JD Journal » Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum’s Daughter Suffers from Trisomy 18

jim — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:29:58 +0000

Rick Santorum, one of the presidential hopefuls, left the campaign trail this past weekend so he could be with his young daughter, Bella, in the hospital. His daughter suffers from Trisomy 18, which is a genetic disorder. The disorder kills 90 percent of children before or during birth and those children who live past birth have serious life-threatening symptoms.

The disorder is also known as Edwards syndrome, which causes children to have an extra copy of the chromosome 18. The syndrome causes symptoms such as low birth weight, clenched hands, a small head and jaw, mental deficiency and an oddly shaped chest.

“Most children with Trisomy 18 die in the first three months of life, and only 10 to 20 percent survive past the first year,” said Dr. Robert Marion, the Chief of Genetics and Developmental Medicine at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

While pregnant, tests can be performed for parents-to-be to determine if their baby has the syndrome. According to the National Institute of Health, half of infants born with Trisomy 18 do not live past the first week of life. Those that make it to their teen years suffer from serious medical and developmental problems.

“Those who survive are almost always girls,” said Marion. “The reason for this is that the condition is more lethal in boys, who die intrauterinely.”

The chair of genetic medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, Dr. Ronald Crystal, said that the syndrome is ‘invariably fatal.’ He also said that survival depends on the severity of the symptoms and the quality of care that the child receives. He described Bella Santorum, who is 3, as “already an exception.”

Bella was hospitalized this past weekend for pneumonia and was able to make a “miraculous turnaround,” according to Santorum. Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, decided to resume his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday. The Santorum family continues to worry about the condition of Bella even though Santorum returned to the campaign trail.

If born with the syndrome, females are five times more likely than males to be live-born. A very small amount of people, most of them women, who suffer from Trisomy 18, have reached their 20s and 30s. A large amount of children with the disorder suffer from congenital heart defects, much like Bella does, which makes it difficult for her heart to pump blood throughout the body. These congenital heart defects can cause fluid in the body to back up and leave children more susceptible to infections, such as pneumonia.

Santorum told Minnesota voters, in a tele-town hall, “I know how she got through it,” he said. “It was with the hands of these doctors and the prayers that guided those hands.”

Back in December, Santorum defended his run for the Republican presidential nomination by saying, “I worry about what I’m trying to do to be the best father and the best husband I can be. And obviously a big part of that is making sure that we have a country that respects her life, and a country that is free and safe and prosperous for all of my children.”

Rick Santorum Discusses his Views on Abortion

jim — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:04:28 +0000

Rick Santorum, one of the presidential candidates for the GOP, has explained his opposition to abortion even in the case of rape. He said that women who face these circumstances should “make the best out of a bad situation.”

Santorum went as far as saying that he would help counsel his own daughter should she come to him with such a problem and counsel her to “accept this horribly created” baby, as it is still a gift from God.

“Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice, I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or she doesn’t, it will always be her child, and she will always know that,” Santorum said.

“And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life we have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible, but nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation and I would make the argument that that is making the best.”

During Santorum’s run as a legislator and a presidential hopeful, he has campaigned against abortion. As a senator, he has had an obsessive tendency to discuss abortion topics on the Senate floor according to a recent analysis.

Santorum recently called President Barack Obama’s support of women’s reproductive rights “radical and extreme.”

Other advocates against abortion have discussed their views on the topic much like Santorum has in the past. A Tea Party-backed Nevada Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, explained her beliefs about abortion back in 2010. She said that abortions were unacceptable even in cases of girls being raped by their fathers.

“I think that two wrongs don’t make a right,” she said. “And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.”

Mitt Romney Declared Winner of Iowa Caucus

jim — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:35:57 +0000

The projected winner of the Tuesday night Iowa caucus was declared as Mitt Romney.

Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts, who came out victorious over former Senator Rick Santorum (Republican from Pennsylvania) by a margin of eight votes. The Iowa GOP released the final numbers on Wednesday morning. Those numbers show that Romney acquired 30,015 votes while Santorum acquired 30,007 votes.

Even though Romney won, he did not acquire 25 percent of the vote. Romney pulled in 24.6 percent of the vote with 99.5 percent of precincts reporting. Santorum pulled in 24.5 percent of the vote. A record for Iowa Republicans was set as 122,000 straw ballots were cast last night.

When Iowa picks its 25 delegates to the GOP convention next summer in Tampa, the results are not binding. Romney will be able to bring 13 delegates and Santorum will be able to bring 12.

Before the vote was held last night, polls released recently showed Romney keeping a slim lead on U.S. Representative Ron Paul (Republican from Texas) and on Santorum. Paul came in third in the vote.

Romney spent $10 million for his campaign in Iowa back in 2008 but wound up in second place behind Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas Governor.

Rick Santorum Makes Pro-Life Implications of Obama

jim — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:58:18 +0000

Rick Santorum, a Republican candidate for president, has begun implying that President Barack Obama should be pro-life because he is black. Santorum implied this sentiment in an interview with CNS in January of 2011.

Santorum went on to challenge Obama over the idea of personhood, which Santorum said is not a debate. Santorum has been in favor of a constitutional ban on abortion.

One of the biggest questions is whether or not that human life is a person under the constitution. The president says it is not. Since the president says that human life is not a person, then how is he going to decide who people are and who they are not?

Santorum is sitting in third place in the presidential primary after a recent surge.

Donald Trump backs out of Debate as Moderator

jim — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:14:53 +0000

Lawrence O’Donnell is one of the biggest critics of Donald Trump, so when he heard that Trump had backed out of moderating a Republican debate on December 27, he enjoyed it greatly. Trump had announced on Tuesday that he would not be moderating the debate, making the claim that he might run for president as an independent if the Republicans do not pick a strong enough candidate.

O’Donnell called Trump’s reasons for backing out lies, saying that Trump had been laughed off the stage the night before by Bill O’Reilly. O’Donnell also found time to mock the way Trump made his announcement, which came on the social media website YouTube, which O’Donnell referred to as the “always presidential-looking YouTube,” according to the Huffington Post.

O’Donnell went on to say that the debate “was going to be as humiliating for Trump as it surely would have been for Newt Gingrich.”

“It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama Administration, but if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate,” Trump said in a statement, according to CNN. “Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate.”

Those who agreed to participate in the debate include Newt Gingrich (the former House speaker) and Rick Santorum (the former Pennsylvania senator). Trump claims that other candidates declined to participate in the debate because of the potential that Trump might run for the presidency.

“I would like to thank Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for having the courage, conviction, and confidence to immediately accept being a part of the Newsmax debate,” Trump said. “I believe this would not only have been the most watched debate, but also the most substantive and interesting debate!”

Santorum, in response to Trump’s announcement, said that he had been looking forward to a debate with Gingrich.

“The media has anointed Newt as the frontrunner, isn’t it time he go toe to toe with the consistent conservative alternative? The people of Iowa deserve as many opportunities to hear from the candidates as possible, because while Obama is beatable, we have to elect a conservative nominee who’s record is a clear contrast to the President’s,” Santorum said in a statement to CNN.

Reince Priebus, the Repbulican National Committee Chair, had the following to say about Trump being named as the moderator for the debate:

“I think that having a successful businessman serving as a moderator has a lot of value but the issue here is whether the moderator should be a person who is still batting around the idea of running as an independent,” Priebus said on Fox News.

Rick Santorum Explains His Stance on Gay Marriage

jim — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:54:59 +0000

Rick Santorum, a republican candidate for the presidency, issued a very interesting explanation for his stance against gay marriage during one of his campaign stops, which ironically was at a Christian college in Iowa.

A graduate of the college decided to compare gay marriage to interracial marriage and said that it would be a hit to faith and family in the United States. It was reported by ABC News that Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, became agitated by this comment and began discussing the risks of gay sex.

Santorum went on to explain that should same sex marriage be legalized in the United States, the sexual activity practiced by same sex partners would then be seen as equal to heterosexual marriages. This would then lead to gay sex being taught in the country’s schools, according to the Huffington Post.

“Really–wow–um okay, well let’s see if we can have a discussion. We can flesh out some, well, let’s look at what’s going to be taught in our schools because now we have same sex couples being the same and their sexual activity being seen as equal and being affirmed by society as heterosexual couples and their activity,” Santorum said.

The student who made the original comment disagreed with Santorum’s response, who then made sure he stuck to his answer and how he came to that conclusion.

“I think you’re wrong–okay, in fact you have to know you’re wrong, because if we say legally if this type of relationship is identical to other type relationships then of course more of it will be taught because this is what the law says,” he said.

In previous public comments, Santorum has made his stance known on gay marriage, claiming that legalizing gay marriage would cause the country to fall.

Santorum is not the only GOP candidate to fight with the country’s voters when it comes to gay marriage. At an Iowa High School, Michele Bachmann caused a major stir amongst students regarding the topic and then decided to practice silence after she was confronted by an eight year old boy. The eight year old boy confronted Bachmann about his gay mother.

Another political figure involved in the gay marriage fight is that of Newt Gingrich, who was glitter-bombed at a book signing event he was hosting. The glitter-bombing came from a man who told Gingrich to stop the hate in the country.

Santorum comes with a long history of telling others how they should be having sex, and here is one of the examples from the Iowa Independant, Think Progress, and MSNBC:

“Marriage is what marriage is. Marriage was around before government said what it was. It’s like going out and saying, ‘That tree is a car.’ Well, the tree’s not a car. A tree’s a tree. Marriage is marriage.”

“It’s like handing up this and saying this glass of water is a glass of beer. Well you can call it a glass of beer, it’s not a glass of beer, it’s a glass of water. And water is what water is. Marriage is what marriage is.”

“I can call this napkin a paper towel, but it is a napkin. Why? Because it is, what it is.”

Eckert Seamans Picks Up a Dozen Wolf Block Lawyers

Erik Even — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:28:26 +0000

The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania office of Pittsburgh’s Eckert Seamans has hired 12 lawyers from the defunct Wolf Block’s Harrisburg office.

The combined Harrisburg office will house 36 attorneys. Eckert and Wolf Block are located in the same building, and Eckert will take over the dissolving firm’s offices.

Eckert says it may pick up more Wolf Block refugees.

Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC is a national full-service law firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with two offices located in the Pittsburgh area and eight other offices located throughout the eastern United States.

The firm employs crazy far-right ex-Senator nutjob Rick Santorum.