But a transcript of the interview supplied by his office shows that Giuliani wasn't as stridently in favor of abortion as the lone comment suggests.

Here's the full exchange between the former mayor and Donahue, which appeared in the Sept. 1, 1989 edition of Newsday.

DONAHUE: You have apparently found yourself on the great trap door called abortion. And not a few so-called experts believe that the agonized approach that you've brought to this issue accounts for the decline in your position in the polls.

GIULIANI: Maybe people don't understand that I didn't start all this as a politician would start it, with some canned answer. I thought about it a lot. In my discussion of it, I may have thought out loud a bit.

I've said that I'll uphold a woman's right of choice, that I will fund abortion so that a poor woman is not deprived of a right that others can exercise, and that I would oppose going back to a day in which abortions were illegal.

I do that in spite of my own personal reservations. I have a daughter now; if a close relative or a daughter were pregnant, I would give my personal advice, my religious and moral views ...

DONAHUE: Which would be to continue the pregnancy.

GIULIANI: Which would be that I would help her with taking care of the baby. But if the ultimate choice of the woman - my daughter or any other woman - would be that in this particular circumstance [if she had] to have an abortion, I'd support that. I'd give my daughter the money for it.

And if that's my private resolution of it, that's the way I have to resolve it publicly. [END OF EXCERPT]

Editor's note: