His campaign issued this statement today:
“As I have indicated before I will not seek to change current law as described in the Hyde Amendment.” — Rudy Giuliani
And his campaign points me to this Chicago interview from March 12, 2007:
REPORTER: There is a video clip around the internet today out today from your Mayor’s race where you came out in favor you support taxpayer funded abortion for poor women. Is that still your position today and what do make of this early attempt to discredit you with conservative voters?
GIULIANI: Well, everybody has a right to do that. I think that basically my position on abortion is that I oppose it, it’s wrong, everything should be done to discourage it, and I would discourage it personally, but ultimately however I think that the law has to permit people to make that choice, we can’t make that choice for them, and as far as the state of the law as it presently exists, I don’t have any real agenda to change that. That has to be decided on a state by state basis so far as issues beyond that, and then you know, the Supreme Court is going to decide issues like parental notification which I think is appropriate to have judicial bypass, and they’re going to decide about late-term abortion, (INAUDIBLE), and as long as there is exceptions for the life of the mother, I think that banning partial-birth abortion is the appropriate thing. So, you know, I’ve explained this many many times and I think people have to kind of evaluate what my position is and I do ultimately support a woman’s right to choose, and if there are some people who just feel they can’t vote for me because of that, well then they have to make that decision for themselves, and if there are other things that are more important to them, or they understand that my position is a balanced one, well maybe they will be. (Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Press Availability, Chicago, IL, 3/12/07)