Santorum to Carson: Saving Terri Schiavo’s life “not much ado about nothing”

Former Pennsylvania Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is blasting GOP competitor and retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson over his recent comments against government intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.

As Live Action News covered earlier this week, Carson told reporters that the case, in which the brain-injured and incapacitated Florida woman’s parents intensely disputed her husband’s contention that she would have wanted to be taken off life support, was “much ado about nothing,” and that doctors’ job in such cases “is to keep them comfortable throughout that process and not to treat everything that comes up.”

In response, Santorum declared that “all life deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. That was the message that persuaded every member of the Senate to agree to a federal court review before Terri was starved to death.” He noted that he was a primary co-sponsor of the bipartisan legislation to delay the removal of her feeding tube.

“Harry Reid and I thought the taking of her life was worth doing something, not nothing,” Santorum continued. “The Senate understood that for the Schindler family and millions of pro-life advocates this was not ‘much ado about nothing.'”

Terri’s brother, Bobby Schindler and Christian Defense Coalition director Rev. Patrick Mahoney have both denounced Carson’s remarks as “insensitive.” However, American Thinker commentator Tom Trinko noted that while “we need to get clarification from Carson on this issue,” he did not read his remarks to be an endorsement of euthanasia and concluded that his only offense is “commenting on an issue where he lacks accurate facts.”