, are the face of love, a face the anti-abortion movement needs to be constantly and consistently and forthrightly dedicated to the senator recounted the story of what was considered a legislative loss, but wound up a true win for human life.

It's a story he has told a few times now most recently at his commencement addresses this year at St. Joseph's University and Christendom College but that not enough people have heard. It's a reminder that the fight is often worth the effort, even when you technically lose in the eyes of most of the world and you may not always know the fruits of your work, either.

Here's the story, as Santorum tells it; he was fortunate enough to find out how he won during what would have otherwise been considered a legislative defeat:

In 1998, I was on the floor of the United States Senate debating the override of the president's veto of the partial-birth-abortion bill. The next morning was to be the vote. We did not have the votes to override the president's veto. The debate had ended that night, it was eight o'clock. The Senate was wrapping up, but there was something inside me that felt that I had to say more, even though there was no one left in the chamber besides the presiding officers. I went back in the cloakroom and called my wife. She picked up the phone and we have six little children and they are all seemingly at once crying in the background, and I said, "Karen, the vote's tomorrow. We are not going to win and everybody's gone. But something tells me I need to say more." And through the din of the children crying, she said, "well, of course, if that's what you need to do, do it."

So I went to the presiding officer and said, "I'll only be a few minutes, I don't want to keep you late." Over an hour and a half later, I finished my talk.

And we finished up the Senate and closed it down, and the next day the vote came, [and] not one vote changed. But five days later, I got an e-mail from a young man at Michigan State University. And this is what the e-mail said: "Senator, on Thursday night I was watching television with my girlfriend. We were flipping through the channels and we saw you standing there on the floor of the United States Senate with a picture of a baby next to you. And so we listened for a while and the more we listened the more we got interested in what you were saying. After a while I looked down at my girlfriend, and she had tears running down her face. And I asked her what was wrong, and she looked up at me and said, 'I'm pregnant, and tomorrow I was going to have an abortion, and I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm not going to have an abortion now.' "

In April of that year, a little girl was born and given up for adoption. She is four years old today. Now according to the world, when I spoke on the floor of the Senate that night, I had failed. I did not succeed. But God gave me a gift that many of you as you stand and fight the causes that you believe in may never get, He gave me the gift of knowing that faithfulness to what you believe in can lead to wonderful acts and wonderful miracles.

I copied this several years ago. I knew it would come in handy some day.
This is the conclusion of his remarks late that night of September 17, 1998 on the Senate floor.
Unfortunately, the link I book-marked is no longer active, and I'm having trouble finding another.

EXCERPT:
Tomorrow, we are going to have the opportunity to show the world the
direction the United States of America is taking. We are involved right
now in a moral crisis in this country, on the front page of the paper
every day. It is no wonder that we are in a moral crisis.
Back in 1972, 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, many people said
that this was going to be a breakthrough for women and for children,
that all these wonderful things would happen to our society as a
result, to children and to women, as a result of the legalization of
abortion. We would eliminate unwanted pregnancies, and the result of
that would be less child abuse because we wouldn't have all these
children nobody wanted, illegitimacy would go down, child poverty would
go down because we wouldn't have all of these poor kids around that we
don't want. Spousal abuse would go down, divorce would go down, less
complications in marriages and relationships.
It is a cruel joke. It almost seems laughable to think back 25 years
and look at what has happened on every single count. All of the culture
indicators that I mentioned go down worse and worse and worse. Those
who feared Roe v. Wade back in 1973 were very much on target. The fear
was that we would lose respect for life and that we would become so
insensitive to life that abortion would be just the beginning of the
end of our selectivity of who we include in our society.
And so it has gone, to the point where now we can't even save a
little baby almost born. I wish that were the worst. We now have State-
assisted suicide laws. We now have debates, active debates on
euthanasia. We even have an article from a professor at MIT who argues,
or at least makes the case for infanticide--not infanticide on partial-
birth abortion but actual infanticide. And then we have the cases of
prom mom and the Delaware couple and so many others where we hear
around the country of babies being born and then murdered shortly after
birth. The initial reaction, while horror, at the same time is
sympathy--sympathy for this difficult situation in which these children
or kids were put.

We somehow see little children, little babies, different than older
children. Older children--if you have killed your older children, that
is really bad. We have no sympathy for you. But somehow, if you killed
a baby just born we try to figure out a way to get around it. We try to
figure out a way that that does not quite meet the threshold of murder.
If you look at the punishments meted out--substantially lower. They are
substantially lower than other murder cases. We just do not value those
little babies as much.
Why? Why? Is it any mystery why? If we start, as we have, down the
path of not valuing those little babies because we do not value them in
the womb, or four-fifths outside the womb, or just newly outside the
womb, who is next? Look around. Who is going to be next? Who is going
to be the next group of

[[Page S10549]]

people who we are not going to value, who does not have the might to
force down what they believe is right? I made it. I am here in this
body. I am whole. I am healthy. If you have not made it yet, watch it,
because it then depends on whether you are on the committee that
decides, or you are on the court that decides who lives and who dies.
Because there is no line anymore. There is no truth on which we are
basing this. There is no ``life or nonlife.'' There is might. There is
political power and that is what determines who lives and dies, who is
valuable and who is not.
Tomorrow, 34 Senators can exercise their might on who lives and dies.
They can decide for a country that a group of people, a group of little
helpless babies, do not belong.
I am hopeful that when tomorrow comes, after much prayer tonight by
so many people all over the country, and the world, that three more
Members will open their eyes when they wake up in the morning and
realize that but for the grace of God, there go I, and that we have to
open our hearts more and include the least among us, the little
children.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.