Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
In an interview with CNS news, social conservative and possible presidential contender Rick Santorum said he was surprised that Obama, as a black man, does not oppose abortion.
Here's what he said:
The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that human life a person under the Constitution and Barack Obama says no...Well if that human life is not a person then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say 'now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.'
I'm having trouble embedding the video, but you can watch the clip here.
Of course, any invocation of Obama's race--especially as applied to abortion--is not going to go unnoticed by the mainstream media. Consider the headlines: "Obama's Race Means He Should Oppose Abortion" (Slate), "Santorum: Obama's Race Should Shape Abortion View" (NPR), and "Rick Santorum Invokes Obama's Race on Abortion" (Washington Post).
But was Santorum's remark a "racial remark...a racial slur...a racial whatever," as Greta Van Susteren asked him in a follow up interview? Santorum says no, but he's unapologetic about citing Obama's race. That's in part because the media's coverage glazes over the substance of his argument. He explained to Van Susteren:
My point was that the 14th Amendment was passed to make sure that blacks in America were protected by the Constitution, were considered people, because tragically, horribly, for 100 years or more in this country, they weren't. And so the point I was trying to make is that here we have another situation where the courts have said that a group of people, a group of human beings, are not people and that they should be. I -- I -- and that they're property. And they can be...
VAN SUSTEREN: I think where the discussion (INAUDIBLE) sort of, like, goes off the rails and everyone gets all revved up is when the word "black" is used. Everyone wonders whether or not it is done for racial reasons or if it's done for historic reference. You know, what's the purpose of it?
SANTORUM: The purpose here was that -- and this is an argument that has been made by the pro-life movement for as long as I've heard the argument. I've heard it from Bill Buckley and heard it from Ronald Reagan, actually heard it from Jesse Jackson back in the 1970s, when he was pro- life. He used to make this argument all the time, that when you treat a child, a child in the womb as property, it's the equivalent of what happened during the first part of this country, when we had this huge scar on us that we did not treat blacks as people.
And -- and the pro-life movement says, and I agree with them, that we should not treat the child in the womb as property, we should treat them as a human being and give them protections entitled under the 14th Amendment....
I find his argument to be quite compelling. Do you? And what would the liberal counter-argument be to his reasoning?
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
I saw him on Greta's show last night and I do agree. The common thread is that a sub-group of humans are defined as not being persons. You could also use the example of Jews during the holocaust.
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
So what's the liberal counter-argument to this?
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
To add fuel to this fire, abortions performed within the African American population ends more lives than the top five diseases that afflict that community combined. Some community activists liken it to a genocide. Isn't that an issue that would affect Mr. Obama, too?
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
Yes, great point--thanks for bringing this up. And now that abortion is taking front and center in the health care repeal effort, I wonder if Obama will make any public statements about the issue--saying more about it, hopefully, then that it's an issue that's "above his paygrade."
Sep '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
Excellent point. I've mentioned it before on Ricochet somewhere, but I think that's the winning abortion argument. Its a minority genocide, funded by the government and the current US president believes its above his pay grade.
What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do?
Sep '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
I never like it when those on our side adopt memes of the left. By saying this, Santorum inadvertantly lends legitimacy that people should be advocates for their own racial demographics, and/or that black people have a higher moral ground than whites, or should recognize it more quickly than whites,in rejecting the idea that a person can be property.
Santorum believes a fetus is a person. I understand that. However his opponents don't, therefore they need not feel this charge applies here. His charge then has no effect.
Now, is he trying to point out certain level of hypocrisy? That Jackson and others advocate for their race, but were they to have been pro-life there would be a lot more black folks around to vote for Democrats?
I also do not think it especially wise to refer to Obama as a black man. If he wants to call himself that, fine. But he is half-white. He was raised by white folks in cultures vastly different from the usual black experience in the USA, and he shares none of the legacy that is common to American black folks.
Sep '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
I agree with the comparison of abortion to slavery and the holocaust, but it should not matter what color the President happens to be. Whites, Asians, Hispanics, etc. should be no less disgusted by these historical attrocities than Blacks and Jews. Plus, he should have known it would all play out in the MSM with him being smeared as a White Racist no matter how thoughtful he tried to make his case.
Jun '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
I agree with his argument. The ugly truth about the eugenics core of Planned Parenthood is always covered up by the left. Maybe Santorum brought this up now knowing it might tie in with the gruesome Pennsylvania abortion house of horrors --- the victims were mostly blacks, I believe --- and diffuse some of the flack he is bound to get.
If there is a liberal counter-argument, I'm stumped. Can't think of a thing!
Jun '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
But Franco, blacks will be more sensitive than whites to the injustice of people as property if they are descendants of slaves. It doesn't place them on a higher moral plane than whites when the issue is discussed, but it's an issue to which they have a stronger historical connection than most whites. I could name dozens of human rights issues that we all find repugnant, but it is usually the particular group dealing with the abuse, or feeling some close connection to the situation, that gets the most fired up.
Sep '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
Especially chilling that the Pennsylvania abortion house of horrors had so many minority abortions. When blacks were escaping slavery, they sought refuge in the land of the Quakers, hence the large black population of Philly and elsewhere in Pennsylvania. Shameful.
Sep '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
Emily Esfahani Smith, Ed.
So what's the liberal counter-argument to this? · Jan 21 at 7:09am
Liberal comebacks:
You're using hateful rhetoric
Rush Limbaugh is fat.
Sarah Palin is stupid.
Its offensive to compare abortion to the holocaust and you're using hateful rhetoric. Someone's going to get hurt.
Sep '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
True enough. But why send the message that somehow they (whomever) care more about human rights than we do? You know what? Human rights are human rights. Period. I'm tired of this politics based on me and mine. This is not how our country was set up. Certainly people are more sensitive to their personal interests, but that doesn't mean they should be, especially to the extent that it is now fashionable. I don't entrust human rights to partisan factions. I also said "or should recognize it more quickly than whites"
Oct '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
I think his argument won't persuade the sort of pro-choicer who insists that a fetus is simply "a collection of cells." If you operate from the assumption that an unborn baby is an object rather than a person, then you won't be impressed by the argument that it shouldn't be treated as an object. You can't discriminate against a table lamp.
But the argument still works on an emotional level, because I don't believe anyone really does think a fetus is only a collection of cells - even people who say they do. I think that claim is usually just a convenient way to sweep very real moral questions under the rug.
Also, if he's going to make a connection between abortion and race, wouldn't it be better to simply point out that a disturbingly high proportion of aborted babies are actually black? Rather than merely analogizing it to discrimination, wouldn't it be more convincing to say that it looks a lot like an actual manifestation of racial discrimintation? I think that would be a more direct indictment of the president's position - although it would still cause a media firestorm.
May '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
On the bright side, his comment is helping to keep the abortion debate in the news.
Blake Ewing:
But the argument still works on an emotional level, because I don't believe anyone really does think a fetus is only a collection of cells - even people who say they do. I think that claim is usually just a convenient way to sweep very real moral questions under the rug.
Also, if he's going to make a connection between abortion and race, wouldn't it be better to simply point out that a disturbingly high proportion of aborted babies are actually black?
Agreed.
And this is precised why Planned Parenthood was founded -- to cull America of blacks and cripples.
Dec '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
Honestly, I don't think the activists are all that fussed about slavery. Really, does Jesse Jackson talk about slavery in Africa or compare the exploitation of, say, illegal immigrants, comparing it to slavery?
Race, yes. They've got race down pat.
I think all Santorum is doing is pointing out some hypocrisy and saying some things that will stimulate media attention so that they will report on the story.
Sep '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
I agree with your first point.
Blake Ewing:
Also, if he's going to make a connection between abortion and race, wouldn't it be better to simply point out that a disturbingly high proportion of aborted babies are actually black? Rather than merely analogizing it to discrimination, wouldn't it be more convincing to say that it looks a lot like an actual manifestation of racial discrimintation? I think that would be a more direct indictment of the president's position - although it would still cause a media firestorm. · Jan 21 at 7:47am
I disagree with this approach though. There is the distinction of cause and effect. Some policies disproportionately affect minorities, certainly. This does not mean they are deliberately caused so as to create that result. Again this lends power to leftist and conspiratorial arguments.
Jun '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
Yes, human rights are human rights. It's just that human nature tends to step in and we let self interest motivate our actions, including when outrage turns to action.
Blake, I have a problem with calling the higher numbers of black babies being killed an "actual manifestation" of racial discrimination. You're getting into outcome based territory. You know how that card has been played in minority hiring, standardized testing, college admissions and graduation, etc. etc.
May '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
I think Santorum's very bad analogy between antebellum blacks and fetuses will rightfully get him in trouble. Those blacks who where subjected to slavery were human beings, singular, biologically autonomous agents. A fetus is a potential human being, just as an egg or sperm is a potential human being. A fetus is still an appendage of an actual human being who preceeds it; this isn't the case with slavery.
May '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?
May '10
Re: Did Santorum Play the Race Card re: Abortion?