Dear LtdGovt,
"He said no such thing, he said 'right'. He did not state that the right is a constitutional right."
Over the years, Mr. Giuliani has referred to "a woman's constitutional right to choose" an abortion.
Maybe he's recently dropped "constitutional" from his lexicon, but that's a relatively new development.
"'Rather, I said that I think that the case could be made for such a judicial ruling. It is certainly easier to make the case that an appropriate interpretation of the Constitution would BAN abortion rather than BAN laws restricting abortion.'
"That's a hard position to defend."
I don't disagree. I merely said that it's easier to make the case than that the Constitution bans abortion.
"Unfortunately, all activists see their work as 'interpeting the law' (no offense), even when it isn't. It is my firm belief that it is the duty of the government to provide me with 100 bottles of wine a year. Now would that be strict constructionism? That's a ridiculous comparison, but you catch the drift."
Yup, I catch your drift. You caught it from me.
My point is that "strict constructionism" may not mean the same thing to you, or me, as it means to some politician.
One reason why I was willing to vote for Mr. Bush was that he'd said before that Roe should go. Thus, when he talked about "strict constructionist," I could draw a straight line from what he believed specifically about Roe to what he'd consider a "strict constructionist."
For the very same reason, using the very same logic, I won't vote for Mr. Giuliani.
"Similarly, the Constituion only protects those who have already been born."
That's one interpretation.
sitetest
I could refer to abortion as a woman's constitutional right. When would I do that? When I'm making a factual statement. Right now, the Supreme Court does interpret the constitution as conferring on women the right to get an abortion. In that case, your personal beliefs don't matter.
As for strict constructionism, yeah, the meaning of that may be uncertain. But it's not uncertain what the judicial philosophies of Scalia, Roberts and Alito are, and Giuliani has promised to name judges like them.