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.
Reagan was not as obsessive about anti-abortion legislation as he often seemed. (or as some freepers would like us to believe. LOL)
Early in his California governorship he had signed a permissive abortion bill that has resulted in more than a million abortions. Afterward, he inaccurately blamed this outcome on doctors, saying that they had deliberately misinterpreted the law. When Reagan ran for president, he won backing from pro-life forces by advocating a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother. Reagan’s stand was partly a product of political calculation, as was his tactic after he was elected of addressing the annual pro-life rally held in Washington by telephone so that he would not be seen with the leaders of the movement on the evening news. While I do not doubt Reagan’s sincerity in advocating an anti-abortion amendment, he invested few political resources toward obtaining this goal.
Source: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon, p. 812 Jul 2, 1991
All or nothing mindset? What a pity.
There must be all or nothing on abortion for it to work effectively. For example, I live in NC. If NC adopted the kind of abortion laws we would support but VA doesn't then NC's law are pretty much irrelevant. Those that couldn't get abortions NC could always drive to VA and get one.
"Look, I've heard for many years how this guy or that guy can win and the other guy can't. Remeber a man named Ronald Reagan? The Rockefeller Republicans assured us that RR was unelectable, the rest is history."
Yes but in 1980 the country was upset with the unpopular Democrat in the White House. Almost any Republican could have won. In 2008, the country, the way it looks now, is going to be upset with an unpopular Republican in the Whtie House. Its going to take a special Republican to win next year, Rudy or McCain.
Excellent!
If you want MY vote for any candidate 'My GOP', they MUST be pro-life. Period. Got it?
Rudy's position on gay marriage:
I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, that it should remain that way, it should remain that way inviolate, and everything should be done to make sure that that’s the case...
The Mayor was for civil unions. But guess what? So is President Bush.
BTW, didn't bother to read what you had to say -- your opinion is worth zero, zip, nada to me after what you pulled when you attacked me the last time on a thread after the years I have defended your comments on here to other Freepers. You are wasting your time to keep posting to me because I won't read what you have to say and will write the following everytime to your post to me so you might as well not bother:
This is America and I am entited to my opinion whether you like it or not. :)
I’m pro-choice. I’m pro-gay rights, Giuliani said. He was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions. “No, I have not supported that, and I don’t see my position on that changing,” he responded. Source: CNN.com, “Inside Politics” Dec 2, 1999
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute they fell nationwide by 13.5% nationwide in that period, so let's keep thing in persepctive.
Rudy IS a New York liberal, a CINO and a fake and a fraud. :)
You can base your vote on any reason you want, even if its just a single issue. And I'll base mine on my reasons which are well laid out in Post 89. Period. Got it?
Link please. A lot of this stuff is made up.
Sure, just don't pretend your GOP will EVER get my vote when you promote liberal babykillers.
Don't miss Peach's excellent post!
Ingtar statement to zarf: You keep saying that on multiple threads. You should do a Google search on abortion and polls and review the numbers. The average percentage of Republicans taking the pro-life view on the polls I can find is 58-63% That does not appear to be pro-choice to me
zarf reply to Ingtar: A majority of Republican women are pro-choice, albeit they have a narrower view then their Democratic counterparts, however they are in no way in favor of banning abortions.
Rodney King to zarf: Regarding your first statement, do you always just make stuff up, or was your first statement a mistake? If it's a mistake, why don't you apologize for spreading falsehoods?
"Sure, just don't pretend your GOP will EVER get my vote when you promote liberal babykillers."
I didn't pretend that Rudy would get your vote. Where you got that, I have no idea. Of course where you've got anything at all I don't know either.
ping to 475
People who don't want women going down dark alleys for clothes hanger abortions...but would rather them not have abortions at all.
Baby killers?
Pro-choice means I don't like abortion but I don't want butchers to perform them on women who are still too confused to know better. Baby killers?
Linear thinkers aren't actually thinking. They are reacting.
Find a solution in the dynamic world! Or STFU!
I’m pro-choice. I’m pro-gay rights, Giuliani said. He was then asked whether he supports a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortions. “No, I have not supported that, and I don’t see my position on that changing,” he responded. Source: CNN.com, “Inside Politics” Dec 2, 1999 http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Rudy_Giuliani_Abortion.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.