Rick Santorum winning more support from Republican women

Much of the talk has centered around past speeches and interviews, in which Santorum declared that birth control doesn’t work and that it “is harmful to women” and the country. He argued that the use of birth control encourages sex outside of marriage, particularly among the young. On abortion, Santorum said that the government should not fund prenatal testing because in the majority of cases when such tests diagnose a disability in the fetus, women choose to abort.

“I’m not a believer in birth control, artificial birth control,” Santorum — who is Catholic and with his wife, Karen, has seven children — said in a 2006 television interview. “I think it goes down the line of being able to do whatever you want to do without the responsibility that comes with it.”

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Many Republicans consider contraception a losing debate. Birth control pills were first approved for use in the United States in 1960 and more than 12 million American women use them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The subject surfaced again during a Republican debate this week. Asked their views on the subject (and briefly booed by an audience that seemed to recognize the perils of the question), the candidates steered away from speaking directly to their positions. Instead, Santorum, Romney and Gingrich sought to characterize the issue as a question of religious freedom — and to accuse President Obama of attacking religious liberties by seeking to mandate that all employers, even religious institutes, cover contraceptives for employees.

“This isn’t an argument about contraceptives,” Romney said. “This is a discussion about, are we going to have a nation which preserves the foundation of the nation, which is the family, or are we not?”

Overall, Santorum’s — and the other Republicans’ — popularity among Democratic and independent women remains weak, according to the Post-ABC data, with Gingrich leading the pack with the highest negatives among both groups and Romney not far behind him. Santorum is viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of Democratic women and 36 percent of independent women; Romney by 55 percent of Democratic women and 43 percent of independent women; and Gingrich by 63 percent of Democratic women and 58 percent of independent women.

Santorum’s popularity has probably risen, several Republicans said, because he has stuck to his views while working to change the subject back to the core issue of the economy. That is something that Romney, despite his business background, has not done well, several Republican and Democratic strategists said.

“I just don’t think Romney knows what life out here in the middle class is like at all — or cares,” said Dorothy Theis, 78, a retiree from Corcoran, Minn., who caucused for Santorum this month. Santorum’s social views don’t hurt because they are believable, she added.

In an interview with Charlie Rose last week, Santorum distanced himself from the controversial remarks of a top political supporter, Foster Friess, who joked that when he was young, women prevented pregnancy by holding an aspirin between their knees. Santorum called the joke “stupid” and touted his own support for Title X, which provides poor women with birth control. He also tried to turn the conversation to manufacturing and energy, about which he had just given a speech in Detroit.