Giuliani's Support For Abortion Rights, 'Strict Constructionists' Could Help Overturn Roe , Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 18 Sep 2007 - 9:00 PDT

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Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's (R) support for abortion rights and opposition to the "constitutional logic" used in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case could help abortion-rights opponents "win" the abortion debate at the state level, Eric Johnston, a graduate student of theology at Catholic University of America, writes in a New York Times opinion piece. Giuliani is running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Although Giuliani has expressed "ambivalence" about Roe, which effectively barred state abortion bans, such ambivalence is "consistent with his belief that judges should not seek to achieve political ends," according to Johnston. Abortion-rights opponents "should applaud, not condemn" such a philosophy because it is also the position "consistently articulated" by their "favorite" Supreme Court justices and because Giuliani "promises to nominate judges who are 'strict constructionists,'" Johnston writes.

According to Johnston, Giuliani would be the "most effective advocate" for abortion-rights opponents "precisely because he is unreligious and a supporter of abortion rights" and because he would not be "perceived as trying to advance his own religious preferences." Other Republican presidential candidates, such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.), "would preserve the status quo for the abortion debate," but Giuliani "just might win it" because he believes that the government "should not use public money and public space to insult the values of the people, including social conservatives."

Only a "constitutionalist who supports abortion rights can create an anti-Roe majority by explaining that the end of Roe means letting the people decide, state by state, about abortion," Johnston writes (Johnston, New York Times, 9/14).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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