http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/us/politics/10rudy.html?ei=5094&en=83e23c8316380a01&hp=&ex=1171170000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=printFebruary 10, 2007
Giuliani Shifts Abortion Speech Gently to Right
By RAY RIVERA
As he prepares for a possible run for president — a road that goes deep into the heart of conservative America — Rudolph W. Giuliani takes with him a belief in abortion rights that many think could derail his bid to capture the Republican nomination.
But in recent weeks, as he has courted voters in South Carolina and talked to conservative media outlets, Mr. Giuliani has highlighted a different element of his thinking on the abortion debate. He has talked about how he would appoint “strict constructionist” judges to the Supreme Court — what abortion rights advocates say is code among conservatives for those who seek to overturn or limit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court ruling declaring a constitutional right to abortion.
The effect has been to distance himself from a position favoring abortion rights that he espoused when he ran for mayor of New York City, where most voters favor abortion rights.
“I hate it,” he said of abortion in a recent interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. “I think abortion is something that, as a personal matter, I would advise somebody against. However, I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I think you have to ultimately not put a woman in jail for that.”
For Mr. Giuliani, a Brooklyn-born Roman Catholic who once considered entering the priesthood, the issue has been a source of discomfort throughout his political career, especially during his first bid for mayor of New York nearly two decades ago.
Now, as he courts voters in more conservative areas, Mr. Giuliani is turning to the same nuanced approach he used back then to explain how he can be both for abortion rights, while being morally opposed to abortion.
While Mr. Giuliani also faces obstacles for his stands favoring gun control and gay rights, perhaps no social issue resonates as deeply in the hearts of Christian conservatives as abortion.
In his recent travels, he has directed questions on the issue toward a discussion about judges, saying he would appoint jurists who believe in interpreting, not making, the law: judges, he said, like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who he has said he believed would place limits on Roe v. Wade.
“On the federal judiciary I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am,” he said last week in South Carolina. “I have a very, very strong view that for this country to work, for our freedoms to be protected, judges have to interpret, not invent, the Constitution.
“Otherwise you end up, when judges invent the Constitution, with your liberties being hurt. Because legislatures get to make those decisions and the Legislature in South Carolina might make that decision one way and the Legislature in California a different one.”
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