The Truth-O-Meter on Rick Santorum

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum made it official June 8, 2011, announcing his bid from the steps of the Somerset County courthouse in Pennsylvania.

“I’m ready to lead. I’m ready to do what has to be done for the next generation, with the courage to fight for freedom, with the courage to fight for America,” the social conservative and former senator told a crowd of about 300.

As we have for other GOP presidential hopefuls, we decided to take a look at how he has fared on the Truth-O-Meter.

Turns out, Santorum’s PolitiFact report card contains only two statements, earning ratings of False and Pants on Fire.  

Our most-recent check was a statement by Santorum that “a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.” This was said during a discussion of Social Security as Santorum was making the point that the number of workers was declining at the same time the number of retirees was growing.

We looked at the numbers and found that less than a quarter of all pregnancies ended in abortions, and ruled his statement False.

Earlier this year we looked at another statement by Santorum on abortion, which is one of his key issues. “Any child born prematurely, according to the president, in his own words, can be killed,” Santorum had said.

We found that President Barack Obama didn’t say that. In fact, he said that abortion should be legal, but that children that are born should receive medical care. We rated Santorum’s statement Pants on Fire.