Abortion Rift For Lazio, Pataki
Four days into his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat from New York, the fresh-faced Long Island congressman standing in for Rudy Giuliani has begun to handle the big issues.
Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., defending a position at odds with GOP Gov. George Pataki and Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, opposes Medicaid funding to pay for poor women's abortions.
While the Long Island congressman said he is an abortion rights supporter, he has repeatedly voted in the House against Medicaid funding for abortion.
"I am what I am. I'm not going to hide anything here," Lazio said Monday in Albany, the state capital. "I have had a record that supports a woman's right to choose. I do not want to criminalize abortion.
"On the other hand, I want to make it rarer and I don't think just because we have a right that we need to subsidize that right," he added. "I'm absolutely comfortable with that position. I think that's where the majority of New Yorkers are."
Reminded that Pataki, his main political booster, has continued state Medicaid funding for poor women's abortions despite the cutoff of federal funding, Lazio said that "just like a lot of different rights that we don't subsidize, I think it falls into that category. I just think my record speaks for itself. I'm very comfortable with it. People will make a judgment based on it."
In addition to opposing Medicaid funding for abortion, Lazio is in favor of banning a late-term abortion procedure that critics call "partial-birth abortion." It is his opposition to that procedure that helped clear the way Monday for Lazio to pick up the backing of state Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long.
Long had refused to get behind the now-ended Senate candidacy of Republican Rudolph Giuliani in large part because of the New York City mayor's refusal to oppose the abortion procedure. Giuliani left the Senate race Friday and Lazio immediately declared his candidacy.
The Clinton campaign wasted no time in jumping on the abortion issue Monday after being told about Lazio's comments.
"New Yorkers will learn that Rick Lazio isn't really pro-choice. He is multiple choice and never met an abortion restriction he didn't like or vote for," Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said. "Women in New York will learn that they can't really trust him to protect the right to choose."
Kelli Conlin, executive director of the New York arm of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, said the polls she has seen indicate most New Yorkers believe "we shouldn't be drawing lines based on income."
"I would disagree with him that most New Yorkers believe that only wealthy women should have access to abortion," the abortion rights advocate said.
Lazio said "there are a lot of people who, I guess, would like to make this race nothing but about that issue, but I have a record, which is diffrent than my opponent. It is a record of experience and getting things done."
"They can't say I haven't built bridges and achieved solutions," the four-term congressman said. "The other side will pick what they can to try and be divisive. I'm not going to be divisive. I'm going to build unity and bring people together. That's what New Yorkers are looking for."
The first lady supports Medicaid funding for abortion and is opposed to banning the late-term abortion procedure.
Pataki has said he would sign legislation banning the abortion procedure if it reaches his desk. The ban has been blocked in the Democratic-led Assembly. Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an abortion rights supporter who is retiring at the end of the year and whose seat Clinton and Lazio are seeking, is also opposed to the abortion procedure.