Rudy Giuliani: [to SC Firefighters & Police] 'A Woman Has the Right to Choose Abortion'

Associated Press/Newsmax.com ^ | 2.22.07 | staff report

[meg88]

hursday, Feb. 22, 2007 8:13 a.m. EST

Rudy Giuliani: 'A Woman Has the Right to Choose' Abortion

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Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani met with firefighters and police officers in this early voting state Wednesday, using the forum to reference the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which earned him national attention.

"The first people that arrive on the scene of the bombing or the anthrax attack ... it's going to be one of your brothers or your sisters or you that gets to do it," the former New York mayor told a crowd of about 200 emergency workers. "Your ability to do it well will once again determine if we save lives - save America."

Giuliani compared firefighters and police to uniformed military personnel and said the federal Department of Homeland Security needs to ensure first responders "have the training and protection you need to defend your country."

Giuliani has a tough road ahead in South Carolina, which is to host the first Southern primaries in 2008. His moderate positions on gun control and support for abortion rights do not sit well with the state's Christian conservatives, who accounted for a third of the 2000 GOP primary vote. Those voters swung heavily to President Bush that year, giving him a 2-1 ratio margin over Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was viewed as soft on abortion.

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On Wednesday, Giuliani reiterated his own position.

"I'd advise my daughter or anyone else not to have an abortion," Giuliani said. "I'd like to see it ended, but ultimately I believe that a woman has the right to choose.

"I believe that you've got to run based on who you are, what you really are and then people actually get a right to disagree with you," he said. "And I find if you do it that way, even people who disagree with you sometimes respect you."

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"We're a tremendous amount of time away from an election," he said. "We haven't even gotten to a primary yet. The best thing we can do now is organize."

© 2007 Associated Press.

[Swordfished]

What make you think that? If you say because the child isn't born here (yet), I say if a greasy day laborer from Jalisco is "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US and gets all sorts of rights and protection, then babies are even more entitled to them.

'two wrongs make a right' sort of thing?

[LtdGovt]

Laws decide what is best for society.

No, they don't. Criminal laws protect individual liberty.

American seems to be suffering a bit of multiple personality disorder in this area.

Like the entire world. Even in the Islamic world, where they do ban abortion, they don't have any respect for life that is out of the womb. So I guess we're all hypocrits. And I tell you, I prefer this kind of hypocrisy over the Islamic form.

Are you in favor of people having the choice to murder? suffer from MPD

Why? Because I don't buy into your nonsense?

[George W. Bush]

Just a wild guess: I think that several states will outlaw abortion completly, 15-25 states will enact more restrictions on the practice, and that the backlash will cause the rest of the states to elect a pro-choice majority that will retain generally available abortions, or even abolish restrictions on the practice.

Could be. The pro-abortion states could hardly get any more pro-abortion than they already are though they might codify the right for even girls as young as 10 to get abortions secretly without parental notification, probably through the school system. In states where abortion was outlawed or restricted, groups like NARAL would set up bus service to transport women from states where it is outlawed or heavily restricted to states where it is legal. They'd have to be careful if they transported a minor across state lines. In any event, given the geography of the anti-abortion and pro-abortion states, a woman wanting an abortion would probably never have to travel more than 500 miles.

Personally, I think you'd find that no states would outlaw it in the first trimester. I don't think they'd be as wiling to grant rape and incest exceptions after the first trimester since that is so phony to begin with in the modern era.

[LtdGovt]

Read the Constiituion.

[Swordfished]

Contraception after a pregnancy has already occurred is an abortion and is, therefore, a violation of the right to life of the baby.

thanks for your opinion, and service.

[ichabod1]

[except where the Constitution USED to say that non-whites were worth less than white people]

The constitution never said that. The average black chattel slave was worth far more than the average white citizen, especially those of Irish extraction.

It said they counted as 4/5 of a full person solely for the purposes of congressional representation, just another way to put the south down.

[LtdGovt]

The battle over whether we can or should force a woman to carry a rapist's child is very remote. Pro-lifers in general do not commit to that position.

They don't, but some people on this thread do. And I was criticizing them.

Pro-lifers are not cruel or thoughtless people.

I know. No offense, but you looked to me like an extreme person, but now that I know you a little bit better, you're quite reasonable.

[George W. Bush]

I stand by my post.

I stand by it too. But we're not the DUmmies. We want a clean forum. I find that I think better and can move more people to my position if I concentrate on the argument and not responding emotionally.

One thing we adults are supposed to do is to curb ourselves a bit. Go over and look at the DUmmies sometime. Then come back here. Notice the huge difference in the quality of thought and debate? Vulgar language really does lead to vulgar thinking. We need to set our sights higher than that.

[LtdGovt]

Explain to me why a definition of an unborn human being as a person has anything to do with reversing Roe?

It doesn't have anything to do with Roe, that's the problem. It is more likely to reach the opposite result of Roe - outlawing laws allowing abortion. And I believe that is called judicial activism.

[ichabod1]

I figure oncet we get thru with abortion we can move on to b/c.

[ichabod1]

Dude. He got cancer. I'm not a Rudy backer, but let's not be dishonest.

[Delphinium]

I almost got one years ago, but stopped when the doctor told me. Unfortunately most women never know. My sister was heartbroken when she found out after having one for a few years.

[LtdGovt]

Personally, I think you'd find that no states would outlaw it in the first trimester.

Maybe extremely pro-life states like Utah, Arkansas or Louisiani.

What a depressing issue this is.

[ichabod1]

It's not murder if it's self defense, smart guy.

[P-Marlowe]

Why can't you recognize that in the United States our law allows for a woman to choose to abort her baby?

As far as I know the United States has never passed a law which allows a woman to choose to abort her baby. There have been a number of attempts to limit such a choice, which have all been struck down by the courts who unconstitutionally fashioned their own legislation on the issue back in 1973.

Why can't you recognize that congress has never passed a law which allows a woman to choose to abort her baby? What we have is not "law" but "precedent". And a very bad one at that.

[ichabod1]

I think that throughout history people have KNOWN that Abortion is murder. This business about when life begins is pure sophistry. Those that performed abortions when it was illegal did so for money or out of misguided compassion for the girl/woman.

[George W. Bush]

If he does become the nominee, would you take that as a signal that the GOP has changed direction? I really don't know what's going to happen next year.

We've seen the GOP become too soft on growth of government and irresponsible spending, repudiating our stands on those subjects. If we pick a nominee that entirely repudiates everything the party has stood for on abortion and sodomy and gun rights, then what exactly do we have left? Just some quivering people who think Rudy might win a war in Iraq or protect us from terrorism at home?

Rudy will destroy everything most of us have ever stood for. We will be left, as Reagan was when he changed from Dim to GOP, saying, "I didn't leave the party, they left me."

And that is the truth. For many of us, smaller government, balanced budgets, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, those are the positions that make us identify with the GOP.

Beyond that, at a time when we have managed to pass DOMA and PBA legislation and have managed to get CCW legislation in so mamy states, why should we vote for a candidate that represents us on nothing? Well, except for some wishful fantasy that he might save our worthless hides from Achmed's bomb.

This is very similar to the California recall with Ahnold vs. McClintock. Remember all those folks who said they must have Ahnold, only Ahnold can beat the Dim, etc.? Notice how they no longer defend him since he is governing as a Dim and talks about being 'post-partisan'? And then Rudy goes out there and praises him as a 'progressive leader' and then shoots off his mouth saying that Owl Gore didn't go quite far enough on global hotting?

No, Rudy is just wrong for the GOP. He's dead wrong for conservatives.

[don-o]

outlawing laws allowing abortion.

You lost me. What laws are those?

[linda_22003]

I think that's exactly what some people intend to do.

[ichabod1]

Well, that's just wrong.