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.
"Rudy has said he supports strict constructionist. He has said Scalia is his favorite justice. He said that Ginsburg was "good" in that she was qualified."
HW Bush 1 said "No new taxes". Clinton said "I did not have sex with that woman". GW Bush said "Brownie has my full support".
I prefer to judge people by their past actions not their scripted statements. Would you like me to post some actions where Rudi has shown great disrespect for the constitution?
"Rudy has said he supports strict constructionist. He has said Scalia is his favorite justice. He said that Ginsburg was "good" in that she was qualified."
Thanks for posting the actual facts.
Rudy has also stated on the record that he would pick Justices like Scalia,Roberts and Alito. That's good enough for me.
It shows us once again that it does make a huge difference who is elected POTUS. Those who would sit home or vote third party would only elect Hillary, Obama, or Edwards. On that, alone, Rudy, Romney, or even (God forbid, McCain), would have my vote over any Dem.
"Thanks for posting the actual facts"
Al Gore said that he had great respect for the constitution. He also said that he invented the internet.
Politicians say lots of things. It does not make them facts.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
You're fulla crapola! First off, Giuliani is a liberal. Reagan was a conservative. If you support Rudy over 80% of the time, you certainly don't agree with what Reagan stood for. Agreeing with Rudy over 80% of the time marks you as a liberal. This idea that Rudy would nominate pro-life conservatrive jurists to sit on the SCOTUS is a total fallacy. Rudy is another big government Republican, who happens to favor gun control, an assault weapons ban, abortion on demand, partial birth abortion, special rights for homos and amnesty for illegals. In the conservative circles I travel, that marks Rudy as a liberal of the first order.
'How's that go over with you, fellow social conservatives and pro-lifers?'
not very well!!
Most Americans are pro-choice.
The abandonment of the keystone of the party -- fiscal conservatism -- has already doomed the GOP.
Also from Pew: "A consistent majority of Americans (65%) are opposed to overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a woman's right to abortion."
So much for those changing hearts.
"And no I don't believe we will reach a day when all abortions can be outlawed."
Exactly, and that's why I don't make this issue of the upmost importance when choosing who to support for President.
Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan will not be running against Hillary, Obama, or Edwards in 2008.
There is no candidate one can agree with on 100% of the time.
I support Rudy because on the great issues of our time, I agree with him.
National defense, National security,War on Terror, support for freedom of religion in the public square, Judges, taxes,spending, education reform (school choice).
POTUS can do very little about social issues like abortion. We have had two four year GOP presidencies,Reagan and Bush, and abortion is still a Constitutional "right", and legal.
That is a big lie. Being pro-choice has always meant, you support abortion on demand. Most Americans do not support abortion on demand. Therefore, most Americans aren't pro-choice. Most Americans believe in some form of limitation on abortions. Rudy Giuliani doesn't support any limitations on abortion. Rudy favors abortion on demand and the ugly partial birth abortion procedure. Period! That will not garner Rudy many votes from social conservatives.
First of all, my claim stands with empirical proof. Your claim was a half truth. To repeat, the progeny of baby boomers are more pro life than the boomers. Which necessarily means that hearts and minds can be and are being changed.
And second, can you quantify for me how many babies saved from the butchers knife would make abortion an "issue" for you? One thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million?
At this point, I really don't care much about social conservatives. They don't play as big of a role as I think you think they do. Times have changed, but the arrogance of social conservatives hasn't. That's my opinion.
He (Guiliani) also spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, combat organized crime, break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute white-collar criminals. He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals.Rudy went head to head with the mob and won. Hillary is a walk in the park comparatively speaking.
This is an idiotic -- and desperate -- attempt to paint a rabidly pro-abortion Republican as a "pro-life" candidate for 2008. It's so transparent that it's silly.
And neither will Rudy Giuliani. I didn't bring Reagan into this debate. If you're going to defend a the remarks of another FReeper, try reading what she wrote and stop attempting to be rhetorically cute.
>>>>>POTUS can do very little about social issues like abortion. We have had two four year GOP presidencies,Reagan and Bush, and abortion is still a Constitutional "right", and legal.
The degree which a POTUS can have affect on the abortion issue, is significant. Reagan and Bush43 proved what a pro-life POTUS can accomplish. Reagan's record on abortion:
*Reagan supported legislation that would allow for a challenge of Roe vs. Wade, while promoting a Right to Life amendment to the US Constitution.
*Reagan adopted the "Mexico City Policy" halting federal aid to private groups promoting abortions abroad.
*The Reagan admin cut off funding to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities because the global agency violated U.S. law by participating in China's mandatory abortion program.
*The Reagan admin adopted regulations prohibiting federally funded "family planning clinics" from promoting abortion as birth control.
*Reagan himself introduced the issue of fetal pain into the public debate over abortion.
*The Reagan White House blocked use of federal money for research using the tissue of aborted babies. A forerunner to banning partial birth abortion.
*The Reagan admin helped win approval of the "Danforth Amendment," which said federally funded educational institutions could not be guilty of "sex discrimination" for refusing to pay for abortions.
*The Reagan admin was key in enactment of laws protecting the right to life of handicapped newborns.
*Reagan designated a National Sanctity of Human Life Day, to recognize the value of life at all stages.
*Reagan was the first Prez to address the annual WashDC March for Life. An annual pro-life event Reagan always made public remarks to.
Ronald Reagan was also America's first pro-life President, post Roe v Wade. His essay, "Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation" clearly spelled out Reagan's strong pro-life position. If you think Rudy Giuliani would ever write the following, you're living in a world of delusion.
"Our nation-wide policy of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people, nor enacted by our legislators--not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. [It was] an act of raw judicial power"...
"Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a "right" so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born."
"We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life--the unborn--without diminishing the value of all human life."
"Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. 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 any meaning."
Where was Reagan when abortion went to the Supreme Court and was declared a constitutional right for a Woman to choose? A certain aspect of that bill happened during his Presidency.
The answer? Sitting Presidents have little say over what visits the Supreme Court.
But while you're at it, you accused Rudy of favoring partial birth abortion, can you give us actual factual events? How about a source or documentation that backs up your claim. Or are you simply regurgitating hear say?
That's a fine sentiment, but it certainly doesn't apply to Rudy Giuliani. He's a "conservative" on about 15% of the issues -- and probably on less then 5% of the issues that define the soul of this nation.
If it comes down to stopping 1000 abortions or saving a million lives at the hands of terrorist, I'm going to chose saving a million lives from terrorist. I believe that's the situation we must confront in 2008. Rudy and McCain are IMO the only Republicans that can win in 2008 and I'm not going to give over fighting the WOT to Hillary and Obama.
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