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."

[toddlintown]

"Right or wrong the American people want legal abortion."

Not this American.

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>This guy makes BJ Clinton look like an amateur horn dog.

LOL Got that right!

[harrowup]

Can you point me to the post where I stated abortionists should be jailed or shot? I expected you can do better than logical fallacies. Obviously I overestimated you.

Please note that the emphasis was on choice

"...should be jailed or shot with your weapon of choice...get the point?

And, more specifically your weapon of choice, a right you champion, against the right of choice, which you do not. ...get the point now?

It is illustrative of the hypocrisy of those who hold your position when you cherry pick the Constitution, much as those who hold your position cherry pick the bible.

My motto is that while quotes are your friend, context is your lover.

My apologies for an overly nuanced reposte, and thank you for your most civilized bait. My appetite was ripe.

[harrowup]

Query: Do you support an overturning of Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, et all (even if you are "pro-choice")?

Roe v. Wade? Yes; it was bad law and dumb dumb dumb and the wrong solution to the wrong question. But, it doesn't matter what anyone feels about it now; it isn't going to change until they bring back prohibition.

I don't know Doe v. Bolton, but if the precedent was Roe v. Wade then probably yes.

[narses]

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Giuliani/Clinton/Dem vs. GOP Platform Comparison
Issue	Giuliani	Clinton	Dem Platform	GOP Platform
Abortion on Demand	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Partial Birth Abortion	Supports Opposed NY ban	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Roe v. Wade	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Taxpayer Funded Abortions	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Embryonic Stem Cell Research	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Federal Marriage Amendment	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes Defined at state level	Supports
Gay Domestic Partnership/ Civil Unions	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Openly Gay Military	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Defense of Marriage Act	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes	Supports
Amnesty for Illegal Aliens	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Special Path to Citizenship for Illegal Aliens	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Tough Penalties for Employers of Illegal Aliens	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes	Supports
Sanctuary Cities/ Ignoring Immigration Law	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Protecting 2nd Amendment	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes Supports bans	Supports
Confiscating Guns	Supports Confiscated as mayor. Even bragged.	Supports	Supports Supports bans	Opposes
'Assault' Weapons Ban	Supports	Supports	Supports
Frivolous Lawsuits Against Gun Makers	Supports Filed One Himself	Supports		Opposes
Gun Registration/Licenses	Supports	Supports		Opposes
War in Afghanistan	Supports	Supports Voted for it	Supports	Supports
War in Iraq	Supports	Supports Voted for it	Supports Weak support	Supports
Patriot Act	Supports	Supports Voted for it 2001 & 2006	Opposes	Supports

"Most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine." - Rudy Giuliani

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it.
Rudy Giuliani

[EternalVigilance]

But hey, you can really trust him to appoint "strict constructionist" judges! Really you can! /sarcasm

[markomalley]

"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."

Unfortunately, Rudy is right: since 1973, a woman has the right to choose to sacrifice her unborn child on the altar of Moloch.

Having said that, I will admit that I do respect Rudy for sticking to his position and not trying to remake himself into a pro-life politician for the purposes of the primary season (sort of like one other candidate for the Republican nomination that comes to mind). I don't respect that position...but I do respect that he sticks to it...

[NittanyLion]

My apologies for an overly nuanced reposte

Nuanced? Not really. Unintelligible is a much better descriptor.

It is illustrative of the hypocrisy of those who hold your position when you cherry pick the Constitution

There is no inconsistency in a position that holds that life begins at conception, and thus deserves protection by force of state after that point. Nor is there anything in the Constitution that supports your position, your assertion notwithstanding. While many folks like yourself have a difficult time wrapping your addled minds around that concept, it's actually quite straightforward.

Let's get right to the heart of the matter. Since you refused to answer this the first time I asked, I'll give it another try. When do you think life begins?

much as those who hold your position cherry pick the bible

I know - it really takes a lot of tortuous logic to ignore the 12th Commandment: "Thou shalt always remember that the right to privacy is found in the Constitution - encourage abortions accordingly". Somehow I manage it, but it surely isn't easy.

The truth of the matter is that I wouldn't consider myself an extremely religious person, although I suspect someone so obviously afraid of it as you are would certainly have a different view of me. My opposition to the practice is grounded as much in the protection of individual rights as it is in my religion.

[Aquinasfan]

"Most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine." - Rudy Giuliani

Ugh.

[8mmMauser]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm

[DungeonMaster]

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

Framed by nice language but equivalent to saying:

'A Woman Has a Right to Kill Her Baby'.

[harrowup]

...Let's get right to the heart of the matter. Since you refused to answer this the first time I asked, I'll give it another try. When do you think life begins?

Sorry, I missed that but the flip answer you deserve is:

When do you celebrate your birthday?

Now, I'm really done with you. I am exhausted having to deal with hardheads who wake up cranky. Is that too nuanced for you? No reply required and if provided will reach a dead letter box.

[LtdGovt]

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").

Did you not read Aquinasfan's (I don't think he is a fan of Thomas Aquinas') response? He stated that he would throw his daughter out of the house. That is not demonization, that is a statement of fact. And of course pro-lifers don't all do such things. But once you have a blanket law, such things will happen.

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.

There are a lot of things that you don't understand, not least of which is what I'm preaching here.

[Aquinasfan]

Self-defense is killing, abortion is murder. They both have the same result...the end of a human life at the hand of a fellow man.

These acts have the same result, but the intention and circumstances surrounding the act are different. Thus the acts are differentiated categorically.

Similarly, the taking of another's property without his consent is normally immoral, but under specific circumstances, the taking of another's property without his consent may be moral, as in the case of the taking of food from a supermarket without the owner's consent in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The object of the act is the same, but given different circumstances surrounding the act, the act may or may not accord with reason, and will be categorized as good or evil. The act derives its species from the object of the act, the intention of the actor, and the circumstances surrounding the act.

Question 18. The good and evil of human acts, in general

How does one determine the justness of a war?

Just War Doctrine.

Did God know beforehand of the fall?

Yes.

How is it, that if God is the creator of all, He is not the creator of evil also?

In the light of Catholic doctrine, any theory that may be held concerning evil must include certain points bearing on the question that have been authoritatively defined. These points are

1) the omnipotence, omniscience, and absolute goodness of the Creator;

2) the freedom of the will; and

3) that suffering is the penal consequence of wilful disobedience to the law of God.

A complete account may be gathered from the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, by whom the principles of St. Augustine are systematized, and to some extent supplemented. Evil, according to St. Thomas, is a privation, or the absence of some good which belongs properly to the nature of the creature. (I,Q. xiv, a. 10; Q. xlix, a. 3; Contra Gentiles, III, ix, x). There is therefore no "summum malum", or positive source of evil, corresponding to the "summum bonum", which is God (I, Q. xlix, a. 3; C. G., III, 15; De Malo, I, 1); evil being not "ens reale" but only "ens rationis"--i.e. it exists not as an objective fact, but as a subjective conception; things are evil not in themselves, but by reason of their relation to other things, or persons. All realities (entia) are in themselves good; they produce bad results only incidentally; and consequently the ultimate cause of evil if fundamentally good, as well as the objects in which evil is found (I, Q. xlix; cf. I, Q. v, 3; De Malo, I, 3). Thus the Manichaean dualism has no foundation in reason.

Evil is threefold, viz., "malum naturæ" (metaphysical evil), "culpæ" (moral), and "paenæ" (physical, the retributive consequence of "malum culpæ") (I, Q. xlviii, a. 5, 6; Q. lxiii, a. 9; De Malo, I, 4). Its existence subserves the perfection of the whole; the universe would be less perfect if it contained no evil. Thus fire could not exist without the corruption of what it consumes; the lion must slay the ass in order to live, and if there were no wrong doing, there would be no sphere for patience and justice (I, Q. xlviii, a. 2). God is said (as in Isaiah 45) to be the author of evil in the sense that the corruption of material objects in nature is ordained by Him, as a means for carrying out the design of the universe; and on the other hand, the evil which exists as a consequence of the breach of Divine laws is in the same sense due to Divine appointment; the universe would be less perfect if its laws could be broken with impunity. Thus evil, in one aspect, i.e. as counter-balancing the deordination of sin, has the nature of good (II, Q. ii, a. 19). But the evil of sin (culpæ), though permitted by God, is in no sense due to him (I, Q. xlix, a. 2).; its cause is the abuse of free will by angels and men (I-II, Q. lxxiii, a. 6; II-II, Q. x, a. 2; I-II, Q. ix, a. 3). It should be observed that the universal perfection to which evil in some form is necessary, is the perfection of this universe, not of any universe: metaphysical evil, that is to say, and indirectly, moral evil as well, is included in the design of the universe which is partially known to us; but we cannot say without denying the Divine omnipotence, that another equally perfect universe could not be created in which evil would have no place.

St. Thomas also provides explanations of what are now generally considered to be the two main difficulties of the subject, viz., the Divine permission of foreseen moral evil, and the question finally arriving thence, why God choose to create anything at all. First, it is asked why God, foreseeing that his creatures would use the gift of free will for their own injury, did not either abstain from creating them, or in some way safeguard their free will from misuse, or else deny them the gift altogether? St. Thomas replies (C. G., II, xxviii) that God cannot change His mind, since the Divine will is free from the defect of weakness or mutability. Such mutability would, it should be remarked, be a defect in the Divine nature (and therefore impossible), because if God's purpose were made dependent on the foreseen free act of any creature, God would thereby sacrifice His own freedom, and would submit Himself to His creatures, thus abdicating His essential supremacy--a thing which is, of course, utterly inconceivable. Secondly, to the question why God should have chosen to create, when creation was in no way needful for His own perfection, St. Thomas answers that God's object in creating is Himself; He creates in order to manifest his own goodness, power, and wisdom, and is pleased with that reflection or similitude of Himself in which the goodness of creation consists. God's pleasure is the one supremely perfect motive for action, alike in God Himself and in His creatures; not because of any need, or inherent necessity, in the Divine nature (C. G., I, xxviii; II, xxiii), but because God is the source, centre, and object, of all existence. (I, Q. 65:a. 2; cf. Proverbs 26 and Conc. Vat., can. 1:v; Const. Dogm., 1.) This is accordingly the sufficient reason for the existence of the universe, and even for the suffering which moral evil has introduced into it. God has not made the world primarily for man's good, but for His own pleasure; good for man lies in conforming himself to the supreme purpose of creation, and evil in departing from it (C.G., III, xvii, cxliv). It may further be understood from St. Thomas, that in the diversity of metaphysical evil, in which the perfection of the universe as a whole is embodied, God may see a certain similitude of His own threefold unity (cf. I, Q. xii); and again, that by permitting moral evil to exist He has provided a sphere for the manifestation of one aspect of His essential justice (cf. I, Q. lxv, a. 2; and I, Q. xxi, a. 1, 3).

It is obviously impossible to suggest a reason why this universe in particular should have been created rather than another; since we are necessarily incapable of forming an idea of any other universe than this. Similarly, we are unable to imagine why God chose to manifest Himself by the way of creation, instead of, or in addition to, the other ways, whatever they may be, by which He has, or may have, attained the same end. We reach here the utmost limit of speculation; and our inability to conceive the ultimate reason for creation (as distinct from its direct motive) is paralleled, at a much earlier stage of the enquire, by the inability of the non-creationist schools of thought to assign any ultimate cause for the existence of the order of nature. It will be observed that St. Thomas's account of evil is a true Theodicy, taking into consideration as it does every factor of the problem, and leaving unsolved only the mystery of creation, before which all schools of thought are equally helpless. It is as impossible to know, in the fullest sense, why this world was made as to know how it was made; but St. Thomas has at least shown that the acts of the Creator admit of complete logical justification, notwithstanding the mystery in which, for human intelligence, they can never wholly cease to be involved. On Catholic principles, the amelioration of moral evil and its consequent suffering can only take place by means of individual reformation, and not so much through increase of knowledge as through stimulation or re-direction of the will. But since all methods of social improvement that have any value must necessarily represent a nearer approach to conformity with Divine laws, they are welcomed and furthered by the Church, as tending, at least indirectly, to accomplish the purpose for which she exists.

Can evil be the opposite of God? If so, then wouldn't that make evil equal to God, how is that possible?

Evil is a privation of being. It does not have metaphysical existence per se (i.e., the evil of blindness is the lack of sight). Moral evil is the failure to act in accord with reason. It's existence is relational and logical, but not metaphysical. At the very least, every being has goodness in its being, absolutely considered. Thus, even the devil has goodness in his being, so evil cannot be "the opposite of God."

How do you know what a perfect being can or cannot do?

We can know through reason that God is pure act, since he is the Prime Mover. He possesses the fullness of being. Evil is privation, in essence. So God cannot be evil.

Similarly, irrationality is a privation of rationality.

Don't confuse irrationality with "super-rationality." God cannot be irrational, but He knows things we cannot know, the "super-rational." The "super-rational" is above reason, but not contradictory to it. Thus, man cannot know the "super-rational" truth of the existence of the Trinity through unaided reason, but man can know this truth if it is revealed to him by God.

This truth is "super-rational," but not irrational, since it can be brought into accord with reason. See the section on The Trinity if you're interested.

[Flightdeck]

"A majority of Americans support legal abortions in the first trimester. Are you saying that a majority of Americans has no respect for human life?"

I have no respect for any American who supports abortion in any trimester. Unless they are under the age of twelve, at which point they might not have had the chance to inform themselves.

[Aquinasfan]

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

It looks from these photos that abortion hurts people.

Are you blind, or just lacking all human compassion?

[Aquinasfan]

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.

Why? Do you find the photos of murdered unborn children distasteful? I think abortion is even tougher on them. But nevermind. Go ahead, close your eyes, and continue to support the slaughter.

[LtdGovt]

Even if true, (which I doubt) it still DOESN'T negate that A "Right to Abortion" is found nowhere in the US Const.

I wasn't responding to any such claim. I was responding to someone who claimed that people who support legal abortion aren't respectful of life. That would mean that a majority of Americans aren't respectful of life, and I don't agree with that assertion.

(and most legal scholars), even people who are pro-abortion, admit "Roe v. Wade" and such are bad case law, and have no real legal grounds so to speak..So let me ask you a question: Do you support the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and this issue to be "sent back to the states"?

Roe should be overturned.

[LtdGovt]

I have no respect for any American who supports abortion in any trimester. Unless they are under the age of twelve, at which point they might not have had the chance to inform themselves.

You have no respect for 66% of Americans. Maybe you need to go to join your anti-American comrades in Massachusetts or Afghanistan.

[LtdGovt]

Are you blind, or just lacking all human compassion?

Says the person who would throw his own minor daughter out of the house.