Larry Hogan will attend fundraiser with Newsmax’s Rick Santorum, who has repeatedly compared abortion to slavery

The Hogan ally once wrote: “Unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave.”

Special Programs Abortion Rights & Reproductive Health

Written by Eric Hananoki

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U.S. Senate candidate Larry Hogan is scheduled to attend a July 14 fundraiser with political commentator Rick Santorum, who has spent decades likening abortion to slavery. Santorum has compared Roe vs. Wade to Dred Scott, criticized former President Barack Obama for supporting abortion because he’s Black, and suggested that abortion was worse than slavery because “even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave.” 

Santorum is a former U.S. Senator who is now a senior political analyst for the pro-Trump Newsmax TV. 

Santorum previously worked for CNN but was dropped after making bigoted remarks about Native Americans. He had claimed during an April 2021 event: “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture.” Santorum also has a history of making anti-LGBTQ remarks. 

While Hogan has recently claimed that he is “pro-choice,” media outlets have noted that he has a history of anti-abortion actions as Maryland governor. For instance, as NBC News wrote, “Hogan vetoed a state law to widen access to the procedure. After his veto was overridden, he withheld $3.5 million state lawmakers had set aside to train new providers.” 

Santorum is anti-abortion and has for years compared abortion with slavery. Here is a look at his rhetoric. 

In 2003, Santorum said of abortion: “It parallels very closely the issue of slavery back in the early 1800s. ... It's really the same issue.” During a U.S. Senate speech in March 2003, Santorum said of abortion:

RICK SANTORUM: It parallels very closely the issue of slavery back in the early 1800s. And the reason is is because it's really the same issue. The slavery issue was, here is the African American, here is the Black man and woman, and what and what we said in this country was that we could look at this person, we could see this person, but under the Constitution, it wasn't a person. We said this individual, this human being, was not conferred upon personhood under the Constitution. That's what slavery was all about, and as a result, that person was property. What all of us knew to be a human being became property. And we had to fight a war to eventually overturn that.

In his 2005 book, Santorum suggested that abortion was worse than slavery: “Unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave.” Santorum suggested in his 2005 book It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good that abortion was worse than slavery:

Abortion takes these ordered rights and disorders them. Abortion puts the liberty and happiness rights of the mother before the life rights of her child. Liberty or choice and happiness are highly valued rights, and I know that unplanned pregnancies can be life altering and traumatic, but they do not trump the foundational right to life given us by our Creator and made evident to us by reason. This was tried once before in America, when the liberty and happiness rights of the slaveholder were put over the life and liberty rights of the slave. But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave.

During a 2005 interview on CNN, Santorum defended his comparison. 

In 2011, Santorum said regarding Obama and abortion: “I find it almost remarkable for a Black man to say, 'No, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.'" During a 2011 interview, Santorum criticized then-President Barack Obama for supporting abortion by referencing slavery, stating: 

RICK SANTORUM: The question is — and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer — is that, is that human life a person under the Constitution?" and Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person — human life is not a person, then — I find it almost remarkable for a Black man to say, “No, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.”

Santorum reiterated his stance in a statement, saying: 

For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the constitution. Today other human beings, the unborn of all races, are also wrongly treated as property and denied the right to life for the same reason; because they are not considered persons under the constitution. I am disappointed that President Obama, who rightfully fights for civil rights, refuses to recognize the civil rights of the unborn in this country.

In 2015, Santorum discussed Roe vs. Wade by asking, “Whose side are you going to be on? People who decided the Dred Scott case and Justice Taney? Or are you going to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln?” During a 2015 interview at a New Hampshire forum, Santorum pushed the comparison between Dred Scott — a pro-slavery Supreme Court decision that ruled that Black people were not citizens — and Roe vs. Wade: 

JACK HEATH (RADIO HOST): Senator, what should the president's role be in determining abortion policy in America? 

RICK SANTORUM: I believe that the Supreme Court of the United States has abused its authority, most recently in the — in the gay marriage case. Justice Roberts said it best. There was no constitutional basis for this decision. They also said that the same case was for Roe vs. Wade. They said that it was the same kind of logic that was used in the Dred Scott case. 

So whose side are you going to be on? People who decided the Dred Scott case and Justice Taney? Or are you going to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln? Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural address, his first inaugural said, that decision cannot stand and they actually went on and passed a bill to free the slaves. Are we suggesting that we're going to be held by a Supreme Court that Abraham Lincoln wasn't held by when an unjust unconstitutional decision is handed down? In my opinion, we cannot be.

In 2020, Santorum used his then-CNN platform to compare abortion to slavery. During a 2020 interview on CNN, Santorum and political commentator Bakari Sellers discussed the legacy of former President George Washington. During the segment, Sellers criticized Washington for owning slaves. Santorum responded by drawing a comparison to abortion, stating that “as someone who considers himself pro-life” he “can say the same thing about politicians. I have a hard time reconciling people who are allowing people to be killed in the womb.”

Following criticism over his remarks, Santorum wrote that “people were offended that I likened America’s Original Sin of allowing the brutal enslaving of millions of blacks to its current mortal sin of allowing the killing of tens of millions of black babies through abortion.” He added: “I sympathesize w @Bekari_Sellers, Washington’s support of the grave immorality of slavery is hard to reconcile. I believe 200 years from now our descendants will find it hard to reconcile how so many great American leaders of our time supported the grave immorality of abortion.” 

He also shared a Washington Times commentary piece saying there’s “a lot in common between slavery and abortion.” 

In 2023, Santorum reupped his comparisons of abortion to slavery. In 2023, Santorum shared a link to a Washington Examiner piece that called the Democratic Party the “party of infanticide” because of Democrats’ opposition to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. He wrote: “So much for my body my choice. It is now my property my choice, but Democrats are offended by comparisons to pro slavery Democrats even as they vote for killing babies alive and breathing. At least Democrats are consistent over the ages.”