Giuliani and Biden Flip Flop on the Federal Abortion Ban

Via the Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, Giuliani Answers Questions About Consistency of Abortion Rights Stance; Biden Says Court Ruling on Abortion Ban 'Contains Troubling Reasoning':

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, on Tuesday at a campaign stop at New England College in Henniker, N.H., answered questions from voters about his position on so-called "partial-birth" abortion, the Long Island Newsday reports (Gordon, Long Island Newsday, 4/24). Giuliani told several hundred people attending the event that he does not think there is an "inconsistency" between his support of abortion rights and his support of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last week to uphold a federal law (S 3) banning partial-birth abortion, the AP/MSNBC reports.

Mystifyingly, Giuliani claims that he supported President Clinton's vetoes of a similar federal abortion ban because he did not believe the earlier ban contained an exception to protect pregnant women's lives.  However, both that ban and the one recently upheld contain limited life exceptions, while neither include a health exception.  For more on Giuliani's abortion views, see: Ann Althouse on Giuliani's and Romney's Abortion Views; Michael Dorf on Giuliani's Abortion Views.

Meanwhile, Senator Biden issued a statement criticizing the Court's ruling, even though he voted for the ban:

In related news, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, in recent statement released to the Wilmington News Journal said that the Supreme Court's partial-birth abortion ruling "contains troubling reasoning that could lay a powerful foundation to dismantle basic legal precedent." Biden is the only Democratic presidential candidate to have voted for the ban in the Senate in 2003.