Posted on 04/04/2007 12:52:50 PM PDT by KantianBurke
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told CNN Wednesday he supports public funding for some abortions, a position he advocated as mayor and one that will likely put the GOP presidential candidate at odds with social conservatives in his party.
"Ultimately, it's a constitutional right, and therefore if it's a constitutional right, ultimately, even if you do it on a state by state basis, you have to make sure people are protected," Giuliani said in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash in Florida's capital city.
A video clip of the then-mayoral candidate issuing a similar declaration in 1989 in a speech to the "Women's Coalition" appeared recently on the Internet.
"There must be public funding for abortions for poor women," Giuliani says in the speech that is posted on the video sharing site YouTube. "We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decisions about abortion."
When asked directly Wednesday if he still supported the use of public funding for abortions, Giuliani said "Yes."
"If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right," he explained, "If that's the status of the law, yes."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Thanks for that KATIE-O.
With all the responsibilities and burdens on the office of the President - I don’t like seeing abortion used for or against any candidate - it’s unfair.
You cannot win - you cannot lose - you only squirm in your seat and hope to offend as few people as possible.
Horrible issue - awful.
Yeah Ok - I’m a big liar.
Thanks for that.
“Also - as the D.C. court decision just showed us - we’re all safe from anyone attacking the 2nd amendment.”
You have to be truly delusional to think that. Google HR 1022.
“Isn’t paying poor people to kill their kids racist?”
“if liberal Democrats have proportionately more abortions..”
Had a chart once that showed that about the libs. The stats on abortion by race show that blacks are losing a lot of children that way. (and probably why hispanics will be the new “big” minority) Your tagline is correct!
I’m all in favor of backing away from socialism. But it’s not going to happen while welfare addicts, who are inherently pro-socialism and often violent if they don’t get their “entitlements”, are reproducing a lot faster than productive citizens.
Actually, the history of socialist approaches to population control is not one-sided. In Soviet-era Romania, the people were so miserable that they were choosing not to reproduce, and the government decided it had to force its breeder-subjects to breed more bodies to staff the military and industrial schemes of the leaders. Having babies was mandatory, and women who were failing to get and stay pregnant were forced to undergo medical exams, and if found to be using any sort of contraceptive or having had abortions, they (and their husbands if they were married) were punished with the loss of their state-provided housing (the only housing available) and their state-provided jobs (the only jobs available). Abortion and contraception were allowed only for women who were over 40 or had at least 4 children, and the law was later changed to limit these options to women who were over 45 or had more than 5 children.
All you Rutards are so busy pretending Rudy is a conservative Republican and not the stinking liberal that he is that you have to pretend away a bunch of other stuff while you're at it. Now you're pretending that the President of the United States has "nothing" to do with abortion and that it is "unreasonable too expect a POTUS to do anything" about abortion. You are wrong and intentionally so.
Let's review SOME of what each President has done for or against abortion from Reagan to Bush II:
President Ronald Reagan 1981-1989:
“My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have meaning.” -President Ronald Reagan
- President Reagan supported legislation to challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand.
- President Reagan adopted the “Mexico City Policy,” which cut off U.S. foreign aid funds to private organizations that performed and promoted abortion overseas.
- The Reagan Administration cut off funding to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) because that agency violated U.S. law by participating in China’s compulsory abortion program.
- The Reagan Administration adopted regulations to prohibit federally funded “family planning” clinics from promoting abortion as a method of birth control.
- The Reagan Administration blocked the use of federal funds for research using tissue from aborted babies.
- The Reagan Administration helped win enactment of the Danforth Amendment which established that federally funded education institutions are not guilty of “sex discrimination” if they refuse to pay for abortions.
- President Reagan introduced the topic of fetal pain into public debate.
- The Reagan Administration played a key role in enactment of legislation to protect the right to life of handicapped newborns and signed the legislation into law.
- President Reagan designated a National Sanctity of Human Life Day in recognition of the value of human life at all stages. President Reagan wrote a book entitled Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation, in which he made the case against legal abortion and in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.
President George H. W. Bush 1989-1993
“Since 1973, there have been about 20 million abortions. This a tragedy of shattering proportions.”“The Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned.” -President George H.W. Bush
- The Bush Administration urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to pass laws to protect unborn children, stating “protection of innocent human life -- in or out of the womb -- is certainly the most compelling interest that a State can advance.”
- President Bush opposed the “Freedom of Choice Act,” a bill which, he said, “would impose on all 50 states an unprecedented regime of abortion on demand, going well beyond Roe v. Wade.” The President pledged, “It will not become law as long as I am President of the United States.” President Bush vowed, “I will veto any legislation that weakens current law or existing regulations” pertaining to abortion. He vetoed 10 bills that contained proabortion provisions, including four appropriations bills which allowed for taxpayer funding of abortion.
- President Bush vetoed U.S. funding of the UNFPA, citing the agency’s participation in the management of China’s forced abortion program.
- President Bush strongly defended the “Mexico City Policy,” which cut off U.S. foreign aid funds to private organizations that performed and promoted abortion overseas. Three separate legal challenges to the policy by pro-abortion organizations were defeated by the Administration in federal courts.
- President Bush prohibited 4,000 federally funded family planning clinics from counseling and referring for abortions.
- President Bush steadfastly refused to fund research that encouraged or depended on abortion, including transplantation of tissues harvested from aborted babies.
- The Bush Administration prohibited personal importation of the French abortion pill, RU-486.
- The Bush Administration prohibited the performance of abortion on U.S. military bases, except to save the mother’s life and fought Congressional attempts to reverse this policy.
President William Clinton 1993-2001
President Bill Clinton said he has “always been pro-choice” and has “never wavered” in his “support for Roe v. Wade.” “I have believed in the rule of Roe v. Wade for 20 years since I used to teach it in law school.”
- President Clinton urged the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade.
- The Clinton Administration endorsed the socalled “Freedom of Choice Act,” (a bill to prohibit states from limiting abortion even if Roe v. Wade is overturned). FOCA was defeated in Congress.
- The Clinton Administration urged Congress to make abortion a part of a mandatory national health insurance “benefits package,” forcing all taxpayers to pay for virtually all abortions. The Clinton Health Care legislation died in Congress.
- President Clinton unsuccessfully attempted to repeal the Hyde Amendment, the law that prohibits federal funding of abortion except in rare cases.
- President Clinton twice used his veto to kill legislation that would have placed a national ban on partial-birth abortions. President Clinton ordered federally funded family planning clinics to counsel and refer for abortion.
- The Clinton Administration ordered federal funding of experiments using tissue from aborted babies. President Clinton’s appointees proposed using federal funds for research in which human embryos would be killed.
- President Clinton ordered U.S. military facilities to provide abortions. President Clinton ordered his appointees to facilitate the introduction of RU 486 in the U.S.
- The Clinton Administration resumed funding to the pro-abortion UNFPA, which participates in management of China’s forced abortion program.
- President Clinton restored U.S. funding to pro-abortion organizations in foreign nations. His administration declared abortion to be a “fundamental right of all women,” and ordered U.S. ambassadors to lobby foreign governments for abortion.
- The Clinton Administration’s representatives to the United Nations and to U.N. meetings worked to establish an international “right” to abortion.
President George W. Bush 2001-Present
“The promises of our Declaration of Independence are not just for the strong, the independent, or the healthy. They are for everyone -- including unborn children. We are a society with enough compassion and wealth and love to care for both mothers and their children, to see the promise and potential in every human life.” -President George W. Bush
- During his first week in office, President Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which prevents tax funds from being given to organizations that perform and promote abortion overseas. He threatened to veto an appropriations bill unless a provision overturning the policy was removed.
- President Bush declared that federal funds will not be used for stem cell research that would require the destruction of human embryos. His threat of a veto stopped an attempt in the U.S. Senate to provide funding for such research.
- President Bush has stopped many anti-life initiatives by threatening vetoes -- including proposals to allow abortion to be covered in federal employees’ health insurance plans, and allow abortions to be performed in U.S. military medical facilities and within the federal prison system.
- The Bush Administration ruled that federally controlled substances cannot be used to assist suicides. When the decision was overturned in federal district court, the Administration appealed the case.
- President Bush has strongly backed a U.S. ban on human cloning and helped defeat a “clone and kill” proposal in 2001.
- President Bush has helped win U.S. House approval of pro-life measures including the Child Custody Protection Act and the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act.
- President Bush promoted and signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which protects all infants born alive, including those who survive abortion.
- The Bush Administration’s representatives to the United Nations and to UN meetings and conferences have fought repeated efforts to establish an international “right” to abortion. President Bush promoted and signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which bans the use of the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure.
- President Bush supported and signed into law the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes unborn children as victims of violent federal crimes.
Yeah Ok - now I am a liar and delusional.
Thanks for that also.
Charming aren’t you?
When you list it out like that, it becomes rather foolish to continue accusing those who oppose Rudy Guiliani as “single-issue” folks. Seems to me those who support him only have three issues they wish to sell to others:
He’ll be tough on the terrorists (as if the other candidates running won’t be; well, I don’t know about McCain, given his backstabbing of the president on the WOT)
He’ll be a fiscal conservative (as if the other candidates running won’t be but given his stance on making taxpayers fund abortions, he doesn’t sound all that “fiscally conservative” to me)
He’s promised to appoint “strict constitutionalists” to the courts but if he believe Roe v. Wade is constitutional, I guess we can look forward to more justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg!
Frankly, I won’t be voting for this guy. I don’t see much of a difference in domestic policy with him or any of the DemocRATS.
From a 2000 interview with Tim Russert:
Tim Russert: How about registration of ALL handguns?
Rudy Giuliani: Uh, you know I’m in favor of that. I’ve been on your show many times, talking about, uh, the program that the president (Clinton) talked about in his state of the union speech - I have been giving speeches about and talked about on your show for the last 10 to 15 years. Which is, I believe, is that we should treat the possession of a handgun the way we treat driving an automobile.
And therefore a person who wants to possess a handgun should pass a written test, should be able to pass a physical test in the actual use of the gun, and should have to demonstrate good moral character and a REASON to have the gun.
That those should be, essentially there should be a UNIFORM LAW PASSED BY CONGRESS that says that every state has to administer that, the way we say that we’re not going to let you drive an automobile if you’re too young, we’re not going let you drive an automobile if you had a bad record, and uh, every state has a slightly different variation of that, but every state has a uniform law that guarantees our safety. I think the two things are good analogies, and I’ve been arguing for that since at least 1980.
You and I both know the words "strict constructionist" and "supply-sider" had never passed Rudy's lips until two months ago.
So far, he's attempted to finesse his positions on partial birth abortion and gun control, he's done the talk show circuit trumpeting his experience appointing judges as mayor until it turned out they were lefties then he suddenly had nothing to do with it and just last week he said his wife would sit in on cabinet meetings and then backed off that within a day.
Is that saying what you mean and meaning what you say?
Name 5 other people that have been labeled "fiscal conservatives" that support government funded abortions.
“Yeah Ok - I’m a big liar.
Thanks for that.”
Are you?
What I said was that trying to spin rudy as being only for gun control in new york is a big lie. It is. He wants gun control on EVERY level.
Want to try to dispute that?
Just once I’d like to see the tagline, “Recovering Rudybot.”
How hard would it be for these freepers to say, “At last, I just couldn’t support him anymore!”
Come on, Rudybots. Just switch. It won’t bleed from your ears.
Just like your boy Rudy. So, are you in love with me too?
So your version of morality is to heavily tax productive citizens, and then have the bulk of the government’s medical care budget spent on people who paid little or nothing into the system, and in many cases freely chose to pursue lifestyles that would ensure they had myriad expensive health problems? Because that’s what Medicare and Medicaid are all about.
Words such as macabre, grotesque, and sickening don't begin to fully describe such liberal lunacy.
Ex-prosecutor Giuliani believes the rest of us should be forced to pay for the wanton slaughter of the most innocent and helpless among us. And this doesn't bother you?
The straight-talkin Rudy nonsense is absolute BS. He is as big a panderer as there is.
Oh come on - a single issue and you strip away the ability of someone to be a “fiscal conservative”
No more time for you - reason is out the window.
Good luck to you and your candidate.
You won’t get any objection from me to that plan. Especially if passive contraceptives were offered and not used.
As always, some only see and read what they want to see and read.
The second sentence is just as important as the first.
The status of the law is that Medicaid pays for abortion for poor women in cases of rape or incest, and when the woman's life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury.
Any candidate that tells you that he will change that status is lying to you.
But for some, that is what they look for most in a candidate, someone who will lie, who will tell them what they want to hear.
Whether it is that he will get enacted a Constitutional marriage amendment or that he will- while abortion is not only legal but a Constitutional right- defund all Medicaid abortions.
Say what you will about Giuliani, unlike almost all politicians, he respects the electorate by telling the truth. Even while turning off the knee jerk voters he would need.
Giuliani's candidacy is a unique experiment in American politics. Can an accomplished and hugely successful politician still win when telling voters the truth without pandering.
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