Posted on 01/18/2007 9:27:26 AM PST by Dark Skies
As pro-lifers prepare to mark Monday’s 34th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision, many wonder whether they could support former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani for president despite his pro-choice views. While some of Giuliani’s statements on abortion make pro-lifers fret, they should find his record surprisingly reassuring.
“I don’t like abortion,” Giuliani said in South Carolina’s The State newspaper last November 21. “I don’t think abortion is a good thing. I think we ought to find some alternative to abortion, and that there ought to be as few as possible.”
Nevertheless, Giuliani’s pro-life critics point to his April 5, 2001 address to the National Abortion Rights Action League’s “Champions of Choice” luncheon in Manhattan.
“As a Republican who supports a woman’s right to choose, it is particularly an honor to be here,” Giuliani said. He added: “The government shouldn’t dictate that choice by making it a crime or making it illegal.”
“I have a daughter now,” Giuliani told TV’s Phil Donahue during his unsuccessful 1989 mayoral campaign. Giuliani continued: “I would give my personal advice, my religious and moral views…I would help her with taking care of the baby. But if the ultimate choice of the woman -- my daughter or any other woman -- would be that in this particular circumstance, to have an abortion, I’d support that. I’d give my daughter the money for it.”
But did Giuliani’s mayoral deeds match such words?
According to the state Office of Vital Statistics, total abortions performed in New York City between 1993 (just before Giuliani arrived) and 2001 (as he departed) fell from 103,997 to 86,466 -- a 16.86 percent decrease. This upended a 10.32 percent increase compared to eight years before Giuliani, when 1985 witnessed 94,270 abortions.
What about Medicaid-financed abortions? Under Giuliani, such taxpayer-funded feticides dropped 22.85 percent, from 45,006 in 1993 to 34,722 in 2001.
The abortion ratio also slid from 890 terminations per 1,000 live births in 1993 to 767 in 2001, a 13.82 percent tail-off. This far outpaced the 2.84 percent reduction from 1985’s ratio of 916 to 1993’s 890. While abortions remained far more common in Gotham than across America (2001’s U.S. abortion ratio was 246), they diminished during Giuliani’s tenure, as they did nationally.
Giuliani essentially verbalized his pro-choice beliefs while avoiding policies that would have impeded abortion’s generally downward trajectory.
New York pro-lifers concede that Giuliani never attempted anything like what current Mayor Michael Bloomberg promulgated in July 2002. Eight city-run hospitals added abortion instruction to the training expected of their OB-GYN medical residents. Only those with moral objections may refuse this requirement.
Giuliani could have issued such rules, but never did.
Interestingly enough, after Giuliani left, Medicaid abortions under Bloomberg increased 5.19 percent from 34,722 in 2001 to 36,523 in 2003.
Asked if he could cite any Giuliani initiative that advanced abortion, New York State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long told me, “I don’t remember, and I don’t think so.” He added: “I never remember seeing him promote the issue, to my knowledge.”
“I like him a lot -- although he doesn’t share my particular point of view on social issues,” televangelist Pat Robertson said May 1, 2005 on ABC’s “This Week.” “He did a super job running the city of New York and I think he’d make a good president.”
If Giuliani can sway Pat Robertson, can he attract other pro-lifers? Short of dizzying himself and others with a 180-degree reversal from a pro-choice to a pro-life posture, Giuliani should embrace parental-notification rules, so minors who seek abortions need their folks’ permission, as they now do for ear piercing. He should oppose partial-birth abortion, which even Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and liberal stalwart Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont have voted to prohibit.
Similarly, Giuliani should propose that Uncle Sam exit embryonic-stem-cell research laboratories and instead let drug companies -- not government -- finance such embryocidal experiments, if they must. He also could pledge to nominate constitutionalist judges skeptical of penumbras emanating outside Planned Parenthood clinics.
And, of course, Rudolph W. Giuliani should remind Republican primary voters that on his watch, total abortions, taxpayer-funded Medicaid abortions, and the abortion ratio all went the right way: down.
Mr. Murdock, a New York-based commentator to HUMAN EVENTS, is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
Never mind the general election. Right now, Hunter doesn't have the money to mount a viable primary campaign and ditto for Tancredo who needs $1 million minimum for an Iowa campaign.
Apparently, a lot of posters here have no idea about what it takes to mount successful campaings.
Puh-leeze. Clinton signed the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. And vetoed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Clinton also advocated gun control and a pro-choice position.
If you think downplaying social issues is a winning strategy for Rudy, you are going to have a very big surprise come next year.
Yea but neither one has a chance of gaining the nomination... thank goodness.
Last I checked, you usually have to win the GOP nominatino to run as the GOP candidate in the general election.
Then so do the social Conservatives - say Hello to President John Edwards!
“I don’t like abortion,” Giuliani said in South Carolina’s The State newspaper last November 21. “I don’t think abortion is a good thing. I think we ought to find some alternative to abortion, and that there ought to be as few as possible.”
I think Algore and Kerry said as much themselves. So what?
Oh, I think you'll be surprised at the traction Hunter will get. As he noted, he doesn't need tens of millions of dollars to run TV ads to convince people he's a conservative.
And the point I was making, GOP primaries voters should make electability in the general election a vital part of who they vote for in the primaries and in my opinion, Rudy has the best chance of winning the general so primary voters should take this into consideration.
Duncan Hunter CAN win the general. Any GOP candidate can if they can carry the base. Guiliani can't carry the base no matter how many "He's Not the Boogy Man" articles are written about him.
"Oh, I think you'll be surprised at the traction Hunter will get. As he noted, he doesn't need tens of millions of dollars to run TV ads to convince people he's a conservative."
LOL. You're kidding, right?
The Dems tried that "logic" in 2004. They got stuck with John Kerry.
How about the primary voters vote for who best represents their views? No one has a crystal ball to see who is the most electable until the election happens.
"Duncan Hunter CAN win the general. Any GOP candidate can if they can carry the base."
No, the base doesn't make up 51% of the voting population. We have to be able to carry the independent swing voters. That was the lesson of 2006. I'm surprised at all fast that lesson has been forgotten.
Oh and who would that be??? There are no conservatives running for third party. I can guarantee it. They know it will be a waste of time and money and would ensure the Republicans losing the presidential election. Conservatives learned their lesson about running third parties with Ross Perot. The only one remotely thinking of third party is a liberal from Hollywood - Sam Waterston
FGS. He used to be my congressman. I've met on more than one occssion and I dare say he might even remember me since I am a close friend of of close friend of his. He's not going to get the nomination, but if he' still running when the primary gets to my state, he gets my vote.
No President has the power to take away guns, stop abortions, etc
Baloney. Presidents strongly influence legislation, issue executive orders, appoint judges, determine the course and terms of national debate. The White House is, as President T. Roosevelt observed, a "bully pulpit".
throwing a tantrum
Where have I heard that before? ... Hmmmm ... Oh, yes. Dan Rather. 1994. There's a real Common Sense Conservative for you.
Dream on. It'll take star power to win the general.
The Lust for money is the root of all evil and you can not legislate morality.
Giuliani can come out against counterfeiting every day of the week and it still will not stop the reality counterfeiting will occur. If it is kept illegal, only the government will have safe and rare (relatively) printing plate access to inflate the currency.
We must do what we can to prevent impregnating the money supply and if that means letting counterfeiting be a safe and rare (NO back alley minting using dirty presses) practice supervised by professional, certified counterfeiters, then that will serve the greater good.
As Conservatives, we can not live in the past. We have to wake-up to the new realities. Voters want counterfeiting to be legal and rare and Conservatives stand no chance of defeating a Democrat if they insist on keeping counterfeiting illegal.
If you don't think the Poor will start voting for Conservatives once they are taught we think they should be able to print their own money, then YOU don't have a clue when it comes to political reality, buster.
Talk about a fast ticket out of Poverty...
I know you pragmatic realists have a hard time with the concept, but Hunter will not need millions of dollars of advertising to pull a large amount of the conservative base in his direction. And with the internet, you don't need tens of millions to organize people as well, nor to disseminate viewpoints.
But go ahead and stick to your outdated notions. I'm sure 66 million years ago that the dinosaurs thought those puny mammals would never amount to anything.
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