Giuliani Plans to Publicly Embrace Abortion Rights: "Ultimately, there has to be a right to choose."

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Giuliani Plans to Publicly Embrace Abortion Rights
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MARC SANTORA
Published: May 10, 2007

After months of giving ambiguous signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days, despite potential consequences among some conservative voters already wary of his views, aides said yesterday.

At the same time, Mr. Giuliani’s campaign — seeking to accomplish the unusual task of persuading the Republican Party to nominate an abortion rights supporter as its presidential candidate — is eyeing a path to the nomination that would try to de-emphasize the early states in which abortion opponents wield a great deal of influence. Instead they would focus on the so-called mega-primary of Feb. 5, in which voters in states like California, New York and New Jersey are likely to be more receptive to Mr. Giuliani’s social views than voters in states like Iowa and South Carolina. They said that approach became more appealing after Florida, another state they said would be receptive to Mr. Giuliani, voted last week to move its primary forward to the end of January.

The shift in emphasis by Mr. Giuliani comes as his campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate in which he gave a halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights. Mr. Giuliani’s aides were concerned both because it opened him up to a new round of criticism from abortion critics — who have never been happy with the prospect of a Republican presidential candidate who supports abortion rights — while threatening to undercut his image as a tough-talking iconoclast who does not equivocate on tough issues.

The campaign’s approach would be a sharp departure from the traditional route to the Republican nomination of the last 20 years, in which Republicans have highlighted their antiabortion views.

Mr. Giuliani hinted at what aides said would be his uncompromising position on abortion rights yesterday in Huntsville, Ala., where he was besieged with questions about abortion and his donations to Planned Parenthood. “Ultimately, there has to be a right to choose,” he said....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/us/politics/10giuliani.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. Rudy is an actuary at heart.

MKJ

[brooklynite]

2. A good political decision...

Fudging the issue like he did at the GOP debate proved to be disastrous, and nobody's going to believe him as a fire and brimstone pro-life advocate, so better to show he's "principled", and hope that fear (of terrorism) will will over the bible-thumpers.

[iamjoy]

3. Will He Be Denied Communion?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x857378

Or does it only apply to liberal lawmakers, eh, Pope Ratz?

[Colobo]

4. I'm glad he's pro-choice, but...

The Religious Right will destroy him!