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.
No, Iraq is what drove the moderates and independents away. The moderates and independents want to win in Iraq but feel that the President and the Republicans have not managed the war well and that we are now losing and voted accordingly. However, they know that Rudy is a very competent manager and would make a great CIC and could very well lead us to victory in Iraq and on the WOT. Therefore, they will vote for Rudy in 2008. Of course lets hope and pray things are doing better in Iraq next year and the President's new plans work.
Agreed. Prewtty much the only reasons why people think rudy is viable is name recognition and "He'd be strong in the WOT". OK, great. The WOT is a major reason why the republican party lost the midterms. So he has name recognition. So does Hillary, but that doesn't make her a viable conservative candidate.
The point is, I don't see rampant conservatism as the reason for the loss in 2006, as the poster I was responding to inferred.
Anybody from BLUE STATE NJ who dares to repeatedly post "fair warning" merits ridicule.
I'll happily stick with Chester Lott (whom I personally despise) over any democrat.
Dear Antoninus,
Isn't it ironic that there are folks who think it's PRAGMATIC to nominate someone who entirely alienates a large part of the party base, but that it's UNPRAGMATIC to nominate someone who can unite all major factions of the party?
Sounds like some folks have some very unpragmatic ideas about pragmatism. LOL.
sitetest
"If all the GOP can offer is DNC light, then it will end as a party."
Rudy is a fiscal, domestic policy, and foreign policy conservative. He will not abandon Iraq and will continue to aggressively fight the WOT. Not exactly DNC light.
Being pro-gun-control and pro-amnesty is domestic conservatism?
Rudy is on his 3rd, not his 4th.
Dear Dark Skies,
"Rudy is on his 3rd, not his 4th."
Yeah, but the election's not for nearly two more years.
;-)
sitetest
Uhm, no, it means we have principles, and stick with them. Someone who pays lip service to the Constitution ofThe United States of America certainly should NEVER be considered for president.
I think I'll ping the Mississippi list so they can see your truly UGLY and vicious, albeit STUPID comment.
lol...this thread needs much more such levity!
Well OK. I messed that up. I must have been counting his leutinants fling with Judith Reagan...
The weirdness of his personal relations will only be highlited by his multiple marriages.
I love Rudy for his sureness and leadership after 911 but I don't think he is going to be able to wipe away his many many problems.
Not mine. Baby, I was just playing the mirror for you. It hurts doesn't it...
Not quite. He is neither a fiscal nor a domestic conservative. His foreign policy is seen as "Strong on the WOT", but as the mayor of NYC he has not had the opportunity to demonstrate what that means.
He is an admitted pro taxes, anti gun, pro gay marriage Republican.
"I don't understand how you cannot be for strict constructionist judges" (emphasis Rudy's).
Rudy spoke of his time as a federal prosecutor and how he knows from experience the importance of this issue. He spoke glowingly of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito (I believe he mentioned something to the effect of "You have to be happy with the President's choices of Roberts and Alito" [emphasis Rudy's]). He ended this discussion by stressing that law is to be made by legislatures, not judges who base their opinions on how they happen to feel that day.
Last night provided a tantalizing glimpse into Rudy's potential 2008 platform. From what I heard it can be summarized in this way: Stay on offense in the War on Terror; Continue the Bush tax cuts and continue to decrease government regulation on business; Seal the borders first, get rid of the felons, drug dealers, and potential terrorists, and require anyone who stays to learn the English Language; and nominate strict constructionist judges like John Roberts and Sam Alito.
"Uhm, no, it means we have principles, and stick with them."
I have principles too. I strongly be in the principles of low taxes, fiscal restraint, pro-growth policies, and I can't think of any more important principles of a pro-American foreign policy and a strong national defense. I want abortion to shop but I know it never will. I don't want gay marriage(which Rudy is against) but the president has no authority over marriage, its a state issue. Other than that with gays, I don't care. They don't affect my life or yours.
I was merely mocking those who feel that politicians control abortion, and that those politicians who do not stridently oppose abortion are unworthy of consideration by conservatives. Such a position is (A.) a waste of time, because only when women stop seeking abortions will abortion cease, and (B.) as an electoral issue, it unrealistically limits our choices of, otherwise good, candidates.
Rudy is anti-gun. So much for the 2nd ammendment.
Rudy likes Roe vs. Wade. So much for separation of powers.
Rudy approves of gay marriage. So much for no establishment of a state religion.
Gulliani is very
Con-stitu-optional
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