Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, arguing that prenatal testing results in abortion 90 percent of the time, reiterated his accusation today that President Barack Obama is trying to control the number of disabled people with his healthcare plan’s requirement for free prenatal tests.
Santorum, who has topped the headlines this weekend with his comments on Saturday that Obama’s policies aren’t Bible-based, also defended those observations today on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Regarding prenatal testing and abortion, the former Pennsylvania senator said, “I have a child that has Trisomy 18. Almost 100 percent of Trisomy 18 children are encouraged to be aborted, so I know what I’m talking about here.”
Mothers have the right to do get pre-natal tests, he said, “but to have the government force people to provide it free just . . . is a bit loaded.”
“I think the president has a very bad record on the issue of abortion and children who are disabled who are in the womb, and I think this simply is a continuation of that idea,” he said.
Concerning his theological comments on Saturday, Santorum said he accepts the fact Obama is a Christian and insisted that his comments were aimed at “radical environmentalists” and “this idea that man is here to serve the Earth as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth.”
“I think that is a phony idea,” he said. “I don’t believe that that’s what we’re here to do. The Earth is not the objective. Man is the objective.”
Santorum also reiterated his belief that the public school system should be run by local communities and parents, with no involvement — other than funding — from the state and federal governments.
“I think public education should be a dynamic process that’s locally run that works with parents to provide the optimal opportunity for each child in America to get the education that they need, not what the federal government or the state government says that you should have,” he said. “It’s one thing for states to help fund public education. It’s another thing to dictate and micromanage and create a one-size-fits-all education system in states.”
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