UK Daily Mail
- Pro-life campaigner, 51, was a nursing student when she fell in love with father of six
- Presidential hopeful believes abortion practitioners should face 'criminal charges'
Karen Santorum, 51, who, like her husband, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and doesn't believe in using birth control, lived with Pittsburgh abortion pioneer Dr Thomas E. Allen for most of her 20s in the 1980s.
When she met Dr Allen, Mrs Santorum, who then went by the name Karen Garver, was a 22-year-old nursing student who shared his liberal views on abortion and enjoyed life as the younger lover of the 63-year-old divorcee and man-about-town, according to friends.
The image of Mrs Santorum living with her progressive playboy boyfriend stands in sharp contrast to the matronly devout Catholic mother of seven that she plays on the campaign trail.
May-December romance: Karen Santorum (then Karen Garver) poses for this 1984 photo with her boyfriend of six years, Dr Thomas E. Allen, who was an obstetrician and abortion provider
