I think it goes without saying that life for women in a Santorum presidency would be horrible. Talk about taking civilization back to the Middle Ages.

Santorum's inflexibility on abortion is well-known. When you believe that a multi-cell zygote should be a Constitutionally-protected person, then there is no circumstance--not rape, not incest, not the life of the mother--that would prohibit that little future person from being born.

However, Santorum's own personal circumstances show that life doesn't work in nice, neat little ways and that sometimes, tough choices have to be made.

After examining Karen [Santorum, in her 19th week of pregnancy], who was nearly incoherent with a 105-degree fever, a doctor at Magee led Santorum into the hallway outside her room and said that she had an intrauterine infection and some type of medical intervention was necessary. Unless the source of the infection, the fetus, was removed from Karen’s body, she would likely die. At minimum, the doctor said, Karen had to be given antibiotics intravenously or she might go into septic shock and die. The Santorums were at a crossroads. Once they agreed to use antibiotics, they believed they were committing to delivery of the fetus, which they knew would most likely not survive outside the womb. “The doctors said they were talking about a matter of hours or a day or two before risking sepsis and both of them might die,” Santorum said. “Obviously, if it was a choice of whether both Karen and the child are going to die or just the child is going to die, I mean it’s a pretty easy call.”

Now there's nothing at all pleasant about having to make that painful choice, nor do I want to sound like I'm gloating over the hypocrisy. I had an ectopic pregnancy and had to make the same choice: either both of us would die or I would have to terminate the pregnancy.

But the important point here is that the Santorums had that choice, and made the one that made sense to them, just as I had. Their doctors treated the actual viable human being in the equation without concern of being prosecuted for doing their job.

I look at my children now and I recognize that life is precious and each child is a little miracle unto themselves. Thankfully, my children were born into circumstances where they were not only wanted, but were given great advantages of being the children of educated, committed parents with sufficient income and facilities to care for them. And even with those advantages, even being born without disabilities or developmental delays, into a loving partnership, raising a child is exhausting, nerve-wracking and difficult work. How dare Rick Santorum tell someone who does not feel that they can handle that kind of lifelong commitment that they have no choice? How dare he say that doctors cannot operate in the best interest of their actual flesh and blood patient?

Yes, to Santorum, life is precious and sacrosanct. That is, until you get out of the womb. Then you're on your own.

Transcripts below the fold

MR. GREGORY: One more question on abortion, an issue you care deeply about. I, I want to be clear on this. Do you believe that there should be any legal exceptions for rape or incest when it comes to abortion?

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SEN. SANTORUM: I believe that life begins at conception, and that that life should be cut--should be guaranteed under the Constitution. That is a person, in my opinion.

MR. GREGORY: So even in a case of rape or incest, that would be taking a life?

SEN. SANTORUM: That would be taking a life, and, and I believe that, that any doctor who performs an abortion--that--I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so. I don't--I've never supported criminalization of abortion for mothers, but I do for people who perform them. I believe that life is sacred. It's one of those things in the Declaration of Independence. We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, and the first is life. And I believe that that life should be protected at the moment it is a human life. And at conception it is biologically human, and it's alive. It's a human life, it should be a person under the Constitution.