Posted on 04/05/2007 9:14:04 AM PDT by Barney Gumble
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.
A video clip of the then-mayoral candidate issuing a similar declaration in 1989 in a speech to the "Women's Coalition" appeared recently on the Internet. "There must be public funding for abortions for poor women," Giuliani says in the speech that is posted on the video sharing site YouTube. "We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decisions about abortion."
When asked directly Wednesday if he still supported the use of public funding for abortions, Giuliani said "Yes." "If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right," he explained....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I’m not saying he did, but the number of abortions declined after Reagan and Bush 41, two pro-life presidents, left office. They declined under Clinton. So I’m not following the logic where a pro-life candidate affects the number of abortions in this country.
I see a lot of people here putting words into Rudy’s mouth and interpreting anything he says or does in a way to support their ideology of him.
And that is dishonest.
You are saying that he fully agrees with NARAL. Can you support that claim?
You don’t like abortion. In fact, you find it repugnant.
Now you find yourself in a position making and enfocing public policy. Abortion is legal. Anything you do to prohibit it is also illegal.
What do you do?
And how to you defend yourself from the rabid prolifers who beleive that anyone who doesn’t picket abortion clinics is pro abortion?
That’s what we have on FR. A LOT of rabid prolifers who interpret anything less than total intolerance and active opposition to abortion as being pro abortion.
And that is dishonest.
“It didn’t happen under Reagan, or Bush 41, or Bush 43, to date. And don’t say there haven’t been opportunities to limit or overturn during those years.”
You can’t overturn a supreme court ruling by executive order or congressional law. You have to either get another case through to the supreme court (with at least 5 good judges) to overturn it, or go through the constitutional amendment process. And in case you forgot your elementary school lessons on the US government, the president doesn’t have a role in the amendment process.
All a president can do is appoint supreme court justices. All the justices can do is rule on cases brought before them.
But keep spinning. Somewhere out there just might buy into it.
Then, obviously, you oppose Rudy as no politician in the country has pandered more to illegals:
Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to “terrorize people.” Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.
New York conveniently forgot the 1996 federal ban on sanctuary laws until a gang of five Mexicans—four of them illegal—abducted and brutally raped a 42-year-old mother of two near some railroad tracks in Queens. The NYPD had already arrested three of the illegal aliens numerous times for such crimes as assault, attempted robbery, criminal trespass, illegal gun possession, and drug offenses. The department had never notified the INS.
Source: Heather Mac Donald
CNN clip:
Announcer: "Back in 1996, mayor Giuliani went to federal court to challenge new federal laws requiring the city to inform the federal government about illegal immigrants."
Rudy Giuliani: "There isn't a mayor or a public official in this country that's more strongly pro immigrant than I am. Including disagreeing with President Clinton when he signed an anti-immigration legislation about two or three years ago."
The New York Immigrant Coalition Press Release, August, 1989:
Rudy would continue to make city services available to all immigrants, regardless of immigration status.
Prohibit city workers from reporting undocumented immigrants to the INS, unless criminal activity is involved….
Make sure that city workers understand what benefits immigrants are entitled to….
Encourage outreach to immigrant communities to encourage their utilization of city services….
Support the use of interpreters and translators in city government
Support bilingual and bicultural education with goals of learning fluent English and maintaining native language skills….
Oppose making English the “official language” of the U.S.
Support adding alienage to protected class under City’s Human rights Law.
Additionally, he has supported Bush's guest worker program.
So a person being opposed to abortion isn’t good enough? So being personally opposed is still being pro abortion?
Sadly the courts consider abortion legal and a right.
Interfering with civil rights is illegal.
So what’s he supposed to do?
In your eyes he cannot support the law (as he takes an oath to do) and still have personal opposition to what that law protects.
Uh huh - here we go with the personal insults. No wonder Republicans are eating their own. BTW, you did not answer my question. There have been several cases that landed on the Supreme Court’s plate over the years that dealt with abortion rights. They failed to limit Roe V. Wade every time. But don’t let that get in the way of personal attacks.
Considering what abortion is (death of an unborn innocent!), it's tantamount to hypocrisy.
There's no middle ground. You're either for it or against it.
Especially when the President has the most power on the issue as the President is the only that can nominate judges that will overturn Roe.
And, Julie-Annie just came out yesterday in the same interview and indicated that he would appoint judges that upheld Roe and would try to pass them off as strict Constitutionalist.
Please explain how he can be opposed to abortion yet you call him pro abortion?
That's total B.S.
The President has a huge influence on abortion policy, from judicial appointments, to the power of veto, to who he appoints to head up Federal agencies that touch on abortion. Huge.
Ok, he says he against it.
But you say he’s for it.
One of y’all is wrong.
That isn't true. Polls show that the majority in the nation FAVOR outlawing abortion except for cases of rape, incest and the mother's life being endangered.
South Dakota would have easily passed legislation banning abortion except in the rare exception cases according to polls in the past year. Mississippi just passed a ban on abortions for convenience sake that is intend as a challenge to Roe.
If the president has such a huge influence, howcum three no Republican president has significantly reduced or eliminated abortion?
Hmm. Let’s weigh words and actions.
Words: “I’m personally opposed to abortion.”
Actions: Supports abortion legislation, including taxpayer funding for it. Thinks “choice” is a woman’s “Constitutional right” (which makes his promise for strict constructionists for the SCOTUS suspect at best).
Hmm. Which am I supposed to go for?
The old axiom still applies. “Actions speak louder than words.”
I was thinking the same thing. The right to do something doesn't require the government to fund it. It just requires the government to get out of the way. Rudy is clearly a liberal if he thinks it is the job of government to fund abortions. His gun grabbing record is more than enough to cross him off my list.
Sure, he is personally against abortion on moral grounds, but doesn’t see the law as an effective vehicle to enforce that moral judgment.
He recognizes that reasonable people can look at the abortion issue and come to different conclusions. It’s ‘when does life begin’ question is ambiguous enough so that people can come to different answers and do so rationally.
So he finds the practice reprehensible, but doesn’t see legally prohibiting the practice as an appropriate use of the law. He sees no practicality in locking up doctors who do abortions, or locking up women who seek abortions.
Why does he support abortion rights?
IT IS THE LAW!
And he is supposed to support the law, not just the ones he likes.
Supporting the law per one’s oath of office, what a concept!
I would assume NARAL wouldn't have invited RINO Rudy to speak before its members unless it believed he was rabidly in favor of abortion rights.
In fact, the New York branch of NARAL contributed more Julie-Annie than to Hillary Clinton:
From the FEC database: 04/24/1999 Donations NEW YORK STATE NARAL INC WOMEN'S HEALTH PAC
NARAL donated exclusively to Democrat candidates with one exception----Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani accepted $1,000 from NARAL in 1999.
NARAL gave $250 to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
NARAL gave $1000---4 times as much-----to pro-abortion Giuliani.
But it doesn’t meaningfully stop abortions from happening, that’s my point.
Quoting Rudy Giuliani: “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.
(SOURCE ”Rudy Giuliani Interviewed At Length Prior To Salt Lake Fundraiser (Pro Choice is in constitution) LINK http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1812121/posts
Two-faced Rudy tries to have it both ways. He talks out of one side of his mouth to co-opt conservatives into thinking he's with them. The next day Rudy retracts or backtracks the self-same statement (he doesn't dare offend liberals waiting in the wings to get their grubby hands on the US government).
Rudy's Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde act is getting tiresome.
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