Posted on 04/04/2007 7:07:11 PM PDT by Ol' Sparky
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told CNN Wednesday he supports public funding for some abortions, a position he advocated as mayor and one that will likely put the GOP presidential candidate at odds with social conservatives in his party.
"Ultimately, it's a constitutional right, and therefore if it's a constitutional right, ultimately, even if you do it on a state by state basis, you have to make sure people are protected," Giuliani said in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash in Florida's capital city.
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Giuliani also vowed to appoint conservative judges to the bench, though denied such a promise was a "wink and a nod" to conservatives in support of overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on abortion.
"A strict constructionist judge can come to either conclusion about Roe against Wade," he said. "They can look at it and say, 'Wrongly decided thirty years ago, whatever it is, we'll over turn it.' [Or] they can look at it and say, 'It has been the law for this period of time, therefore we are going to respect the precedent.' Conservatives can come to that conclusion as well. I would leave it up to them. I would not have a litmus test on that."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
A damn shame that Rudy’s mother wasn’t pro-choice...
In his own words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALDfwXIYUX0
Does he desire the Presidency enough to pretend to have changed his life long position on "womens' right to choose", "womens' right to decide what is or is not good for their own bodies?"
Unlike Ronald Reagan, it has taken 30 years and more than the slaughter of 40 million babies in America, and now the desire to become President to "wake up Mitt's sensitivities. You may believe in that fairy tale but not me.
Sorry, that just doesn't wash here.
KING: Our guest is the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.
His hat is in the ring for the Republican nomination for the presidency.
In 2002, on a NARAL — N-A-R-A-L — questionnaire, you said: “I respect and will protect a woman’s right to choose.”
You also told Planned Parenthood you supported the substance of “Roe v. Wade.”
What changed?
M. ROMNEY: Well, you know, I’ve always been personally pro-life. But I’ve questioned what the role of government should be with regards to abortion. And in our state, we were having a debate about cloning, the creation of new embryos for purposes of harvesting stem cells. And as part of that discussion, I came to believe that if the people of a state want to enact pro-life, reasonable legislation, they ought to have the right to do so.
So my view is the right course is to allow states to make their own choice in this regard. And that makes me pro-life and I’m proud to be pro-life. I followed the same course in this regard and had the same education that both Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush had. They were pro-choice. They became pro-life. As they became leaders and they saw the impact of these decisions, they decided that life was the right course.
KING: But what — what changed you from the total right of a woman’s right to choose to let a state decide whether she has the right to choose?
M. ROMNEY: Well, I’d let each state make its own decision in that regard.
KING: Yes, but why should Mississippi tell its women you can’t choose?
M. ROMNEY: Well, there are two lives involved. There’s the life of the mom and there’s also the life of the unborn child. So there are two lives involved and it’s a real balance, as you look at the very difficult decision a mom has to make and, of course, a society has to make.
And I was sitting there in my office and I had the provost of Harvard University and the head of stem cell research telling me that creating these new embryos was not a moral issue because they destroyed them at 14 days.
And I imagined row after row of human embryos being destroyed at 14 days. And I said look, something is wrong in a society where we have so cheapened the value of human life that we think destroying human embryos at 14 days isn’t a moral issue.
And I came out — that was about two, two-and-a-half years ago. I wrote an op-ed piece in my paper and said look, I’m going to honor my promise that I made to you, but I’m going to come down on the side of life. And every decision I made as governor, I made on the side of protecting human life.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/15/lkl.01.html
Very bad move by Giuliani.
Don’t worry, he’ll say something else next week.
Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Any glint of hope I had that Rudy at least understood the Constitution has now disappeared.
At least he’s consistently wrong on Constitutional issues. Ask him what he thinks about the Kelo decision.
If you want to drink the koolaid, go for it. I won’t. This is a a guy who just finished a term as Governor in which more of the radical Left’s agenda was passed in MA than in any other place at any other time. I think he’s a complete phony and a dangerous liar.
It no longer matters to me one whit whom Republicans (and believe me, I do not say this lightly as I am a Republican County Officer) but I will NOT support a Republican candidate who has been on planet earth more than 30 years and witnessed (no matter how pc everyone is on the matter) that America would have 40 million more people today, were it not for Roe v. Wade, and the slaughter continues at more than 4,000 per month.......!
Their agenda was passed because they control 85% of the state congress and overrode his vetoes.
The bottom line is Romney vetoed legislation to expand stem cell research, vetoed the emergency contraception measure (requiring hospital emergency room doctors to offer the medication to rape victims, and make it available without prescription from pharmacies), and he fought for parental consent on abortions.
Is it his fault that the liberal congress up there overrode his vetoes?
So too was Hitler.
Barry Goldwater would be too liberal for the current republican party. Isnt that a sad thing ?
Garry Trudeau, creator of the Doonesbury cartoon strip, agrees with you.
Count them up, that was merely in one Planned Parenthood "Clinic" in the metro Kansas City area (your U.S. tax dollars at work and Congress won't change that one bit.)
Note to Rudy:
Sir,
Tax dollars are already paying for abortions, do we Americans now need to make personal donations?
Signed,
FED UP AMERICAN
The “state congress”? Okey dokey...
Romney supported abortion publically for over 35 years. Now he wants pro-life votes, so he says he’s had a “conversion.”
Sorry, but, like the murderer on death row who lays claim to a conversion, that’s between him and God. But he has to pay the earthly price for his crime anyway.
We need to all get behind Hillary and when elected, she can appoint judges to counteract the evil scoundrel Scalia. Who would have ever thought SCALIA agreed with Rudy on Roe v Wade. SCALIA is EVIL. Too bad SCALIA's mother was Pro-Life, etc./sarc/
You have no slime left. Your fangs are empty.
Bravo to you, EternalVigilance (I love your tagline.)
It's always someone else's fault with Romney and his minions.
Sorry, but Romney held radically liberal views of his own for many years, without any help from Democrats.
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