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.

[Spiff]

The woman does have a right to choose.

To "choose" exactly WHAT? And where did she get that "right"?

[Spiff]

Rudy Giuliani Supports Partial Birth Abortion...Do You?

[GEORGE] WILL: Is your support of partial birth abortion firm?
Mayor GIULIANI: All of my positions are firm. I have strong viewpoints. I express them. And I--I do not think that it makes sense to be changing your position....
ABC News February 6, 2000

---

TUCHMAN: Giuliani was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions, something Bush strongly supports.
GIULIANI: No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing.
- CNN December 2, 1999

---

BLITZER: If you were in the Senate and [President Clinton] vetoed, once again, the [ban on the] so-called partial-birth abortion procedure, you would vote against sustaining that against the -- in favor of the veto in other words, you would support the president on that.
GIULIANI: Yes. I said then that I support him, so I have no reason to change my mind about it.
BLITZER: All right. So the bottom line is that on a lot of these very sensitive issues whether on guns, abortion, patients' bill of rights, taxes, you are more in line with the president and by association, with Mrs. Clinton, than you are against them.
- CNN February 6, 2000

---

MR. RUSSERT: A banning of late-term abortions, so-called partial-birth abortions--you're against that?

MAYOR GIULIANI: I'm against it in New York, because in New York...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, if you were a senator, would you vote with the president or against the president? [Note: President Clinton was in office in 2000]

MAYOR GIULIANI: I would vote to preserve the option for women. I think that choice is a very difficult one. It's a very, very--it's one in which people of conscious have very, very different opinions. I think the better thing for America to do is to leave that choice to the woman, because it affects her probably more than anyone else....

MR. RUSSERT: So you won't change your view on late-term abortion in order to get the Conservative Party endorsement?

MAYOR GIULIANI: It isn't just that. We shouldn't limit this to one issue. I'm generally not going to change my views
- NBC Meet the Press, February 6, 2000

---

***Note: the version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban that Giuliani opposed in 2000, that he said he supported Bill Clinton in vetoing the Republican-controlled Congress's legislation, contained the exception for the life of the mother that Rudy is now trying to pretend is a prerequisite for his support.

[Tribune7]

He may not be sane
And I do feel some shame
But I feel obliged to note
That I think my vote
Is going to John McCain.

[sitetest]

LOL!! Very good!!

[TalonDJ]

I have thought really hard and I just don't see how I can support Rudy. I can't sign my name to the stuff he supports. Probably not even as the lesser of two evils. Someday I will have to vouch for the evils I picked and I don't think 'the lesser' will be an acceptable answer for the millions of innocents this country is murdering. Yeah, I care about social security reform, and tax cuts, and defense, blah blah blah. All that is nothing in a country that devalues life endorses murder, and erodes the right of self defense.

[Lurker]

What do you think of abortion in cases of rape?

I say abort the rapist.

Why kill an innocent that has committed no crime?

L

[LtdGovt]

They did NOT say that the logical step, if the humanity of unborn children were adequately demonstrated, was to overturn state laws that permitted abortion to one degree or other. There was never a hint that the tyrants, had they been forced to acknowledge the humanity of unborn children, would have struck down liberal abortion laws in states like California and New York.

They never do. But if you're familiar with law, you would know that judges always deal with the issues at hand, and with no more. It is quite possible that, had the justices recognized that unborn fetuses are humans, they would have declared those laws invalid. Of course, it is much easier to allow states to make that determination, but that's not what Duncan Hunter is advocating, is he?

The logical result of justices who see sonograms and who affirm the humanity of unborn children, in terms of judicial rulings, would be to rule that one of the necessary premises of Roe was vitiated, and therefore, Roe must be vacated.

Roe can be overturned on many other grounds. I doubt that C.J. Roberts will vacate Roe because he thinks that fetuses are human. And as I said before, I take it as significant that Hunter is not making the same promises that Bush made. Bush never said anything about abortion, except that he would have no litmus test. Hunter does have a litmus test.

That being said, once Roe was overturned, that might be a logical next step for those seeking a ban of abortion, to find some way to bring a case to the Court where the question might be whether or not liberal abortion laws impermissibly infringe on the rights of unborn human beings.

They don't. The Constitution does not afford equal protection to those not born. And it would be a blatant act of judicial activism that would probably result in a constitutional amendment being passed allowing abortion-on-demand. I'm sure you don't want that.

[LtdGovt]

I say abort the rapist. Why kill an innocent that has committed no crime?

That's not the question. The question is, do we want to punish a woman who has been raped, remember her of that horrific act every day, and force her to bear the child of her rapist. Now I don't know about you, but I find that to be disgusting.

[007girl]

In the 80s, 007Girl, you'd have been commended by others in the G.O.P. Sadly, today many will verbally tar and feather you as a 'radical conservative standing alongside the others out on the fringes of the Right'.

True that! I have been verbally attacked by my own family for voting right! :o

[George W. Bush]

The logical result of justices who see sonograms and who affirm the humanity of unborn children, in terms of judicial rulings, would be to rule that one of the necessary premises of Roe was vitiated, and therefore, Roe must be vacated.

Precisely. If, for instance, we still had laws on the books about witches and how to determine if they were witches by tossing them in water to see if they float, the Court would strike those down as being based on faulty reasoning which was subsequently disproved by science. Therefore, they would strike it down, despite that such laws would have a stare decisis of many centuries.

If the supposed scientific premise is utterly flawed, any previous ruling of the Court can be overturned. That does not mean that justices who do so are turning into judicial activists. It was the Roe Court who turned themselves into medical experts and imposed their judgment based on very incomplete information.

[xzins]

I'm looking at all of them except McCain.

My current order is:

Hunter, Gingrich, Tancredo, Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney, McCain.

I still like Cheney, Frist, Franks, North but they're not running.

[tumblindice]

"My intention was not to say that Roe was sound, but to say that it is permissable for states to allow abortion (i.e., abortion is constitutional)."

Apparently I misinterpreted nothing.

I was merely pointing out to you that your adoption of the position that it is permissable for the states to allow abortion is like saying that all guns should be held in the hands of only the military and the police, and the USA should just say, "To hell with national sovereignty . . " and merge with Mexico and Canada into a North American Union. And so forth and so on.
In a sense, I was paying a compliment to the owner of FR and its Moderators for their tolerance in allowing the expression of positions/opinions here that would be similar to Democratic Underground allowing posters to flog its trollish participants with endless posts featuring a conservative candidate in favor of, say, machine guns for all, controlling our borders and making the evil, sordid & murderous business of abortion illegal (as it should be).

FR allows "devil's advocates" while DU does not. So more power to us, and what say, LtG--wanna do the "superiority strut"? ;^)

[babygene]

"You surely know it doesn't work like that. Roe overturned all state law that regulated / banned abortion at the time. A reversal of Roe puts the responsibility / power back to the states."

Not necessarily. If the USSC ruled that a fetus was a person, the states would not be able to deny this "person" it's constitutional rights.

So, I guess your wrong...

[Politicalmom]

Somehow I don't think that is one of the inalienable right give to us by our Creator.

[sitetest]

Dear LtdGovt,

You appear to be arguing out of both sides of your keyboard.

On the one hand, you interpret Mr. Hunter's remarks as meaning that he believes that the Court should rule abortions unconstitutional.

In contrast, I showed that he's merely pointing out one that one of the necessary premises of Roe is false.

Thus, by appointing justices who believe the evidence of their eyes, that unborn children are human beings, he will be assured that they will overturn Roe, as one of its necessary premises will have been undone.

But you insist that he's implicitly going beyond that.

Yet, you argue that even should the humanity of unborn children be established, it still wouldn't be constitutional for the Court to ban abortion.

You need to decide which argument you wish to advance, as they are like horses that are going in divergent directions, and if you try to continue to ride both, you will likely lose a leg or something.

"The Constitution does not afford equal protection to those not born."

I know that no one has ever interpreted the Constitution thusly, but if the Court were to determine that the unborn child is, in fact, a human being, I think it isn't difficult to find an interpretation of the Constitution that would generally restrict abortion.


sitetest

[George W. Bush]

That's not the question. The question is, do we want to punish a woman who has been raped, remember her of that horrific act every day, and force her to bear the child of her rapist. Now I don't know about you, but I find that to be disgusting.

This is just an outdated argument of the Left. Virtually everywhere in America, any woman (including victims of rape) can get morning-after drugs to stop a pregnancy. In fact, they work very similarly to being on the Pill.

Don't sit there ignorantly bleating the pro-infanticide position and pretending that this is the Fifties or the Sixties. Back then, abortion was considered necessary by some because of the unreliability of condoms and diaphrams and spermicidal jellies. Today, it is very very different. And we also know that the signs of human life appear much much earlier than anyone knew at that time.

Roe simply would not be so radical if it were to be decided today. It is an inhuman ruling, based on flawed information about fetal development and assumptions about the reliability of existing birth control methods.

[Delphinium]

I hate that term "right to choose."

Just shows how callous he is, and "they" are.

[xzins]

You are confusing law with right. Despite what many have forgotten, a law can be wrong, immoral, poorly crafted, etc.

There is now great dispute over the "right" of cities to seize property. My city of Cincinnati just had a court rule against it. But, even then, there would never be a "right" for cities to seize property. First, cities don't have rights. People do. People have a right to be secure. That security extends to searches and seizures. There are special circumstances that will allow a city to take property for public uses. It is a legal concession. It is not a "right."

The constitution does not even mention abortion, so it fails at the level of initial inspection. The Constitution does say in the 5th amendment, OVERTLY, that "no person shall be deprived of LIFE..."

So, LIFE is a MENTIONED right.

[Liz]

On Wednesday, Giuliani reiterated his own position..... "I believe that a woman has the right to choose"..... that makes it impossible for me to vote for Giuliani. Impossible. No person has the right to end the life of another person unless their own life is seriously, legitimately threatened by that other person. There is no right to choose. None. Nada.

Nice take. Thank you.

It's worthwhile to remember that pro-lifers are merely treating Rudy the way he's treated unborn children-------as a disposable nuisance.

Rudy is not just "pro-abortion." Rudy is joined at the hip to the most radical pro-abortion elements---NARAL, Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion-on-demand-with-the-govt-picking-up-the-tab crowd.

Giuliani used his Mayoral term to advance abortion EVEN THOUGH, AS MAYOR, HE HAD NO LEGISLATIVE OR OFFICIAL MANDATE TO DO DO SO.

From the FEC database: 04/24/1999 Donations
NEW YORK STATE NARAL INC WOMEN'S HEALTH PAC

NARAL donated exclusively to Democrat candidates with one exception----Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani accepted $1,000 from NARAL in 1999.

NARAL gave $250 to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

NARAL gave $1000---4 times as much-----to pro-abortion Giuliani.

Clearly, NARAL trusted Rudy's pro-abortion credentials, and Rudy's willingness to advance NARAL's radical abortion-on-demand agenda, even more than NARAL trusted Hillary.

Rudy was the honored guest speaker and made The Opening Remarks to the N.A.R.A.L. "Champions of Choice" Luncheon few years back.

In a CNN interview, Giuliani indicated he does not support even a modest ban on the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure saying, "No, I have not supported that, and I don't see my position on that changing." Giuliani also indicated he would have upheld President Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban.

Mayor Rudy told Phil Donahue he'd give his daughter the money for an abortion (to get rid of his own grandchild).

Once the pro-abort savages start the killing----who knows where it will end?

Way before 1973, Planned Parenthood savages were telling an alarmed populace that abortions would only be performed---and very reluctantly, at that----in the direst of circumstances----rape, incest, health/life of the mother. Their lies about abortion persisted up to and including 1973 when the USSC infamously legalized it.

We now know Planned Parenthood and the NARAL crowd all along wanted (1) abortion on demand with the govt picking up the tab, (2) abortion as birth control, (3) multiple abortions for convenience, (4) abortion when sex of the child is unwanted, (5) abortion for every conceivable birth defect, (6) late term partial birth abortions (read infanticide), and (7) who knows what they're plotting next.

Whatever it is, Giuliani is on the pro-abort side all the way.