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

NewsMax ^ | Feb 22, 2007 | NewsMax.com Staff

[Reagan Man]

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.

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."

[madprof98]

Listen to this statement from another candidate who, like Giuliani, claims to see the downside of abortion:

This decision, which is one of the most fundamental, difficult and soul searching decisions a woman and a family can make, is also one in which the government should have no role. I believe we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. Often, it's a failure of our system of education, health care, and preventive services. It's often a result of family dynamics. This decision is a profound and complicated one; a difficult one, often the most difficult that a woman will ever make. The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

If Rudy had said this, the Rudywagon team here would be squealing in delight at his thoughtful, pro-woman approach to this very complex dilemma. Actually, of course, the statement is from HILLARY, who may very well put herself forth as the more conservative of the two 2008 nominees when it comes to abortion. Certainly we now have plenty of FReepers who sound more callous than she does when it comes to killing the unwanted.

[NapkinUser]

"But we Rudy Supporters don't intend to change at this point."

Speak only for yourself. The truth may set many other Rudymites free.

[George W. Bush]

Thanks for the PriestsForLife links. The photos and modern sonograms can speak to the reality of abortion far more than just words.

I've been wondering when we'll hear more from conservative Catholics and bishops and the pro-life organizations. I expect we will soon enough. I think they're giving Rudy a chance to repent. Or at least to put the rope around his own neck with pro-life voters as he just did in this article.

[Diamond]

...being a Constitutional conservative means you believe in the principle of individual freedom. Even the freedom to abortion.

There is nothing in the principle of individual freedom that entitles one, short of self defense of one's own physical life, to commit homicide. Depriving the innocent of their lives and consequently their individual freedom contradicts your own principle. Parents have an obligation to care for and protect their children, not kill them.

Cordially,

[hellbender]

The Constitution never granted courts the power to create new laws or rights. It set up a specific formal procedure for amending the Constitution. There is no "right to abortion" in the Constitution. You're the one who doesn't believe in the American form of government, because you don't want the people, through their elected representatives, to decide these issues. You want a bunch of senile unelected judges to do so.

[Aquinasfan]

God gives us the right to make war doesn't He?

Just wars, yes. That's the difference between killing and murder. Self-defense is killing. Abortion is murder.

Where is the sense in plagues, or starvation, or natuaral disasters?

Natural evils are a consequence of the Fall, or man's choice to disobey God. God can bring good out of evil, even natural evils. God permits evil and has within His power the ability to bring greater good from it, which is the salvation of souls. Eternal life with God is man's greatest good, not eternal life on earth.

If you're truly interested in the subject of evil, I can't recommend this entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia highly enough. Evil. But you seem to revel in indifference, skepticism, and doubt.

How do you know what God can or cannot do?

Man can know that God cannot do the nonsensical, irrational or impossible, because God is a perfect being, not imperfect like us.

[George W. Bush]

I challenged you to provide any founding document of the U.S. which says that "they have a right to do everything they want, as long as it doesn't harm others."

Actually, isn't that the Wiccan thing? Isn't their Golden Rule "An' it harm none, do what ye will"?

Of course, Wicca is a phony pagan religion invented back in the 1920's. But your post tickled me a little.

[GretchenM]

To say a woman has a right to choose to kill her unborn baby is like saying you endorse mob rule, the bigger people get to rule. Now Rudy, think this through: you, who cut down crime so much in NY because you went after the perps. How can you possibly reconcile your job as an enforcer of the law with this stance that the big mother can kill the little baby?

[George W. Bush]

Keep that Hillary quote handy for these Rudy threads. I think we're going to need it.

[LtdGovt]

You don't seem to understand that the child is choosing to put her child through a meat-grinder. Are you going to stand by and say, "whatever"?

Do you care about your daughter or not? All I know is that it is evil to throw a minor out of the house for aborting a fertilized egg. You see, people like you are why parental notification laws sometimes fail (Oregon, California, 2006). People don't want young girls to be thrown out of the house, killed or assaulted because they wanted to have an abortion.

Look at these photos and tell me that you would stand by and let your daughter slaughter her own child.

No, I don't think I like those.

[N3WBI3]

Funny how a pro choice company asked the questions.. Lets ask it this way..

Are you ok with the government passing a law against half delivering a baby then jabbing scissors in its brain. Betcaha would get a different answer.

At one point a majority of Americans were fine with slavery, even those that opposed it thought that it was not their place to impose on another.. Some evil is ok in the eyes of sinful man and when they do nothing they are complicit..

Nominate Rudy and watch the republicans get thumped..

[LtdGovt]

I challenged you to provide any founding document of the U.S. which says that "they have a right to do everything they want, as long as it doesn't harm others."

You did no such thing. Don't try to twist your own words. In fact, you said that I should read the Federalist Papers and other documents, but there was no challenge.

You then proceed to dodge, evade, and not respond. Come on, open those "nifty books" and find an answer to my question.

Please provide me with the references, and I will. Unless, of course, you don't know what you're talking about, which is still a possibility.

Oh. I guess you're one of those who think the Constitution is a "living, breathing document?" Or maybe that we should ignore it entirely, because it was written by a bunch of bigoted dead white men?

Not really. I do say that what the world I want to live in, is different from the immediate vision of the Founding Fathers. I said nothing about the Constitution.

I notice you don't deny being under 20...hehe. My self-image is just fine, by the way.

The fact that you felt the need to affirm your supposedly good self-image, says a lot. Or you're in denial, which I can't rule out.

Nowhere did I "propose" any such government. I simply said that local governments had the authority under the Constitution to do things like that. Always have and probably always will. There has never been a society anywhere on earth which lived according to your fantasies.

Absolutely ridiculous. Why should local governments regulate alcohol and gambling?

You were the one who said there was an absolute right to gamble or get drunk. When I referred to doing drugs..well, I regard alcohol as just another drug.

I've heard that before. Are you a Muslim?

[LtdGovt]

Acts that don't hurt peopel aren't evil.

[Rastus]

Good for Rudy! He speaks his mind and doesn't hide what he believes. It makes my decision to never, ever vote for him that much clearer when I don't have to parse his words.

[Oliver Optic]

Whatever happened to the conservative mantra that government should stay out of your affairs...and now you want the government to outlaw a woman's right to choose?

Harrow, that argument is not worthy of you. The woman's right to choose what?

Should the government outlaw a woman's right to choose to kill her aged parents ... her newborn baby ... her toddler?

If it is not contrary to conservative principles for the government to protect a one-minute-old baby, it is not contrary to conservative principles to protect the same baby sixty seconds earlier.

[LtdGovt]

We allow all kinds of activities to go on in "public places." People get up and make speeches, pass out leaflets, hold art exhibits, play musical instruments, etc. Why not allow those nice "sex workers" to ply their trade, hmm? They're not "harming anybody, and "everyone can do whatever they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone." Everyone knows prostitution is a victimless crime, just like gambling or getting drunk, right?

It is. I don't see why my tax dollars should be wasted on cracking down on prostitution. Legalize it, and tax it. But it should be restricted to certain areas.

Oh, now you admit that rights are limited by the rights of other people?

The lack of communication between your neurons is staggering. In fact, I have always argued that people only have the right to do things that don't harm other people.

Then the right of a woman to "choose" abortion is null because she is depriving another human being of the paramount right, the right to life.

Perhaps. It depends on the question where life begins.

As for historic precedents, try the Soviet Union. Abortion was a "right," and officially encouraged. That's about the only right anyone had over there. Then there's modern Europe, which is following the logical progression from abortion/infanticide, to euthanasia of the old, to assisted suicide for the mentally ill, etc.

You haven't answered my question. The fact that the Soviet Union allowed abortion, in itself, does not mean that legal abortion necessarily means that euthanasia and assisted suicide were going to be allowed. Europe alone isn't enough, you need two other precedents.

[Sloth]

I just can't believe that any person, no matter how evil, would do this to his own kin.

A good description of how vile abortion is.

[Sloth]

It depends on the question where life begins.

You speak as though that question were still up in the air. It's not. It's scientifically settled, and has been for quite some time. Ask any biologist or medical doctor.

[Sabramerican]

What you won't admit is that the Court interprets the Constitution and gives the people what they want. When the court errs, the legislature corrects.

If the people of the United States didn't want abortion legal, after all these years, the executives and the legislators would all be pro-life, all appointing and confirming pro life judges. And abortion would be illegal.

Even if somehow Roe was overturned, abortion would continue almost everywhere.

[madprof98]

You see, people like you are why parental notification laws sometimes fail (Oregon, California, 2006). People don't want young girls to be thrown out of the house, killed or assaulted because they wanted to have an abortion.

Wrong. It is people like YOU who are responsible for the failure of parental notification laws--i.e., people who demonize pro-lifers ("thrown out of the house, killed, assaulted") and ridicule their beliefs ("aborting a fertilized egg"). I don't understand why you are on this forum preaching a Gospel of Death. Surely they could use your services over at Planned Parenthood.