Rick Santorum has been a national leader on pro-life issues with a clear record of results. He has a broad and impressive record when it came to defending the dignity of every human life, especially the most vulnerable among us. In the U.S. Senate, he authored two of the priority pro-life efforts that were signed into law by President George W. Bush – the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. He cosponsored and strongly supported numerous other bills that defended unborn victims of violence, ensured state laws on parental consent are observed by neighboring states, and championed legislation to protect the conscious rights of individuals and health care providers so they need not choose between their work and their moral principles. He steadfastly opposed the federal funding of abortion and supported President Reagan’s Mexico City Policy (abandoned by President Clinton and President Obama) that kept U.S. taxpayer dollars from going to organizations that perform or promote abortion overseas.
Recognizing that many women who consider abortion do so because they don’t believe they have the support necessary to care for their unborn children, he supported bills to provide funding to the nonprofit organizations that help pregnant women in need and their children. As a member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, he supported the expansion of the adoption tax credit to make adoption more affordable to parents across the country. He supported programs for the vulnerable children and youth in our foster care programs.
On the important bioethics issues facing the nation, he stood firm on his principles of prohibiting federal funding from being used for the exploitation and destruction of human embryos for scientific purposes while he sought to advance adult and other non-controversial stem cell research to aid in the fight against disease.
Abortion
- Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act (Sponsor – signed into law in 2003) – Over several Congresses, he was the Senate author and champion of this bill to ban partial birth abortions.
- Born Alive Infants Protection Act (Sponsor – signed into law in 2002) – This bill ensured appropriate care is provided for those infants who survive an abortion.
- Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Co-sponsor - DeWine) – This bill, signed into law in 2004, made it a federal offense to injure or kill a fetus while committing a federal crime.
- Informed Choices Act (Co-sponsor – Bunning) – This bill would have provided grants to non-profit organizations to purchase ultrasound equipment and provide free examinations to pregnant women.
- Child Custody Protection Act (Longtime cosponsor and supporter of this Ensign bill and similar efforts) – This bill would prohibit individuals from taking minors across state lines for abortions in order to avoid state parental consent laws.
- Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (Co-sponsor) – This bill required abortionists to inform women having an abortion that studies show that the unborn child feels pain during an abortion performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy and give her the opportunity, should she choose to continue the procedure, to allow the child to be treated for that pain.
- Workplace Religious Freedom Act, Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, and Health Care Entity Protection Act (Sponsor and Co-sponsor) – These bills, respectively, would protect the individual conscious rights of individuals to not participate in procedures they believe to be morally wrong and prevent health care entities from being discriminated against in receiving Federal or State funding because the entity refuses to provide coverage of, or pay for, induced abortions.
- RU-486 Suspension and Review Act and RU-486 Patient Health and Safety Protection Act (Co-sponsor) – These bills, respectively, would have withdrawn the approved application of the drug RU- 486 and allow for a review of the process by which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug and would require the FDA to establish restrictions regarding the qualifications of physicians to prescribe the abortion drug commonly known as RU-486.
- Voiced concerns to the Bush Administration about the impact of making the Morning After Pill available without a prescription to youth and asked for the Administration to research the potential harmful effects of abortion on the women who have them.
Alternatives to Abortion
- Women and Children’s Resources Act (sponsor - 1999) – This bill was intended to link women to a network of supportive organizations who are ready and willing to offer assistance in the form of pregnancy testing, adoption information, prenatal and postpartum health care, maternity and baby clothing, food, diapers, and information on childbirth and parenting. Women could also have received referrals for housing, education, and vocational training. Low-income women would have been given priority for these services. He also sought to work with the Executive Branch to support of these important efforts through established programs.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Student Services Act (cosponsor) – This bill would have provided grants to institutions of higher education to establish student services offices for pregnant students, parenting students, prospective parenting students anticipating a birth or adoption, and students who are placing or have placed a child for adoption.
- Informed Choices Act (co-sponsor) – This bill would have provided grants to non-profit organizations to purchase ultrasound equipment and provide free examinations to pregnant women.
- Strongly supported funding of abstinence education programs that informed and helped teens make the best choices for a fulfilling and productive life.
Adoption and Foster Care
- Supported legislation to extend and expand the Adoption Tax Credit, making adoption more affordable to thousands of families.
- Supported Promoting Safe and Stable Families Initiatives programs. These programs are designed to help the most vulnerable children be safe, healthy, and find a permanent home, including supporting families who adopt children from foster care. They also help teens aging out of the foster care system without having been adopted to make a successful transition to productive, independent living by providing services such as education, job training, life skills training, and housing help.
- As a member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, he supported numerous international adoption efforts and recognized families across the Commonwealth as “Angels in Adoption” for the steps they had taken to personally care for vulnerable children.
Euthanasia
- Assisted Suicide Prevention Act (co-sponsor) - This bill would have amended the Controlled Substances Act to prohibit medical practitioners from using a controlled substance for the purpose of assisting suicide or causing the death of any person. It provides that dispensing, distributing, or administering a controlled substance to alleviate pain or discomfort in the usual course of professional practice consistent with public health and safety is a legitimate medical purpose, even if the use of such substance may increase the risk of death.
- Pain Relief Promotion Act (co-sponsor in 105th Congress) - This bill sought to promote pain management and palliative care without permitting assisted suicide and euthanasia.
- Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act (cosponsor) – This bill would have granted habeas corpus rights to persons who have a court ordered removal of life-sustaining food, fluid, or medical treatment.
- Lethal Drug Abuse Prevention Act (cosponsor in 105th Congress) – This bill would have clarified Federal law to prohibit the dispensing or distribution of a controlled substance for the purpose of causing, or assisting in causing, the suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing of any individual.
Bioethics
- The Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act. (Sponsor - It passed the Senate by a vote of 100-0 in 2006 before being killed in the House by members who opposed support for these alternative methods that do not involve the destruction of human embryos.) This legislation would have further intensified research into non-controversial methods of deriving pluripotent stem cell lines to result in improved understanding of treatments for diseases and other adverse health conditions.
- Fetus Farming Prohibition Act (sponsored this important legislation that was signed into law by President Bush in 2006) – This bill prohibited researchers from acquiring tissue from fetuses gestated in a human or animal womb for research purposes.
- Chimera Prohibition Act (Co-sponsor) - This bill would have prevented chimeras (human-animal genetic hybrids) created with uniquely human genetic characteristics. Animal could not be fused with human brain or reproductive tissue. This ban would also ban human embryos from being implanted in animals.
- The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act (Co-sponsor of this bill signed into law in 2005 by President Bush) – This bill requires the Secretary of HHS to contract with qualified cord blood stem cell banks to assist in the collection and maintenance of 150,000 new units of high-quality cord blood to be made available for transplantation through the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program.
- Human Cloning Prohibition Act (Co-sponsor) – This bill would outlaw all cloning of the human embryo for any purpose.
Conscience Clause/Religious Freedom
- Workplace Religious Freedom Act (sponsor) – This bill would restore a balanced approach to religious freedom in the workplace. This measure would restore provisions in the Civil Rights Act, undermined by the courts, which required employers to accommodate the religious beliefs of their employees, unless doing so would cause significant difficulty or financial hardship for the employer.
- Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (sponsor and cosponsor) – This bill would have prohibited the federal government, and any state or local government that receives federal funding, from discriminating against any health care entity because the entity refuses to provide coverage of, or pay for, induced abortions. This legislation clarifies existing law that states that health care entities should not be coerced into providing abortion services that they believe to be morally wrong.
- Health Care Entity Protection Act (sponsor in 105th Congress) – This bill would have prohibited discrimination against health care entities that refuse to provide, provide coverage for, pay for, or provide referrals for abortions.
