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.
I've been saying for years is that the new technology, sonograms which more clearly show the fetus in the womb, will change minds over time.
Women my age are becoming grandmothers for the first time. Their daughters are having children and they're looking at the new technology and seeing their yet-unborn grandchildren and they are realizing that it is NOT a blob.
Having said that, some of the more radical right focus on this issue to the exclusion of all others. Some of the far right are downright ugly in their approach to this matter and it turns off a lot of people including many conservatives and plenty of moderates.
A softer approach would be more likely to persuade people to the side of this issue. And, I'll remind single issue voters, if they stay home and don't vote for whichever Republican candidate emerges, they will have ZERO chance of seeing a Supreme Court Justice appointed who might, just might, sway the balance of the court and get Roe v Wade overturned.
Thanks. But you should look at a whole thread before you judge ;).
I was simply trying to get somone to see their own rudeness. My words were sarcastic not sincere. (Probably poorly chosen but oh well...) Except that I can't stand Lott, that is true.
As Reagan used to say, there you go again.
I agree with Rudy on the WOT and national defense. I think he did a good job controlling spending in NYC. As I noted on another thread, there are only two pubbies running for whom I would not vote - McVain and Ron Paul.
HOWEVER, that does not change the fact that Rudy is my least favorite choice of the pubbies I would vote for, namely because of his stances on abortion, gun control and amnesty - three issues that are extremely important to me, and to many others in the base. And regarding the Iraq War, I think most of the pubbies in the race would do a good job in carrying out that war and the broader war on terrorism, with the exception of McCain (temperment) and Paul (cluelessness).
So in the primaries, Rudy's positions on the WOT are NOT the critical issue once we get past McVain. And that's the entire point - you can rant about this stuff all you want, but his record on abortion and gun control and his utterances on amnesty are clear and on the record. You can pretend otherwise, you can berate those annoying social conservatives and gun nuts and anti-illegal-immigration xenophobes for having the temerity to give a damn about those issues - but all that will do is further alientate the very voters Rudy needs to win the nomination.
Thanks for those links; I remember reading those headlines.
Instead of having freepers come here and tell us how wrong those articles are (and maybe they are, I have no idea), we have some freepers who just don't post anything with any actual content about this issue, but we're just supposed to take their word that the article are wrong.
Last I looked, that wasn't how things worked around here, but maybe things have changed recently.
He said that in the context of abortion. And you spin it into something more.
Is this what we can expect from the Rudy boosters to deal with all the annoying right-wingers who just don't get it? We have seen the motives of pro-life groups impunged. We have had pro-lifers belittled for caring that millions of children have been aborted since 9-11. And you have done your best to spin the other side's responses like they don't care about certain issues such as the WOT.
If Rudy were the only GOP nominee who was solid on such, you'd have a point. But he's not, so you're just blowing smoke.
I'm going to vote for the candidate that I agree with the most on the issues I feel are the most important, the one that would I feel would make the most competent and strongest leader, and the one that has the best chance of winning the general. Rudy is the one that best fits those three critiera for me.
I agree completely.
where do you get your information??? I'm just wondering becuase I dont know even ONE pro-choice republican woman, not even ONE. I believe, in my heart, that I will suffer the consequences of my "tacit approval" of the murder of unborn children when I stand before God should I vote in a pro-choice candidate. You may belittle it as a one-trick-pony or whatever but I can tell you that MANY people here and that I know personally hold it as a strong BELIEF.
Oh you are quite welcome. I know - things have changed. It's gotten too rabid around here and its still early in the election cycle. What is going to happen when everyone finally announces they are definitely running and they start campaigning??? LOL! The Moderators are going to have to put up boxing rings! LOL!
Hey, I live with a "queer" she's my daughter!
LOL. You're right.
I think we're going to have to find a way to start giving the mods some money :-)
"He said that in the context of abortion. And you spin it into something more."
I see that now. I didn't go back far enough in the posts to see that. I apologize. My mistake I wasn't intentionally trying to spin anything.
"We have seen the motives of pro-life groups impunged. We have had pro-lifers belittled for caring that millions of children have been aborted since 9-11."
I'm pro-life. I'm against abortion. However, I realize that we will NEVER stop abortions. Even if Roe gets overturned and the issue goes back to the states, many states will continue to allow abortions. California certainly isn't going to restrict abortions. Therefore when faced with the cold hard reality of the situation I chose not to make this a major factor in how I vote for President. I know the heart tells us we might just be able to stop abortion in this country if we just fight hard enough and never compromise but the head, pragmatic and realistic as always, always lets you know the reality of the situation.
"If Rudy were the only GOP nominee who was solid on such, you'd have a point. But he's not, so you're just blowing smoke."
I believe Rudy is the most solid though and most competent. And the other candidates, IMO, don't stand a chance of winning the general election. I'm not going to vote for someone I think is going to lose to Hillary and Obama, period.
I don't like McCain - Please don't vote for him in the primaries.
I like Rudy - Please don't vote for him in the primaries.
It is, of course, the most important decision an unborn fetus faces right now.
Amazing...I was just talking to my Dad the other day about this very thing. See...he's also my cousin...no wait..my uncle...no...oh...i jist cain't 'member wich. nevermind...forgitit.
I'm sorry, didn't you say that the GOP needs to find a way to win without Evangelicals? I think it is fair to infer from that a split in the party. But correct me if I am wrong.
Rudy is on the record stating he would appoint Judges to SCOTUS like Scalia and Roberts.
And he is on record as being pro-choice, against the PBA ban, and has not used his personal bully pulpit to promote a pro-life position.
Are you being deliberately dense? You must be.
Unless you think the GOP is going to sign onto the Evangelicals new hotbutton moral issue of global warming, then the GOP is going to have to find a way to win without the Evangelical vote.
Do you understand that? I'm trying to go slow here, for your benefit. I've explained this three times already; this is the 4th.
So, since it's entirely unlikely the GOP will sign onto the global warming hysteria, they will lose a large chunk of the Evangelical vote. So the GOP needs to find another way to win without that vote. Which means they will have to move to the middle to gain some moderate votes.
Let me know which part of that you don't get. And let me know which part of that you want to deliberately misinterpret, because sure as shooting, that's what you do.
Your opinion, I don't share it.
So if want to give up all the issues, including by far the most important issue, the WOT, to Hillary and Obama, go ahead.
Fear doesn't motivate me.
Nobody else other than McCain can beat them.
Says you.
The political reality is we will never be able to stop abortions even if Roe gets overturned.<
This is, of course, false. There are fewer abortions now than there used to be because of the bully pulpit and years of hard work. There will be less still if the SCOTUS upholds the PBA Ban which President Bush signed, Clinton vetoed and Rudy would have upheld.
Secondly, there is already a ban on partial birth abortions so its now a moot point.
Far from it, the issue is before the SCOTUS and the holding will be delivered this termwhere Justice Stephens will surely cast a vote against the Act. Perhaps one should consider your opinions with a large grain of salt?
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