I'd like to get more information on his remarks, in order to put them in context. Having said that, I know Santorum is a devout Catholic and some Catholics take the Pope's prohibition on "artificial birth control" very seriously.
I've always thought that the idea of getting married and making babies until your wife gets too old to get pregnant or dies in child birth was insane. This practice may have made sense long ago when most children didn't survive childhood and the average life expectancy was probably thirty five. If most people stopped using birth control today, population growth would explode; it would be horrifiic.
Originally Posted by joe bloe
As per your request...
Rick Santorum Even Opposes Birth Control
January 6, 2012
LAKEWOOD, COLO. – Former Sen. Rick Santorum's survival as a Republican primary candidate ensures two things: one, an endless stream of inappropriate jokes about sex acts and sweater vests. And two, an entirely appropriate conversation about birth control and public policy.
Rick Santorum is but the most extreme expression of the Republicans' inexorable march to the fringe on women's healthcare and reproductive rights. Even Rep. Ron Paul, who has his share of liberal apologists for his opposition to the PATRIOT Act and for being a supposed civil libertarian, has actively campaigned as being anti-choice. You can't be anti-choice and be a libertarian. Ron Paul opposes my civil liberties and those of half the U.S. population.
But Santorum's aggressive courting of social conservatives in Iowa to come within a hair's breadth of beating former Gov. Mitt Romney—who outspent him 70-1—has raised the birth control issue to a whole new level.
It's not enough to oppose abortion, even to protect the life of the mother or for survivors of rape or incest. Rick Santorum and all his fellow supporters of "life begins at conception" even oppose the most commonly used forms of birth control. This includes the top choice, the pill, since birth control can work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. Santorum opposes contraception in general, telling the blog caffeinatedthoughts.com in October, "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."
Santorum also opposes the predecessor to Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, which established a constitutional right to privacy in 1965. Griswold negated a Connecticut state law banning the use of contraception by married couples. The day before the Iowa caucuses, Santorum told ABC's Jake Tapper, "It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have."
Perhaps realizing this could be a problem, Santorum has already contradicted himself, telling CNN's John King on January 4 that he would not have supported the Connecticut anti-contraception law because, "The government doesn't have a role to play in everything that, you know, that either people of faith or no faith think are wrong or immoral." This will undoubtedly come as news to the gay community and anyone who served in the Senate with Rick Santorum.