Sunday New York Times Magazine, May 22, 2005
(An article on Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the passage in question details his and his wife's decisions at the time of the death of one of his children - emphasis mine.)
"The childbirth in 1996 was a source of terrible heartbreak -- the couple were told by doctors early in the pregnancy that the baby Karen was carrying had a fatal defect and would survive only for a short time outside the womb. According to Karen Santorum's book, 'Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum,' she later developed a life-threatening intrauterine infection and a fever that reached nearly 105 degrees. She went into labor when she was 20 weeks pregnant. After resisting at first, she allowed doctors to give her the drug Pitocin to speed the birth. Gabriel lived just two hours.
"What happened after the death is a kind of snapshot of a cultural divide. Some would find it discomforting, strange, even ghoulish -- others brave and deeply spiritual. Rick and Karen Santorum would not let the morgue take the corpse of their newborn; they slept that night in the hospital with their lifeless baby between them. The next day, they took him home. 'Your siblings could not have been more excited about you!' Karen writes in the book, which takes the form of letters to Gabriel, mostly while he is in utero. 'Elizabeth and Johnny held you with so much love and tenderness. Elizabeth proudly announced to everyone as she cuddled you, This is my baby brother, Gabriel; he is an angel. '"
You tell me whether or not the author in question is in the ghoulish vs. spiritual camp - his suggestion that this illustrates the "cultural divide" facing us today should be evidence enough. And so he plays into the devil's hands.
I couldn't disagree with Senator Santorum more. There is a special place in his Hell for people like him, it is the Eighth Circle, the one reserved for hypocrites. He represents the worst in American piety. His extremist stands against the rights of homosexuals and women are an abomination against all that is kind and good.And yet the writer of this piece plays the same game as people like Santorum and his ilk. Anyone who agrees with Santorum's views would take this as an example of another elite East Coast liberal journalist's denigration of the so-called "culture of life." It also goes to bolster said liberal elite's accusations that the conservative right, in fact, embraces a "culture of death" - and sleeps with its "lifeless" "corpse" if we may be so gratuitous.
Apparently the writer was ignorant of the fact that parents are often encouraged to spend the night with their dead children (can't you just see the fist fight that occured when the Senator "would not let let the morgue take" their child) nor the entire movement that goes along with sharing the new child with the rest of the family. Anyone who knows me knows not calling my parents over to see Calvin is one of the great regrets of my life.
No, Rick Santorum is a sanctimonious, bigoted, right-wing a****** with ridiculous taste in clothes. But anyone who challenges his rights as the father of a dead child can go screw themselves.
(For fun, however, please visit spreadingsantorum.com)
1 comment:
i've been focusing on responding to the reaction of other people to the article and in particular their discomfort with how the santorums dealt with the loss of their son; you have pointed out what has been bothering me about the article itself - it plays right into the hands of the religious right. it's so sad to have to be a santorum apologist, isn't it?
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