Santorum: GOP ‘simply afraid’ of fighting Planned Parenthood

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday criticized fellow Republicans for not doing enough to fight back against Planned Parenthood after the release of controversial videos showing officials discussing fetal tissue donation.

“It’s an opportunity to show the extremism of the other side, and we choose not to do it because we are simply afraid of offending other people, we are simply afraid of the media beating us up,” Santorum, a social conservative and former Pennsylvania senator, said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

{mosads}He called on Republicans in Congress to do more. 

“What have you seen on the floor of the House or the United States Senate?” he said. “We control both bodies. Have you seen any votes on any bills? Have any hearings been held?”

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has opened an investigation into Planned Parenthood, though it has not held a hearing yet. A string of bills to defund the organization were introduced Wednesday, and Republican lawmakers sent a flood of letters to Cabinet officials calling for action. 

“If this were the other side and they had such a video of, quote, ‘extremism,’ there would have been votes, investigations, prosecutions,” Santorum said. “They would have gotten on it and it would have been continuous from the very beginning. They would not have let up.”

He said he will ask his fellow White House candidates if they will defund Planned Parenthood. 

Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ted Cruz (Texas), two other GOP contenders, have already called for doing so. 

Paul on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the highway bill being considered in the Senate that would defund the group.