*Giuliani said that Bill Clinton made the right decision when he vetoed the 1997 partial birth abortion ban. However, in 2007 Giuliani supported the 2003 partial birth abortion ban upheld by the Supreme Court, and said that this was because the 2003 law had included "more scientific language protecting the life of the mother." Media Matters disputed Giuliani's contention that more scientific language had been inserted into the 2003 bill.

*Statements on abortion prior to 2001:
Giuliani expressed pro-choice positions during election years when he was running for mayor of New York City, (1989 and 1993), and when he was running for a New York State seat in the United States Senate (2000).
1989: Giuliani said, "There must be public funding for abortion for poor women. We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decision about abortion because she lacks resources." In the same 1989 speech he said, "I have also stated that I disagree with President [George H.W.] Bush's veto last week of public funding for abortions."
That year his campaign issued this statement: "As mayor, Rudy Giuliani will uphold a woman's right of choice to have an abortion. Giuliani will fund all city programs which provide abortions to insure that no woman is deprived of her right due to an inability to pay. He will oppose reductions in state funding. He will oppose making abortion illegal. Although Giuliani is personally opposed to abortion, his personal views will not interfere with his responsibilities as mayor."

• 1993: He addressed a letter to a pro-choice group, National Abortion Rights Action League, saying, New York City "has an obligation to protect the constitutional right of women to choose abortion."
• 1997: During his reelection bid, he scored 100% on his questionnaire response to the local National Abortion Rights Action League chapter.
• 2000: During his competition with Hillary Clinton for a New York State seat in the United States Senate, he said that he supported then president Bill Clinton’s veto of a law that banned intact dilation and extraction: "I would vote to preserve the option for women."

*Statements and positions, 2001 and onward:
As mayor, Guliani stated that he is against banning late-term abortion and that he didn't see his position on that changing. Giuliani also told The Albany Times Union that he would not support a ban on late-term abortions.
In a February 2007 interview with Sean Hannity, Giuliani said, "I hate [abortion] ... However, I believe in a woman's right to choose." Regarding Roe v. Wade, Giuliani says that the case has been on the books for some time and is a precedent, but as to whether to overrule it or limit it: "That's up to the court to decide." He believes that regulation of the issue should be left for the states to decide.
In 1989 and again in April 2007, Giuliani stated that he is in favor of publicly funded abortions. However, during the May 3, 2007, Republican Presidential Debate, Giuliani's stance regarding abortion was:
I don't. I support the Hyde amendment. I hate abortion. I wish people didn't have abortions. I believe that the Hyde amendment should remain the law. States should make their decision. Some states decide to do it. Most states decide not to do it. And I think that's the appropriate way to have this decided. I supported it in New York, but I think, in other places, people can come to a different decision.
Giuliani said in May 2007 that he would not make abortion a "litmus test" for Supreme Court judges as president. In June of 2007, he declined to say whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned: "Should it be overturned? I don't answer that because I wouldn't want a judge to have to answer that. I don't consider it a litmus test. I think a conservative strict constructionist judge could come to either conclusion." Giuliani has also supported the ban of partial-birth abortion.

LGBT issues*

Stem cell research*

Giuliani supports the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. During the May 3, 2007, Republican Presidential Debate, Giuliani explained his view: As long as we're not creating life in order to destroy it, as long as we're not having human cloning, and we limit it to that, and there is plenty of opportunity to then use federal funds in those situations where you have limitations. So I would support [embryonic stem cell research] with those limitations.

*Giuliani only favors capital punishment for murder in certain circumstances. One such example is that he has advocated the death penalty for terrorists following September 11. Note that this stance on the death penalty is identical to that of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

* During Giuliani's mayoralty he oversaw major crackdowns on illegal drugs, especially marijuana. He also indicated that he will continue to arrest, prosecute, and imprison patients who use medical marijuana.

School Choice *

• Privatize failing schools. (Jan 2000)
• Charter Schools create competition. (Jan 2000)
• Voucher program for New York City. (Jan 2000)
• Experiment in NYC with school vouchers. (Apr 1999)

* Giuliani expressed frustration with the New York City Board of Education. He said in April 1999 that he would like to "blow up" the [then] Board of Education.

Education vouchers *

In May 1999, Mayor Giuliani advocated in favor of education vouchers, proposing to allocate several million dollars to allow poor children attending poor-performing public schools to attend private schools. In February 2007 reaffirmed his support for "school choice". However, he said his goal was not to end the American public school system. "I would not destroy it. I would revive it, reform it, and change it."

Evolution *

Regarding the scientific theory of evolution, in a July 2006 public appearance in Arkansas, Giuliani said that "Darwin’s theories are a very accepted part of science ... I am a Christian, and I can accommodate that to my beliefs."

School prayer *

In a celebrated 1998 case of a New York City public schoolteacher who led her class in prayer, Mayor Giuliani condemned her actions and said that "using her position in order to teach her religion" was a dismissible offense.
However, in 1999 Giuliani sent out national fundraising letters in which he portrayed himself as in favor of school prayer, the posting in schools of the Ten Commandments, and in general support for a greater role for faith in the public sphere. On August 15, 2007 Giuliani told an Iowa audience that government has gone too far in removing God from schools and that he supports prayers in school ceremonies. [In 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against prayer before football games. Likewise a federal court in Iowa ruled against the singing of the Lord's Prayer at commencement ceremonies.]

* Giuliani believes the planet is indeed warming up. He commented on Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, that he feels the film did not go far enough to the describe the ways in which to combat the warming of the planet in the United States.

* Iran

Giuliani implied in early April 2007 that Iran was involved in the September 11 attacks due to links with al-Qaeda. He also accused the leaders of Iran of having similar or identical objectives to Al-Qaeda. When a New York Times reporter questioned him about the statements, Giuliani had said, "Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us" Giuliani replied, "They have a similar objective in their anger at the modern world."

At the same trip, Giuliani said that he did not know whether North Korea was further along in their nuclear missile program than Iran.

During the May 3, 2007, Republican Presidential debate, Giuliani said: He [Ahmadinejad] has to understand it's not an option; he cannot have nuclear weapons./p

In the following June 5, 2007 debate, in answer to a hypothetical question about whether use of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons should be considered to keep Iran from gaining its own nuclear weapons, Giuliani said that "I think it could be done with conventional weapons, but you can’t rule out anything and you shouldn’t take any option off the table."

In September 2007, Giuliani stated that the United States and allies would do everything necessary to prevent Iran from going nuclear stating the "absolute assurance that we will - if they get to the point where they are going to become a nuclear power - we will prevent them or we'll set them back five or 10 years. And that is not said as a threat. That should be said as a promise."

* Iraq

Giuliani was described by Newsweek magazine in January of 2007 as "one of the most consistent cheerleaders for the president’s handling of the war in Iraq." Later that year he supported Bush's proposal for a surge in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Giuliani has suggested that the President has the authority to "redirect" federal funds to support the war in Iraq even if he vetoes a funding bill passed by Congress, and in the absence of any other legislation authorizing such funding.

* Domestic Surveillance

Giuliani has supported Bush's tactic of using domestic surveillance.

* Waterboarding and interrogation methods

Giuliani has supported "waterboarding" in a situation where "we know that there's going to be another attack and these people (terrorists) know about it." Also, in regards to interrogating terrorists to prevent attack, Giuliani said that he "would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of."

* United Nations

In an October 1, 2001 speech before the United Nations in New York, Mayor Giuliani said that in order for the United Nations to remain relevant, it had to unequivocally oppose terrorism, and now: "The United Nations must hold accountable any country that supports or condones terrorism. Otherwise, you will fail in your primary mission as peacekeeper. It must ostracize any nation that supports terrorism. It must isolate any nation that remains neutral in the fight against terrorism."

* Giuliani has changed his views on guns over time. As mayor of New York, he was a proponent of urban gun control, but, while running for President, has stated that he thinks differently about more mid-west environments.

* Statements and actions between 1980 and 2006:
During his time in the United States Department of Justice in the early 1980s, Giuliani said that a mandatory waiting period before purchasing a handgun was "sensible and moderate".
As Mayor of New York, Giuliani became a nationally visible figure in favor of national gun control measures, beginning with an appearance on Meet the Press in late 1993. He was in favor of the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
Giuliani and then-president Bill Clinton exchanged warm letters in 1994 that dealt with support for the assault weapons ban. Clinton wrote to Giuliani in a May 6, 1994 letter: "Thank you very much for your efforts on behalf of H.R. 4296, the assault weapons ban." Clinton continued: "With your support and encouragement, the U.S. House of Representatives took a critical step toward getting assault weapons off the streets, out of neighborhoods, and out of the hands of criminals." Clinton further said that he was "grateful" for Giuliani's "dedicated" support of the legislation.
On May 31, 1994 Giuliani replied, "Thank you for your autographed photo and kind note." He added, "Please know that you have my continued support for this crucial legislation." An October 13 letter thanked Clinton for a signing pen and said, "I look forward to continuing to work with you to reduce crime . . . ."
He appeared on the Charlie Rose Show in 1995 and compared the National Rifle Association with "extremists." He said that the anti-gun control positions of many Republicans are "terrible for states and cities. They're terrible for America." After pointing to NYPD gun seizures and reductions of homicides and shootings in particular. He added that can New York City can "only so far, unless the federal government passes a law that keeps the 90 percent of guns from coming into New York from outside New York, helps us get control over that."
In February 1997 a gunman opened fire from atop the Empire State Building hitting seven people, killing one of these persons. Giuliani blamed lax gun laws for the shooting: "It should be as difficult to get a gun in Florida as it is in New York City." In 1997, while the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect, he called for a stricter federal ban on assault weapons and for handgun registration on the federal level. He also endorsed President Bill Clinton's proposals for more stringent federal gun-licensing requirements, "I applaud the President's [Clinton’s] proposals, and I will support them any way I can." In the same speech he said, ". . . we may be able to find some sort of meaning in this tragedy [the Empire State Building shooting] by using it as a catalyst to revive national gun control efforts."
Beginning in 1997, he regularly criticized states in the Southern United States for having permissive laws on gun sales, that fed an illegal movement of guns into New York City; he said that 60 percent of guns found in New York came from Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. He endorsed amendments to city laws requiring gun owners to use trigger locks and prohibiting guns within a thousand feet of schools.
In a newspaper article, published, March 21, 2000, Giuliani was quoted advocating a mandatory written test for gun owners: "I do not think the government should cut off the right to bear arms. My position for many years has been that just as a motorist must have a license, a gun owner should be required to have one as well. Anyone wanting to own a gun should have to pass a written exam that shows that they know how to use a gun, that they’re intelligent enough and responsible enough to handle a gun."
On June 20, 2000, the City of New York filed a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors. Giuliani accused gun companies of "deliberately manufacturing many more firearms than can be bought for the legitimate purposes of hunting and law enforcement." Giuliani also said, "This lawsuit is meant to end the free pass that gun industry has enjoyed for a very, very long time.... The more guns you take out of society, the more you are going to reduce murder." The lawsuit remains active. During his abortive run for the New York Senate seat in 2000, he advocated a uniform national standard for all gun owners and supported legislation that gave New York State the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.

* Statements since 2006:

By the time of his run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, Giuliani had modified a number of his views. In a February 2007 Sean Hannity interview, he said that "[The right to carry a handgun] is part of the Constitution. People have a right to bear arms," and that while tough gun-control laws were needed in New York City, "in another place, more rural, more suburban ... you have a different set of rules." He applauded the March 2007 Parker v. District of Columbia United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision that struck down D.C.'s highly restrictive Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975. His campaign officials declined to say whether Giuliani would still support the federal assault weapons ban, the imposition of federal rules on the states, or his claims about Southern states feeding weapons into the North.
According to Gun Owners of America (GOA), Rudy's position of "Disarming citizens because they live in a high crime area is taking away the most effective means of self-defense from the people who need it most. Creating mandatory victims is no way to fight a crime problem." GOA further expressed significant concerns that "If Giuliani's gun control agenda was really limited 'only' to big cities, that would be disturbing enough. But the record shows that the Mayor continually tried to export his gun control agenda to the rest of the nation."

* In 2000 Giuliani initiated what the New York Post called "a massive program" to get city employees to expand the number of low-income, uninsured children and adults into public health entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plan. Promoting enrollment in his HealthStat program, Giuliani said at the time that the program could be "a model for the rest of this country for how to get people covered on the available health programs." On February 26, 2007, Giuliani said that he was against any notion of universal health care in America, which would mean a "socialization" of American medicine. "That would be a terrible, terrible mistake. [Solutions] have to be free market solutions. They have to be a competitive system." Giuliani did say that it is an appropriate role for the government to "find ways" to expand access to health insurance. In July 2007, in a campaign speech he made a direct connection between socialized medicine and socialism, saying "the American way is not single-payer, government-controlled anything. That's a European way of doing something; that's frankly a socialist way of doing something. That's why when you hear Democrats in particular talk about single-mandated health care, universal health care, what they're talking about is socialized medicine." At the Republican Debate in New Hampshire on June 5, 2007, Giuliani proposed a fixed tax credit (in excess of 15,000 USD) to families in order to help finance personally purchased health care. This credit is independent of the value of insurance purchased; the taxpayer would get the rest of the credit as an incentive to purchase a low-cost plan. Giuliani suggested that this offered a solution to the problem (as he saw it) created by the current, firm-purchased system. His health care plan makes no mention of covering everyone; it would target those with employer-based insurance and those who pay taxes. The plan is very similar to that presented by President Bush in 2006. Experts analyzing the Bush plan thought that the youngest and healthiest employees would go into the private sector, but older and sicker ones would remain on employee insurance. Giuliani wrote an August 3, 2007 article for the Boston Globe on his official position on health care. In it he stated that taxes should not be raised to provide more health care but instead lowered for "individual empowerment". He talked about the creation of a tax-free Health Savings Account that would allow individuals and small businesses to stock up on health insurance and in effect lower rates. "America is best when we solve our problems from our strengths, not our weaknesses. Healthcare reform must be based on increased choice, affordability, portability, and individual empowerment." (Giuliani) In October 2007, he supported President Bush's veto of the augmented State Children's Health Insurance Program. Giuliani's support of the S-CHIP veto elicited criticism from his past supporters on health issues: Sandy Trujillo, deputy director of the Children's Defense Fund said, "I'm quite shocked because Giuliani was a champion of the Children's Health Insurance Program. He's re-writing his own history."

* As prosecutor under the Reagan administration in the 1980s, Giuliani defended the administration's position to keep thousands of Haitian refugees in detention centers rather than granting them asylum after they fled the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier.
Giuliani was a strong defender of illegal immigrants' rights as mayor, fighting for them to be allowed to use public services and attend public schools. But he has changed some of his position on the 2007 campaign trail.
As Mayor of New York City, Giuliani distanced himself from his previous policy and encouraged hardworking illegal immigrants to move to New York City. He said: "Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens. If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair."
He pressed for $12 million to start a city agency which would help immigrants gain citizenship. He defended the city's policy of not allowing police and hospital workers about citizenship status.
In 1996, Giuliani said, "Indeed, the whole process of immigration is something the Republican Party should embrace." In the same year, at a public talk at the John F. Kennedy School of Government he said, "We're never, ever going to be able to totally control immigration in a country that is as large as ours." He went on to say, "If you were to totally control immigration into the United States, you might very well destroy the economy of the United States, because you'd have to inspect everything and everyone in every way possible."
Giuliani sued the federal government on October 11, 1996 for what he called unconstitutional provisions against immigrants. In announcing his lawsuit he said, "I believe the anti-immigration movement in America is one of our most serious public problems." He added: "I am speaking out and filing this action because I believe that a threat to immigration can be a threat to the future of our country."Giuliani said that the Immigration and Naturalization Service "do nothing with those names but terrorize people." His lawsuit against the new immigration law claimed that the new federal requirement to report illegal immigrants violated the 10th Amendment. He said that the law, as well as the Welfare Reform Act, were "inherently unfair." He pursued this lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he lost the case.
In 1997, Giuliani signed a statement of principles which read, "The new laws recently passed by Congress and signed into law by the President unfairly target immigrants in the United States by severely limiting their access to many federal benefits which citizens are entitled to receive." and "Since legal immigrants work and pay taxes like American citizens, they should be entitled to temporary assistance when they fall into personal difficulty. Furthermore, the denial of federal assistance to legal immigrants in need is patently unfair and arguably unconstitutional and inhumane." In 1998, Giuliani argued for expanding Medicare, SSI and foodstamp benefits to legal immigrants and also, "Providing full Medicaid coverage to Prucol aliens with HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses"
In April 2006, Giuliani went on the record as favoring the US Senate's comprehensive immigration plan which includes a path to citizenship and a guest worker plan. He rejected the US House approach because he does not think House Resolution 4437 could be enforced.
In February 2007, in a meeting with California Republicans, Giuliani was quoted as saying "We need a [border] fence, and a highly technological one." Giuliani also reiterated his support for some sort of path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants after a process to be determined, but added that at the end of the process the immigrants should "display the ability to read and write English" and must assimilate into American society. In 2000, Giuliani said, "I wish that we would actually make America more open to immigrants." He does not believe in deportation of illegal immigrants and advocates a "tamper-proof" national ID card and database for illegal immigrants.
On September 7, 2007, during a CNN interview, he said that illegal immigrants are not criminals.
On the topic of legal immigration, in June 2007 Giuliani rejected Tom Tancredo's calls for a temporary stop of legal immigration. Giuliani stated: "We should always be open to legal immigration." In September 2007, Giuliani affirmed that legal immigration should be increased.

* Giuliani supports Bush's tax cuts. In 1994, he endorsed Democratic incumbent Governor Mario Cuomo over Republican challenger George Pataki over Pataki's proposals to cut taxes, especially the commuter tax. Giuliani objected to Pataki's plan to cut income taxes by 25%. The commuter tax was a 0.45% tax paid by those who lived outside NYC but who commuted to jobs within it. Giuliani was strictly against the cutting of this tax, calling it "relatively modest and completely justified."
Giuliani has not signed a pledge by Americans for Tax Reform (signed by every Republican presidential nominee since 1988) to not raise taxes while in office.
In 1996, Giuliani criticized a proposal for a national flat tax, saying its elimination of deductions for state and local income taxes would unfairly punish high-tax states such as New York and added that the flat tax "would really be a disaster."
By 2007, Giuliani was more amenable to a flat tax, but still claimed difficulties in adopting one. In an interview, he said: "If we were doing income tax for the first time. In other words, if we were starting off new back at the beginning of the last century, then probably we should go with a--we probably should've gone with a flat tax, maybe two levels of tax, but really simple. Our economy has kind of grown up now on depreciation and deductions and industries have grown up around that and so I don't know exactly how much you can simplify it, but you sure have to make a stab at it." Later that week, in accepting Forbes' endorsement, Giuliani said that "a flat tax would make a lot of sense".
During the May 3, 2007, Republican Presidential debate when asked what tax would he like to cut, Giuliani responded: "We have to adjust the AMT. That has to be reduced. We have to get rid of the death tax, which is going to go to zero in 2010, which is going to create an incentive -- I can't imagine what kind of an incentive it's going to create. It's going to go to zero in 2010. And then in 2011, it's going to go to 55 percent. And we have to make sure that the tax cuts that went into effect, that that level remains. Otherwise, we're going to have one of the biggest tax increases in history in 2011. And I would look to try to regularize the rates and look for some marginal reduction, even beyond what we're doing right now."
Unlike many of his fellow presidential candidates, Giuliani has not supported the idea of a national sales tax (FairTax) as a replacement for the current system. With regard to Social Security, Giuliani has expressed his opposition to a tax increase but has declined to rule it out.