This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," January 24, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is getting mixed reaction from people on the right and left over comments that he made in a recent interview with Terry Jeffrey from CNSNews.com. Now, Santorum was asked if a fetus in the womb has a right to life from the moment of conception. This was the former senator's response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER SENATOR SANTORUM, R-PA.: When Barack Obama is asked, you know, "Is a child in the womb a human life?" "Oh, it's above my pay grade." Just about everything else in the world he's willing to do, to have the government do, but he can't answer that basic question which is not a -- which is not a debatable issue at all. I don't think you'll find a biologist in the world who will say that that is not human life.

Question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer, is that -- is that human a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person -- human life is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say that we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And joining me now to react is the man himself, former Pennsylvania senator, Rick Santorum.

And also with us from the National Action Network is Reverend Al Sharpton.

Guys, good to see you both. Thanks for being here.

Are you surprised at the reaction?

SANTORUM: Yes, I'm surprised at the reaction. I mean, basically, what I was saying is that we saw for the first -- more than 100 years in this country, when we denied personhood to human life in the form of black people in America and it took the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to bestow personhood under the Constitution and full constitutional protection to blacks in America.

And, now, the Supreme Court, 100 years later, 1973, says they're going to use that same 14th Amendment that granted personhood and they're going to say that this group of people, human life in the womb, is going to be denied personhood. And my said, my comment was that Barack Obama should be sensitive, more so than probably most people -- as a civil rights and constitutional lawyer, should be sensitive to how we define people in the Constitution.

HANNITY: Yes.

All right. Reverend Al, are you pro-life?

REV. AL SHARPTON, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK: I think that in response to what he said --

HANNITY: He just went right my over my question, I love it. Are you pro-life? Let me respond to what he said.

SHARPTON: Oh, that's what I'm here to do.

HANNITY: OK.

SHARPTON: You did not say that President Obama, as a constitutional lawyer or a civil rights lawyer, should be sensitive. You said as a black

--

SANTORUM: Yes.

SHARPTON: -- which brought race in, which had, in my opinion, no reason at all to bring race into an argument that is a constitutional argument. And that is an argument about where life starts. Blacks were not considered 3/5 of a human being because there was a debate about their humanity, because if they were 80 years old or a fetus they were considered less than human. The debate around pro-life, pro-choice is whether or not scientists and others, going before the court, determines where life starts.

That was not the debate with blacks. It didn't matter where life started or what point we were in life. We were considered less than human.

And to equate the two is, in my opinion, certainly --

SANTORUM: OK. Well, let me ask you this question, Reverend Al, if the child in the womb is not human life.

SHARPTON: That's not the debate. The debate is --

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: -- that is the debate. That's different.

SHARPTON: You tried to use -- you tried to use how blacks were dehumanized at any age and equate that with the argument that is before the American public and the courts. And that is not -- that does not fit.

SANTORUM: You just said the difference between the debate over slavery and the debate over abortion is the question of whether we're talking about a human life or not. That's just what you just said.

SHARPTON: No. I said there's a debate over where human life starts.

SANTORUM: OK.

SHARPTON: There was no debate over where blacks' life started.

SANTORUM: Which is -- which is what I just said.

SHARPTON: The debate was blacks that at any age, they didn't say blacks that hadn't started a heartbeat yet or blacks that didn't have lungs yet. Any black, any age, at any stage --

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: Was denied personhood -- was denied person of a person under the Constitution.

SHARPTON: They were 3/5 of a human, at any age.

SANTORUM: They were denied rights under the Constitution.