Posted on 01/18/2007 9:27:26 AM PST by Dark Skies
As pro-lifers prepare to mark Mondays 34th anniversary of the Supreme Courts 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 Giulianis statements on abortion make pro-lifers fret, they should find his record surprisingly reassuring.
I dont like abortion, Giuliani said in South Carolinas The State newspaper last November 21. I dont 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, Giulianis pro-life critics point to his April 5, 2001 address to the National Abortion Rights Action Leagues Champions of Choice luncheon in Manhattan.
As a Republican who supports a womans right to choose, it is particularly an honor to be here, Giuliani said. He added: The government shouldnt dictate that choice by making it a crime or making it illegal.
I have a daughter now, Giuliani told TVs 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, Id support that. Id give my daughter the money for it.
But did Giulianis 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 1985s ratio of 916 to 1993s 890. While abortions remained far more common in Gotham than across America (2001s U.S. abortion ratio was 246), they diminished during Giulianis tenure, as they did nationally.
Giuliani essentially verbalized his pro-choice beliefs while avoiding policies that would have impeded abortions 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 dont remember, and I dont think so. He added: I never remember seeing him promote the issue, to my knowledge.
I like him a lot -- although he doesnt share my particular point of view on social issues, televangelist Pat Robertson said May 1, 2005 on ABCs This Week. He did a super job running the city of New York and I think hed 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.
President Bush, put in place the Mexico City Policy (which bans govt funds to promote abortion overseas), the abortion ban at military hospitals, the partial-birth abortion ban, and reaffirmed the Hyde Amendement (which bars the use of medicaid funds for abortions).
The real reason why abortion rates declined was not anything Clinton did. It was due to extensive grass root lobbying by Right to Life groups to pass Parental Consent, 24 waiting laws, barring tax funded abortions and other restrictions on the state level. When these restrictions are enforced, the abortion rate decreases.
After if these restrictions are so minor, then why would pro-abort groups spend millions to shoot down the parental notification ballot in CA last year?
Rudy has more in common with Barney Frank than he does Duncan Hunter.
Lets not forget that he thinks Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an outstanding Supreme Court Justice or that he forced draconian asset forfeiture laws on New Yorkers.
i AM FOR LIFE BUT I AM AGAINST GOVERNMENT BEING THE ARBITRATOR OF WHETHER IT SHOULD EXIST.
I could be wrong, but I think the 2008 campaign is going to sort it all out. If Rudy (or Hunter for that matter) can withstand the slings and arrows of this campaign, he's the man.
Dear zarf,
"Neither radical side of this issue wants Roe overturned."
Oh, I don't know about that.
Most folks consider me pretty radical on the issue of abortion. My goal is ultimately to pass an amendment to the Constitution that recognizes the humanity and personhood of all human beings from conception to natural death, and requires the federal government and every state to pass laws protecting the right to life of these.
I know that once Roe was overturned, we wouldn't immediately get all we want. I've said before that overturning Roe is just the beginning of the battle.
However, I know that abortion would be modestly restricted in most states, and severely restricted in many.
It'd be a good start.
sitetest
Probably going to take a beating for this, but it's the combination of his social positions (pro-choice, anti-gun) that does me in on him. I like him on defense but the life AND second amendment issues say no.
Dear dmz,
I've seen polls that show this from time to time over the years.
In the past, I've even dug 'em up on-line and posted links.
However, I find this crapulent propagandistic filth oozing out from Mr. Giuliani's rear end so positively disgusting that I'm inclined to tell all his backers, do your own homework.
sitetest
LOL!
So you are against the government protecting human life?
One selling point Obama can make is that while he votes for the socialist agenda, he lives a socially conservative life unlike Republican candidates.
Every GOP candidate except for Ron Paul (and Hagel if he jumps in) is pro-Iraq-war and pro-military. I really don't see the Iraq War as a defining issue in the primaries unless a candidate emerges who is against it and has a chance to win.
Which leaves the other key issues for the base to chew on during the primaries. Abortion. Guns. What to do about illegal immigration. And quite frankly, Rudy is one of the two weakest candidates in those departments (McVain is the other).
And I also really don't see where being mayor of NY is a qualification to be CinC during wartime. Rudy did quite well in the aftermath of 9-11, but responding to a terrorist event is much different than commanding the military and the national security apparatus to try and prevent one.
Look, if Giuliani is pro-choice, then he's pro-choice, and the primary voters will have to decide whether that is an important issue to them or not. But this article is a real stretch to put it politely, unless you want to call Bill Clinton pro-life because the national abortion rate declined while he was in office.
No beating from me. I am amazed at the threads mentality that most of us are to give up our core values and support someone dynamically opposed to them just because of a R after his name. Incidentally the first lawsuit against the gun manufacturers was started by Julie Annie no less.
Just say no to Julie Annie!
An interesting way to put it! I like it!
Glad I don't waste my $ purchasing HUMAN EVENTS anymore. It looks like they have gone the way of the Republican party...down the drain and with good reason.
"Rudy's on the right track."
frightening to think because this would put America squarely on the wrong path. simple mouth service in the defense of unborn americans is all that's needed to still be considered 'conservative'..
its comical how much he sounds like hilary...
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