Q: How much of the Santorum Dead Baby story is true:

[Jackpine Radical]

A: All of it.

From Wikipedia:

Santorum and his wife, Karen Garver Santorum, have seven children. One child was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a serious genetic disorder.[128] In 1996, a son, Gabriel, was born prematurely and lived for only two hours. While pregnant, Karen Santorum developed a life-threatening intrauterine infection and a fever that reached nearly 105 degrees. She went into labor when she was 20 weeks pregnant and allowed doctors to give her Oxytocin to speed the birth.[129]
Karen Santorum wrote a book about the experience: Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum.[130] In it, she writes that the couple brought the deceased infant home from the hospital and presented the dead child to their living children as "your brother Gabriel" and slept with the body overnight before returning it to the hospital. The anecdote was also written about by Michael Sokolove in a 2005 New York Times Magazine story on Santorum.[1] Karen is also the author of a book on etiquette for children.[131]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum

[liberal N proud]

1. Is there an issue with this that I missed?

It is terrible for anyone to lose a child.

[KansDem]

6. I think the idea of taking the dead fetus home has some of us in jitters, including me

Last edited Tue Jan 3, 2012, 02:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Was this standard practice? What of the health consequences? How long were they permitted to "borrow" it? What of the effect on its would-be siblings?

I've never heard of this happening before. It just makes this whole GOP gang even creepier...

[Marrah_G]

19. It seems really bizarre

I've never heard of such things being done before. However, when you get right down to it, wakes used to be held in the living room in my cultures history. Factually it's not all that different.

[KansDem]

29. True...

...wakes used to be held in the living room in my cultures history.

But, correct me if I'm wrong, the deceased is prepared and no one sleeps with it!

A wake is a ceremony associated with death. Traditionally, a wake takes place in the house of the deceased, with the body present; however, modern wakes are often performed at a funeral home. In the United States and Canada it is synonymous with a viewing. It is often a social rite which highlights the idea that the loss is one of a social group and affects that group as a whole.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_(ceremony)

I've attended several "viewings" but never any where the deceased was brought home overnight...

[vankuria]

23. Wouldn't the fetus start to decompose?

Bringing something dead home could be a health hazard wouldn't you say? What hospital would allow that? This story is very bizarre and while I know people that have suffered this same kind of heartache, they didn't bring it home and sleep with it. And they certainly didn't hurt any less than Santorum and his wife. The fact that Santorum has put this out to the media and his wife even wrote a book about it makes it fair game. It also makes me wonder how traumatized their other children were having to look at a dead fetus. It's like the Santorum's wanted to torture themselves and their children and that's really creepy! Makes me wonder if this in fact was an abortion, perhaps Mrs. Santorum's life was in danger and a 20 week old fetus would have very little chance of surviving outside the womb so they did all this to cover it up.

[KansDem]

27. I wondered the same thing!

How long were they permitted to keep it? Was it preserved in some manner? How was it prepared for transportation?

Bizarre...

[Ms. Toad]

36. Likely just dressed and wrapped in a receiving blanket.

That is how bodies are treated when the family time is in the hospital rather than at home.

[FarCenter]

28. It would be about 10 ounces and 6 inches long: Not much danger if it is in solution in a jar.

[Ms. Toad]

35. As part of my volunteer work,

I have taken pictures of infants from 16 weeks gestation to full term who have died 12-24 hour before I was able to arrive. There is some settling of the blood (which looks a bit like bruising), and various stages of stiffening and relaxation of the bone connections/tissues -but no decomposition that quickly.

I have not been around any people who took their child home, but I have been around people who spent the night in the hospital with their child - and spending time, whether right after death or overnight, has included children in the range of age 5. The children I have seen involved in this were sad and curious, but no more traumatized by contact with the body than they were by the death itself. Taking time to say good-bye to a much anticipated child, and to grieve a bit, is actually very healing for many families - and typically far healthier than what happened when my aunt give birth to a child who did not survive (she was told to leave the still alive child in the hospital to die; most from that era (50's) were told to pretend they had never been pregnant).

At 20 weeks, surviving to birth, the child's skin would have looked a bit translucent, the eyes might have been tightly closed, and the body slightly out of proportion - but to the eyes of a child, it would have just looked like small infant.

[Mojorabbit]

70. We gave stillborns to the mothers in the hospital

to hold overnight if they desired when I was a nurse years ago. I think everyone grieves in their own way and I have no issue with how this family handled it. I would hope on this board that we would respect their decision.

[Ms. Toad]

75. The medical community, at least

is beginning to recognize that. When I talk about my volunteer work, invariably someone who had a miscarriage or otherwise lost an infant years ago talks about how hard it was that everyone wanted her to pretend as if nothing had happened - and expresses the wish that there had been photography services when their child was born.

Losing a child is such a powerful experience - and so many families in the past had no way to integrate it into their lives.

[mucifer]

78. As a pediatric hospice nurse, I gotta say that's what we do in the home, too.

We let the family decide how much time they want and if the funeral home doesn't have a problem with it, that's what happens.


I have seen lots of things at work that to me were beautiful. But, if I describe them on a message board I'm sure a lot of people just wouldn't get it.

[lunatica]

88. On some level you're probably right

though I think the Santorums may not be quite as clear in their thinking about it. They were forced to induce the birth for health reasons and they tried not to actually think of it as an abortion because they didn't directly kill the baby, but the circumstances were just vague enough on the subject that they may have felt they needed to express their loss in a bizarre way in order to assuage their feeling of guilt.

Perhaps they thought that by doing what they did they could make up for the baby's death. Or fool God into thinking they were pure and guiltless of any wrongdoing. I think religion, especially a religion based on a jealous and bad tempered God creates very fearful liars. No one wants to suffer the horrible punishments God is so famous for.

[SoCalDem]

99. BINGO..

A "procedure" that hastens the "delivery" of a non-viable fetus is an abortion. This obviously did not jibe with their religious beliefs, so they probably told themselves this was God's plan and then the creepiness set in..

[jwirr]

44. Almost all funerals back in the day were held from home and the body was there overnight. It would

have been true regardless if it was an adult or an infant. When my father died my children were about 4-5 years of age. They asked to see him and touch him. We did not deny them. They were mourning in their own way.

[mucifer]

79. It still can be that way if you have hospice involved.

[jwirr]

97. Yes, and my family is still doing as much of it as we can. We remember the comfort that came from

those rituals.

[SomethingFishy]

42. Yes and bringing home the corpse to introduce it to a 6 year old

a 3 year old and a baby is fucking insane.

People need to grieve in their own way, and you have lost a child there is no way you can understand what they were feeling.

However, having raised 3 kids of my own I can safely say that while the Santorums had every right to bring home the corpse, I certainly wouldn't want someone who thinks that it's ok to introduce a 6 year old to a corpse to be the leader of the free world. There are some serious judgement lapses there.

[hamsterjill]

100. I totally agree!

The Santorums might have needed to bring the corpse home as part of their own, adult grief process, but did they really consider the health and well-being of their other children when they made the decision to do this?

My own mother passed away when I was eight. It was commonplace back in that time period to involve the whole family in planning the funeral arrangements, and I can remember going to the funeral home to select the coffin, make arrangements, I attended the visitation, the funeral, etc.

Believe me when I say that this was a traumatic experience for me. The whole process was traumatic, of course, because I lost my mom. But my involvement in the planning details has haunted me for most of my adult life. Mostly, of course, because I really didn't understand at that young an age what was happening. I can remember things very vividly about the process even now, and it took me many years to be able to understand why I had been so deeply affected.

I just don't think anyone can estimate how young children will be affected by something as traumatic as bringing a dead fetus home and allowing them to view it, etc. The effects of those actions may not truly be seen for many, many years.

Personally, I think it was a very bad idea for the Santoriums to do this, and it was even worse for them to have talked about it publicly.

[comipinko]

2. Premature birth?????

That was an abortion.

[Ms. Toad]

38. All of the contemporaneous articles I have found

describe it as spontaneous premature labor following an infection.

Most more recent articles don't even pretend to cite anything other than speculation. Even the best documented article calling it an abortion (or induced labor) cites only to contemporaneous articles describing premature (but not induced) labor.

Here's what I've been able to find: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=16186

[tallahasseedem]

91. Yes...

yes it was.

[comipinko]

92. doubt it.

[SixthSense]

3. don't even go there

even if they're lying through their teeth 100% this issue can only generate sympathy for him... thus the planted question and scripted crying the other day

as the Rebel Admiral said... "It's a trap!"

[Myramay]

5. Santorum's baby

was born prematurely. Yes, it's hard to lose a baby. But this was so strange, he & his wife left the hospital with the baby who had died & took the baby home for their other children to be able to see the deceased baby. The "Washington Post" had a story about this situation. The story was weird & I couldn't believe that it was true, but to my dismay it was true. I would suggest readers who are curious, just google Santorum's baby who had died and you'll see the stranger than truth story.

[snooper2]

7. It's bullshit to believe any hospital would let you take a dead body home

Unless the hospital was composed of two 16x80's and the bed off a 71' F-150

[Gidney N Cloyd]

10. Special rules for US Senators, maybe?

[SixthSense]

9. and this is how it plays out

99% of people will not know the details and not want to know, only people who are intensely interested in the campaign (and most people are more disgusted than interested) will know. He could have strangled the baby himself and people will still react to any mention of it with sympathy, and any criticism of him over it will compound that sympathy.

For a candidate as weak as Santorum is, there is absolutely no need to fish this issue out of the gutter.

[Puzzledtraveller]

4. obsessed much?

[oberliner]

8. This is not the issue to attack Santorum on

Just my opinion.

[comipinko]

11. I will, however, point out that I am happy that his wife was

able to have this abortion safely, and legally. It likely saved her life.

[JohnnyRingo]

16. Good one. It dovetails nicely with Rick Santorum's definition of aggravated murder.

...or what the rest of us may call an abortion to save the mother's life.

[WillowTree]

53. Cute, except that it wasn't an abortion. In fact, the baby was born alive, in case you missed that.

She went into premature labor spontaneously, no doubt due to the infection, and the Oxytocin (or Pitocin) was probably given to speed the birth in an attempt to save the child by limiting the time that it would be under the stress of labor.

You actually trivialize the whole abortion issue when you bring it up facetiously like that.

[blue neen]

60. Stating the truth about the Santorum's double standards is not facetious.

“The doctors said they were talking about a matter of hours or a day or two before risking sepsis and both of them might die,” Santorum said. “Obviously, if it was a choice of whether both Karen and the child are going to die or just the child is going to die, I mean it’s a pretty easy call.”

http://oursilverribbon.org/blog/?p=188

[lindysalsagal]

66. Hmmm. Perhaps the bringing home of the fetus was some kind of unconscious

self-punishment for choosing the life of the mother?

Perhaps there was alot of guilt? I'm of course only speculating, and I've never lost a fetus or a child.

I have alot of compassion for what they went through, but it's just totally wierd to take a 20 week old fetus home.

Hate me all you want to, but I'm pretty sure I'd have the doc shoot me up with some really expensive sedative and someone who loved me would drag me home, and I'd thank them all for it.

At some point my family would keep reminding me about all of my other wonderful children and let me start the separation.

It's totally wierd. They had to take the dead baby back the next day? How wierd was that?

[marybourg]

12. A 5 month fetus is 6" long. They

slept with a 6" long fetus in their bed?Something is very bizarre here.

[SunsetDreams]

13. What's the point of this? This issue is deeply personal

We should be going after Republicans for their batshit crazy agenda, NOT how they choose to grieve over a deeply personal loss such as a baby.

[waddirum]

17. It's creepy as hell

People can choose to grieve in whatever way they feel appropriate. However, Sen. Santorum purposely put this anecdote out in the media - both in magazine interviews and his wife's book. He uses his foetus worship in order to attract evangelical support and votes.

This man is running for President of the U.S. We have every right and obligation to judge his character from these personal anecdotes -- just like we can judge Romney for putting the dog on the roof of the car.

[lunatica]

89. He would gladly put us on the roof of his car.

That's what I think of people who do such things to animals. They would do it to humans too if they could, and not care any more than he did about how it terrified that dog.

No thanks. People like that are soulless.

[lindysalsagal]

67. He deserves it for his racist ravings about how people live their private lives.

Can't take it? Don't dish it out.

[Nye Bevan]

14. I think it's a good rule not to use candidates' dead kids to attack them.

Samtorum is a disgusting piece of work, but as a father, this line of attack only makes me feel sympathy for him.

[Marrah_G]

21. I agree

[HappyMe]

22. Agreed.

I feel bad for them.

[pipi_k]

30. Agreed...plus...

People here are speculating on how it may have affected the other kids.

It would be nice to hear from the other children as to whether it affected them or not instead of assuming the whole thing was a huge horror story for them.

If it didn't bother them, then it shouldn't bother anyone else, either.

[Union Scribe]

34. Agreed.

While that story makes my skin crawl a little, it also makes me very sad for the participants.

[WillowTree]

54. Amen to that.

[mrmpa]

85. You've got to be kidding...........

This episode needs to be examined. It is not personal & something that needs to be kept away from his campaign. Santorum & his wife have made it public, therefore it needs to be looked at & disected.

I'm not a father, but I look at the way he raises his children & I'm disgusted. Home schools them, when he has a very good public school system they can attend, but as a private citizen he can send them to a parochial or private school. Except for the children of the President or Vice President, I do not trust a poliltician who does not send their children to public schools.

He's a fucking control freak. Sympathy he does not deserve from anyone.

[GoodDog3]

98. I agree that this is up for further examination

Especially given Santorum's stand on abortion. This tragic (and I do mean that) event happened just after they would have received news of the babies' health status. Whether or not the mother had an infection, this was an abortion and he should be called out about it.

Also, they don't "home school" their children. They let the Penn Hills school district pay for school vouchers for Cyber School.

http://foresthills-regentsquare.patch.com/articles/santorum-s-residency-is-still-an-issue-552e23d3

[lunatica]

90. No one is using any kid to attack him. It's a direct attack on Santorum

Show me where his kids were named or interviewed or slandered. What he did involved a newborn child who died, but the point is it's all information he and his wife put out there. She wrote a book and he brought the subject up.

No one would talk about it except in passing except they did.

[ZombieHorde]

15. Sounds like they had a very difficult time with the death of their son.

I hope they heal well from their loss.

[EC]

18. 20 weeks and given Oxytocin?

wouldn't that be closer to an abortion than a birth?

[Capitalocracy]

40. shh...

[WillowTree]

55. See reply #53.

[Marrah_G]

20. This story makes me feel very badly for his wife

It must have been a painful time. I just can't attack a family over a matter like this, no matter how much I despise one member of it.

[EFerrari]

24. But how creepy is it this lady writes ETIQUETTE books for children?

Omg.

[Marrah_G]

31. I've never seen the books, are they horrible?

[EFerrari]

33. I've never had the pleasure.

But someone who empowers the Santorum career of boundary violations has no business advising children.

[RZM]

46. That reminds me of something

Stanley 'Tookie' Williams also wrote books for children. Quite a few, in fact. I actually read one about 10-12 years ago. Is that any better or worse than Mrs. Santorum writing one?



I just looked hers up on Amazon. Want to guess who wrote the forward? (No cheating

[EFerrari]

49. Oh, god. Now I'm afraid to look!

LOL

Was is Armaggedon Spice?

/spelling

[RZM]

50. Here you go

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1932236090/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Yeah. Wow.

[EFerrari]

52. OMFG.

[tallahasseedem]

93. Foreward by Joe Paterno...

Well, isn't that rich?

[Marrah_G]

95. omfg.......... that can't be real

~thudd~

[GoneOffShore]

26. She is, by all accounts I've read and I can't source them right now, stranger than Frothy

Before he met her he was almost normal. Not much caring about gays, abortion or evolution. She is the one behind his distinctly strange views.

[DFab420]

25. People grieve in different ways. While I personally I wouldn't have done it this way..

it was their personal tragedy to process

[gratuitous]

43. I think we're all in agreement on that

But I could be very wrong.

In any event, I'm all for people grieving such a loss in their own way, without some elected official getting involved and proscribing the "right" way to handle one's affairs. Unfortunately, Mr. Santorum seems quite eager to write protocols for every other family, every other person, in the United States as to how they should deal with women's health.

[MineralMan]

32. To answer your question, I don't know how much

is true. However, I'm sure that Wikipedia article leaves out a lot of the story.

It's creepy, for sure. But we don't know why they took possession of the body of the deceased child. I don't know the laws that are involved, but it was born and lived for two hours. At that point, it was a deceased child, not a fetus. What that means is that a funeral might be done. Depending on the state, the relatives may have a perfect legal right to take possession of the deceased and deal with the funeral arrangement themselves.

I think we make a mistake if we try to use this thing against Santorum. The story is already out there. But, we don't know all of the details or the legality of parents taking possession of the body of their dead child. I imagine that the law in that state allows it, or they wouldn't have done it. What happened after that is just a story. I doubt that any of the writers on the subject were there.

[PavePusher]

37. Here's what's really "creepy" about all the manufactured angst about this:

Throughout history, very few people have died in hospitals, never to be seen again until the funeral. Dying at home was the norm, and still is over much of the world. Taking the body home from whatever crude medical facility one dies in (if you're lucky enough to be near one) is common practice in non-industrialised countries.

What's "creepy" is insulating oneself from the reality of death and pretending it doesn't happen.

What's bizzare and truely horrifying is anyone on a progressive website who denigrates others for the way they choose to memorialize their dead and express their grief.

Such bigotry and vitriol on this website is sickening, and those guilty of it should be ashamed.

[Withywindle]

41. I agree with this completely.

I think the "American way of death"--in which dead bodies are never ever touched or seen by the family until they've been dressed up with makeup on, and children are isolated from the truth of death...is frankly kind of psychologically twisted.

For most of human history, and still in many many places around the world, the bodies of the dead are taken care of BY the family. It's relatives who wash and dress the body for burial, not professional strangers. Did people sleep in a bed with the deceased? I'm sure somewhere at some time they have. An actual authentic "wake" involves the family and friends staying up all night in the room WITH the deceased.

The idea that only mortuary professionals are qualified to handle a dead body? Moneymaker for the industry, with not much of a sound basis in real necessity or psychologically satisfying ritual. The idea that dead people should be shut away and never ever brought home (or left there for a while if they died there)? That's what I find alienating and disturbing.

There's a LOT of reasons to be appalled by the Santorum family, but this isn't one of them. I think what they did with their dead son was not harmful to anyone, and probably helpful in the grieving process for the whole family.

Now, the hypocrisy inherent in whether it was technically an abortion or not--that is a completely separate issue from the revulsion people are talking about in the way the body was handled. THAT is totally ripe for questioning and argument, IMO.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

51. this was an abortion

[WillowTree]

56. I think you must be a really, really fine human being, PavePusher.

I admire you.

[PavePusher]

63. Actually, I'm quite the jerk at times. But even I have my limits.

If people want to make political hay out of the hypocrisy of what was arguably an abortion, that's fine.

But keep the family tradgedy portion out of it. It's a pretty fine line to maintain, I'll admit, but I think it can be done.

[greymattermom]

39. this was an abortion

to save the life of the mother, according to the description of inducing labor at 20 weeks.

[WillowTree]

57. No, it wasn't. See reply #53.

[REP]

45. There was no "infant." There was an aborted 20-week second trimester fetus.

Calling it a bun in the oven doesn't make it pastry, either.

[blue neen]

47. Therein lies the issue.

It is, as always, the hypocrisy.

People should respect the Santorum's privacy, personal decisions, and grief. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Rick Santorum did the same for the rest of us?

[REP]

65. If they hadn't published a BOOK about it, maybe I could respect their privacy...

... or if his wife choosing to have an abortion to save her life is okay, but other women can fuck off and die according to Sick Rick, then maybe I wouldn't care about these lying sacks of shit and their dead fetus.

[WillowTree]

58. When it's born alive, as this one was, it's legally (and morally, IMO) an infant.

[blue neen]

59. The issue is the hypocrisy...

Rick Santorum has one set rules for his family, wants to have privacy, wants to grieve on his own terms.

He doesn't want the rest of us to have those same basic rights.

The taxpayers of Pennsylvania know all about Rick Santorum's many hypocrisies.

[WillowTree]

61. Whatever.

[blue neen]

62. "Whatever" what?

?

[WillowTree]

68. I challenged someone's innacurate assertion that "there was no 'infant'" and you responded...

....by changing the subject and being somewhat confrontational about it.

Whatever. I'm not up for playing that game. I hope you have a pleasant evening, though.

[blue neen]

80. A reiteration of what people feel is the actual issue is not changing the subject. It IS the subject

I wasn't being confrontational at all, and I'm not sure what games you are referring to. Women's lives and legal rights are not games.

Inaccuracy is in the eye of the beholder.

[WillowTree]

82. Whatever.

[blue neen]

84. Well, if that's the best you've got...

good luck.

[REP]

64. They claim it was born alive; I think they're lying.

Fetal lung development at 19-20 weeks coupled with the Trisomy 18 of the fetus makes that claim highly suspect.

[WillowTree]

71. I seriously doubt that. If that was the case...

....someone would have dug up the birth record by now showing that it was a stillbirth. It's not as if accounts of this haven't been around for a number of years and birth records are public, after all.

[REP]

73. Doubt all you like. There are facts about fetal lung development.

[WillowTree]

76. Fine.

Then someone will certainly get their hands on the birth record and that will give the lie to the whole story. I'll write to Donald Trump and ask him to get right on that.

[Ms. Toad]

81. First, it was not Gabriel who had trisomy 18.

It was his daughter Bella, who is now about 3 years old, who has trisomy 18. Gabriel had a urinary tract defect.

In addition, as part of volunteer work I do, I have encountered several children born at 18-20 weeks who lived from a few minutes to a few hours.

[gkhouston]

48. A. Who gives a shit? n/t

[Arkansas Granny]

69. I just have one question for you and others in this discussion: How many of you have lost a child?

I have. I can tell you that it is the most painful experience I have ever had.

As far as what the Santorums did after their child died, it is intensely personal. If you don't approve of their actions, that's your problem, not theirs.

There is no need to use the loss of a child to attack Santorum. We don't know the facts. All you have is speculation and rumor. We need to just leave this alone.

[REP]

72. We just have their INTERVIEWS and BOOKS to go on

And yes, I've had a MISCARRIAGE too.

I'm very close to someone who has lost actual children. She's revolted by Sick Rick and his posturing over a FETUS.

[Arkansas Granny]

74. A baby who live for two hours is not a FETUS. A child born alive and later dies is

not a miscarriage.

[WillowTree]

77. Ah, but REP doesn't believe that it was born alive.

REP has no facts relative to this specific case to base that on, of course.

[blue neen]

83. I have, and it was indeed the most painful experience of my life...

and if we lived in the state of Georgia, this is what that would want us to go through:

"It's only February, but this year has been a tough one for women's health and reproductive rights. There's a new bill on the block that may have reached the apex (I hope) of woman-hating craziness. Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin—who last year proposed making rape and domestic violence "victims" into "accusers"—has introduced a 10-page bill that would criminalize miscarriages and make abortion in Georgia completely illegal. Both miscarriages and abortions would be potentially punishable by death: any "prenatal murder" in the words of the bill, including "human involvement" in a miscarriage, would be a felony and carry a penalty of life in prison or death. Basically, it's everything an "pro-life" activist could want aside from making all women who've had abortions wear big red "A"s on their chests."

"I doubt that a bill that makes a legal medical procedure liable for the death penalty will pass. The bill, however, shows an astonishing lack of concern for women's health and well-being. Under Rep. Franklin's bill, HB 1, women who miscarry could become felons if they cannot prove that there was "no human involvement whatsoever in the causation" of their miscarriage. There is no clarification of what "human involvement" means, and this is hugely problematic as medical doctors do not know exactly what causes miscarriages. Miscarriages are estimated to terminate up to a quarter of all pregnancies and the Mayo Clinic says that "the actual number is probably much higher because many miscarriages occur so early in pregnancy that a woman doesn't even know she's pregnant. Most miscarriages occur because the fetus isn't developing normally."

"Holding women criminally liable for a totally natural, common biological process is cruel and non-sensical. Even more ridiculous, the bill holds women responsible for protecting their fetuses from "the moment of conception," despite the fact that pregnancy tests aren't accurate until at least 3 weeks after conception. Unless Franklin (who is not a health professional) invents a revolutionary intrauterine conception alarm system, it's unclear how exactly the state of Georgia would enforce that rule other than holding all possibly-pregnant women under lock and key."

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/02/miscarriage-death-penalty-georgia

Why would they want to add to our grief at intensely private and painful times in our lives? Why should any woman's miscarriage by subject to scrutiny by the Georgia legislature?

The Santorum's spoke publicly many times about their loss and wrote a book about it...I'm not criticizing their decision. That's the point--it was that they had the freedom to make that decision. Their privacy should be protected as much as they want it to, and so should yours and mine.

Thanks, and I'm sorry for your loss.

[Withywindle]

86. I'm so sorry, Arkansas Granny.

I can't imagine. I've never had a child. Just know that I am sorry for your loss.


What I find really creepy in this discussion is the "grief policing."

What experience I have of grief, I know it's a body-hurting, mind-breaking, permanently-life-changing kind of emotion. After you've lost a loved one, you might be able to go back to work eventually, but you will never ever be the same person you were before, and I think the pressure to pretend you are "back to normal" is kind of warped. Your normal now will never be the same as your old normal.

I don't like to judge what ANYONE does while in the early stages of grief just to get through a day or a night or an hour, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else--which I don't think the Santorums' act did.

[Seeking Serenity]

87. It's not grief policing...

it's selective outrage, very common on DU (and just about any politics discussion board). Because this story is about a politician or political opponent "we" hate, certain DUers get all in a froth. Had the same set of facts been associated with a beloved political figure (let's say Paul Wellstone, of blessed memory), DUers would be waxing poetic about how sweet and touching it all was.

Progressives are no strangers to double standards.

[Dorian Gray]

94. Thank you for

the reality check here Granny.

I agree.

I miscarried at only 8 weeks. It was devastating for us. I can only imagine what it would have been like to see and hold the baby.

This is a losing argument, and I'm reading this thread sort of horrified at some posters.

[LynneSin]

96. The problem is this - the Santorums use their dead child for political gain

the key words you used is 'intensely personal'

To me that should be something kept between immediate family. But the Santorums have used that child for political gains and personally, I find that offensive.