DISINVENTING THE CONSTITUTION:

Giuliani Shifts Abortion Speech Gently to Right (RAY RIVERA, 2/09/07, NY Times)

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."

On the issue of a disputed abortion procedure called "partial-birth abortion" by opponents, he told Mr. Hannity that a ban signed into law by President Bush in 2003, which the Supreme Court is reviewing, should be upheld. And on the issue of parental notification -- whether to require minors to obtain permission from either a parent or a judge before an abortion -- he said, "I think you have to have a judicial bypass," meaning a provision that would allow a minor to seek court permission from a judge in lieu of a parent.

"If you do, you can have parental notification," he said.

Both appear to be shifts away from statements he made while he was mayor and during his brief campaign for United States senator in 2000.

Gotta love the way he b;lithely ignores the fact that abortion itself is an invented "right."

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2007 8:16 AM