David Frum had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal the other day arguing that pro-lifers should be willing to entertain the idea of supporting Rudy Giuliani for president in 2008 if he does a few things. Let me mention two things Frum urges Giuliani to do, and note one he doesn’t.

First, the one he doesn’t. Giuliani has not just been pro-choice: He’s been against a ban on partial-birth abortion. It is very hard for me to imagine someone with that position winning a Republican presidential nomination, or getting significant pro-life support.

Frum suggests that Giuliani should agree to appoint judges who oppose Roe v. Wade (or whose originalism would make it likely they oppose it). Frum also says that Giuliani should say, “Today our challenge is to use the achievements of science and medicine to serve humanity–and never allow[] science to treat some human beings as mere tools for the use of others.” I take this line to be a statement of support for limits on the federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research and for a ban on cloning.

Now one can certainly be pro-choice and anti-Roe. I can think of several journalists and the odd legal academic who take this position. But examples of practical politicians who take it are hard to come by. Most politicians seem to think that being against Roe is a harder sell, politically, than being generically pro-life, and tend to downplay their anti-Roe stance, in part because many people are under the mistaken impression that getting rid of Roe means prohibiting abortion. Certainly most politicians seem to think that opposing funding embryonic stem-cell research is harder than being generically pro-life. I’m just not sure there’s a constituency for the position that Frum is advocating for the mayor. And so I think it’s unlikely that Giuliani will take the advice, or that pro-lifers will support him in large numbers.