Rick is not “anti-women”, says Mrs Santorum

Deborah Cowan
WVoN co-editor

Her husband often jokes that people would like to hear more from her and less from him.

But Karen Santorum, wife of Republican presidential candidate and former US Senator Rick Santorum, maintains a deliberately low media profile and is seldom seen at the side of her newsworthy husband.

However, in a rare and much publicised interview with Piers Morgan on CNN earlier this week, Mrs Santorum came out fighting on his behalf.

Rick, of course, has been making his own headlines over the last few weeks, as he slugs it out with Mitt Romney for the Republican candidacy.

He has raised eyebrows and heckles with his policies and ideologies around women’s issues, from banning contraception and abortion to questioning the inclusion of women in the military.

Thanks to these – and other – conservative social attitudes, the women of America are turning away in their droves.  And they are taking their votes with them.

Enter Karen Santorum.

Many see Karen as the quintessential stay at home mum (of seven) who keeps the fires of domesticity burning, home schools her children and soothes the fevered brow of her hard working husband.  Hardly a campaigning feminist.

But is there more mettle behind that countenance of domestic felicity?

Those who know her well seem to think so, describing her as one of her husband’s ‘most trusted and pragmatic advisers’ who isn’t afraid to assert her own authority.

One American website describes her as Santorum’s ‘de facto damage controller’ on the campaign trail, after her husband called President Obama a “snob” for encouraging people to go to college, whereupon she immediately reprimanded him for his comment and made a public statement about it.

She has also been described as ‘politically savvy’, and as a former nurse and lawyer, she is certainly an educated woman.

But her interview with Piers Morgan was more in defence of her husband than the rights of her fellow American women.

Although the interview was conducted in a very un-Morgan type fashion – he seemed to avoid any of the hard hitting questions he would like to think he has become known for – Karen Santorum attempted to set a few records straight on behalf of her husband.

She began by immediately defending him from the seemingly relentless criticism that he is ‘anti-women’.

“Not at all — he is not anti-women,” she told Morgan, saying:

“I am a registered nurse, a lawyer and an author of two books and when I was on my book tour he was home making meals, changing diapers, cleaning the kitchen. He’s been supportive of me and my career.”

Also high on her agenda was the defence of her husband’s stance on contraception.

Morgan voiced the concern of millions of women across America, asking if they should worry that her husband might ban the use of contraceptives should he become Republican candidate and defeat Barack Obama in November’s general election.

Fair question – only last year Santorum pledged that, if elected, he would end federal funding for contraception on the grounds that it encouraged promiscuity, saying:

‘It’s not okay.  It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be’.

He has also said that he would support the right of individual states to ban the use of contraception outright (see WVoN story).

He also bitterly opposed Obama’s proposal requiring religious institutions such as charities and hospitals to provide contraception coverage in their health care plans and just a few weeks ago, he referred to contraception as a ‘grievous moral wrong’

Although this thorny issue has continued to follow Santorum on the campaign trail, Karen Santorum was adamant in his defence.

“Women have nothing to fear, when it comes to contraceptives, he will do nothing on that issue,” she said, adding that her husband would ‘absolutely not’ bring his personal religious beliefs in to play were he to become president.

When pressed on whether, as president, he would respect the rights of women to make choices for themselves, including the use of contraception, she emphatically replied “absolutely”, stressing that the real issue was “not allowing the government to be intrusive in our lives and force us to do something against our conscience.”

She went on to say: “It makes me really sad when the media do that to him.  They try to make it look like he is something that he’s not. Rick is a great guy. He is completely supportive of women.”

For someone who does not court media attention, Mrs Santorum’s unusually public defence of her husband, albeit for a brief eight minutes, is undoubtedly to her credit as a wife.

However, given that the majority of American women have at some point used contraception or are still doing so, and bearing in mind Santorum’s previous damning pronouncements on contraception and abortion (he is of course anti-abortion), Karen’s ‘nothing to fear’ assertion may do little to quieten those who insist her husband’s words speak far louder than his actions.

Postscript: They say that a sense of humour is essential to survive a presidential campaign.   It’s certainly essential when bearing witness to one.

So the Democratic voters of America enjoyed a modest titter, courtesy of Senator Scott Brown last week, who made fun of Santorum’s contraception beliefs (and presumably his large breed) at a St. Patrick’s Day event.

He said: “I see that both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum now have Secret Service with them on the campaign trail.  And in Santorum’s case, I think it’s the first time he’s actually ever used protection.”

Showing the voters of America that she too was in possession of a sense of humour, Mrs Santorum magnanimously described Senator Brown’s comments as ‘sort of funny’.