Asked for her specific stance on abortion, presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she was unapologetically pro-life but would not support an absolute ban on the procedure.
“I think abortion is personal for every woman and man in America, and it needs to be treated that way,” Ms. Haley said at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
She said that approaches such as contraceptives, promoting adoption, and limiting abortion laws to early termination are solutions that have been “demonized for too long.”
Ms. Haley said her position is in part based on a college roommate who was raped.
“I wouldn’t wish on anyone to go through what she went through,” said Ms. Haley. “Everybody has a story. Let’s be respectful of your story.”
Ms. Haley was responding to a question about GOP rival former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s recent claim that she has dodged requests to clarify her position on abortion legislation and has recently given conflicting versions of her stance in the two key battleground states of Iowa and in New Hampshire.
The audience member asked Ms. Haley “for Mr. Christie and the cameras” to “say exactly” what her stance is on abortion.
In responding, Ms. Haley distinguished between her support for states to adopt their own abortion legislation from the U.S. President signing a national abortion law.
She explained that as President, she would consider signing a six-week abortion ban, but only if it represented the will of the people and that she said would have to come by what she characterized as the impossibility of getting approval by the majority of Congress.
“In order to have a federal law, you have to have a majority of the House, 60 Senate votes and a signature request,” she said. “We haven’t had 60 Republican senators in over 100 years.”
Ms. Haley cited her husband Michael’s status as an adoptee and her own difficulty conceiving her two children, now young adults, as among the reasons she is pro-life.
She has attacked GOP rival Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for supporting state legislation that criminalizes abortion ban violations.
Previous Stances
Ms. Haley’s criticism of criminalizing abortion contrasts with her past actions on the issue.In 2016, as South Carolina governor, Ms. Haley signed a 20-week abortion ban that came with penalties that included $10,000 in fines and three years in prison for doctors who violated the ban.
The law included an exception if the mother’s life was at risk or a doctor determined the pregnancy was not viable and the fetus could not survive out of the womb. However, there was no exception in the case the pregnancy was a result of a rape.
Ms. Haley’s current position is also starkly different from her views as a state representative.
In 2010, as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, Haley voted to end abortion coverage for victims of rape and incest who became pregnant as a result of the assaults.
That elimination has since been reversed in the update of South Carolina’s abortion laws that now outlaw abortion after six weeks but exclude pregnancies that resulted from a rape.
“Women are victims of abortion and require our compassion and support as well as ready access to counseling and social services in the days, weeks, months, and years following an abortion.”
The group penned the letter in response to the leak of a draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court indicating it was considering reversing the historic Roe v. Wade case, which sanctioned abortion. The Court made that reversal in the Dobbs decision.
According to the group’s open letter, a California study of 50,000 women who had abortions between 1989 and 1994 were admitted within 90 days of terminating their pregnancy for psychiatric evaluation 2.6 times more than women who gave birth.
Ms. Haley echoed the group’s concern for women who have abortions in clarifying her position on abortion Tuesday.
“Our goal is how you save as many babies as you can and support as many moms as you can,” she said.
Ms. Haley’s clarification fell on the same night she won an endorsement from New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a moderate Republican.
In 2021, Mr. Sununu, who has called himself a pro-abortion governor, approved a New Hampshire measure that would allow abortion up to 24 weeks.
“Under no circumstances would I force a woman or a man to go to any medical procedure just because I or the state say so,” he said during an appearance on New Hampshire public radio last year.
The Biden-Harris 2024 re-election campaign released a statement on X, saying that Ms. Haley was “no moderate” for saying she would support a federal six-week abortion ban.
“She’s an anti-abortion MAGA extremist who wants to rip away women’s freedoms just like she did when she was South Carolina governor,” the Nov. 17 statement charged.
