Believe me when I say that I personally am just as pro-life as you are. I differ with Giuliani on the abortion issue. However, because on all the major policy actions that he as a President can realistically take (upholding the Hyde Amendment, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, nominating conservative judges to the Supreme Court, promoting abortion-alternatives like adoption, and discouraging women from seeking abortions) Rudy is on our side. When one takes this fact in the context of Rudy’s terrific record on so many other conservative issues, from imposing fiscal discipline to reducing federal bureaucracy to reducing unemployment by a welfare-to-work approach to slashing taxes to keeping us safe by retaining a strong posture on the international stage to standing up to terrorists and tyrants to keeping liberal Democrats out of office, Rudy is the best Republican we could possibly put in office in 2009.

Rudy’s view on abortion is that the decision is a “personal” moral issue, as opposed to post-birth murder, robbery, rape, etc., which he considers matters of “universal” morality. This is where I differ with Giuliani.

Believe me. The logic that says a baby is not alive until the fifth month is NOT my logic. I’m simply trying to present evidence that there are a lot of really good-intentioned, reasonable people who come to seemingly logical conclusions about abortion and are not necessarily sinister monsters. Ramesh Ponnuru was implying that because Rudy was pro-choice on partial birth abortion, that Rudy could not be classified in the same group as “people of generally sound mind and good will.” I think that’s wrong. While Rudy and I don’t see eye to eye on abortion, I think Rudy is still a person of generally sound mind and good will. We just disagree on one singular issue, that’s all.

Moreover, like I said before, a United States President can do very little to realistically affect the abortion issue. He can make sure the Hyde Amendment doesn’t get vetoed (which Rudy will do), he can make sure the Partial Birth Abortion Ban doesn’t get vetoed (which Rudy will do), he can nominate strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court (which Rudy will do), he can institute programs and use his influence to discourage abortions and urge people to put their newborns up for adoption instead (which Rudy will do).

I’m merely saying that since Rudy already sides with us on all the things he can realistically do as President on abortion, we need to look at his whole record on the entire range of conservative issues. And when you take everything into account, Rudy is, by far, the best option for ‘08.

This article is interesting and would probably be useful information for those that think voting for Giuliani in the general election if he wins the primary is as bad as voting for Clinton or Obama. This is clearly not true. However, as all pro-lifers have been saying since Giuliani entered the race, he is easily the worst Republican candidate on pro-life issues, and I am hoping for a better candidate in the general election.

I do want to comment on one paragraph that justifies Rudy Giuliani’s position on abortion, because this is an example of moral relativism that is costing lives. Take a look:

“Giuliani’s take on abortion is that the decision of whether or not to have an abortion is based on each individual’s personal religious belief in when a human achieves personhood, or a “soul,” and Rudy believes the government should not legislate one particular moral/religious belief over another. For instance, the traditional Jewish belief is that full life/personhood is not achieved until a child is born. Because of advances in science in recent years that have shown that humans can be medically dead while their hearts are still beating and/or lungs are still breathing, the definitive line that separates “alive” and ”not alive” in the scientific medical community has become brain wave activity, something that begins around the fifth month of pregnancy, meaning that many partial birth abortions (which most often take place in the fifth month or earlier) are performed before the baby is technically “alive” under this view. These are all rational, understandable viewpoints, whether you agree with them or not, and people who adhere to them are not necessarily monsters.”

Perhaps you can identify some of the logical fallacies in this paragraph immediately. First of all, I agree with Giuliani that the abortion debate does revolve around personhood, or the question, “what is the unborn?” However while many disagree on when personhood is established, it is possible, and very important, to determine when this begins. If these “many” are wrong, and personhood does begin much earlier then birth or the fifth month, then unborn persons are being slaughtered wrongly, and we ought to do something about it.

It appears that Giuliani is agreeing with the fundamental question of the debate: “what is it,” but then he says, since we all have different opinions on the issue, we shouldn’t legislate the issue, because the government shouldn’t legislate morality. (He also implies that abortion is a religious issue as well, but that’s just ridiculous. I’m not pro-life solely because I believe in God. I’m also not pro-life just because abortion pictures are ugly. I’m pro-life because I know that the unborn is alive, because the baby is growing; I know that the unborn is human because the baby has two human parents, and I think that innocent human persons should be protected. Period.) Besides, isn’t the woman having an abortion forcing her morality on her unborn child?

On the assertion that government should not legislate morality; this is absurd. Practically every law we have is an example of a legislator forcing his morality on me. Laws against rape, grand theft, even speeding are examples of this. If Giuliani is going to be consistent in his belief that the government should not legislate one particular moral belief over another, then pretty much all laws should be abolished. It doesn’t take a very big imagination to consider what that world would look like if morality wasn’t legislated.

Many pro-choice people argue that since there is no consensus on abortion, we shouldn’t legislate against it. However the absence of consensus does not mean the absence of truth. Just because people disagree does not mean that there are no answers. Many people used to believe that the earth was flat. That doesn’t mean it was true. Consensus or not, it is still possible to objectively weigh evidence and test arguments according to the dictates of sound reason. Also, if this relativistic argument were correct, then Roe vs. Wade was an unjust decision. At the time of Roe, only 19 states had liberalized their abortion laws while 31 others had not despite being lobbied to do so. I often ask people that make this argument, “Was the abolition of slavery unjust because there was no consensus? What about the civil rights legislation enacted over the last 4 decades?”

Lastly, let’s talk about the confusion on when life/personhood begins. There is simply no more debate in the scientific community about when life begins. Embryology textbooks all the say the same thing: life begins at fertilization. Prior to his acceptance of unrestricted abortion on demand, Planned Parenthood’s former president Dr. Alan Guttmacher was perplexed that anyone, much less a medical doctor, would not know this. “This all seems so simple and evident that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn’t part of the common knowledge.” (Life in the Making, Viking Press, 1933.) One more example of this is that after eight days of hearing consisting of 57 witnesses, including world-renowned geneticists, biologists, and practicing physicians, the Senate Subcommittee of Separation of Powers concluded in a report published in 1981 the following: “The testimony of these witnesses and the voluminous submissions received by the Subcommittee points to a clear conclusion: the life of a human being begins at conception.” (U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Report on The Human Life Bill – S. 158 (Dec. 1981) I could go on…

As for the argument that life begins when there is brain wave activity, this is just bad science. While the absence of brain wave activity is one of the ways to determine death, it is not the correct way to determine when life begins. The things that scientifically make you alive are growth, (cell reproduction at fertilization), metabolism, reaction to stimuli, and the fact that the cells are working together for the good of the whole body. This is ALL present at fertilization. If Josiah’s logic was correct that the baby is not alive until the fifth month, then the mother is pregnant with a non-living organism that suddenly comes to life at the first presence of brain activity! Unlike more mature human organisms, an embryo doesn’t need a brain to integrate its bodily systems so that it can live. Other functions of its body take care of that until it reaches a mature state where a brain is necessary. In short, the facts of science are clear: the unborn are not mere clumps of cells or mere fertilized eggs, but distinct, living human beings.