There are three ways of interpreting what Haley has been saying.
There are three ways of interpreting what Haley has been saying.
T he first question about abortion in last week’s debate went to former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, and her answer started strong. She declared herself “unapologetically pro-life,” urged civility on all sides, and argued that we should act to protect human lives where we have reached a democratic consensus. She suggested that we should, for example, “ban late-term abortions” at the federal level.
That’s the beginning of an approach that could help the pro-life cause and Republicans alike (one that I have elsewhere described and defended as “persistent persuasion”). But the debate, as it continued, revealed an ambiguity in Haley’s position on the issue that probably cannot be sustained in a presidential campaign, and that pro-lifers should want resolved to their satisfaction.
Mike Pence, the former vice president, went after Haley’s position, saying, “Consensus is the opposite of leadership.” The Supreme Court didn’t just send abortion to the states, he said, urging a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Haley came back, noting that the Senate has never had enough pro-lifers to defeat a filibuster and enact such a law. (She had an uncharacteristic verbal slip in making this point, saying the Senate hasn’t had 45 pro-lifers in 100 years; on other occasions, she has more accurately said it hasn’t had 60 Republicans in that long.)
In April, Haley said, “I do believe there is a federal role on abortion.” In July, she told Shannon Bream of Fox News that she “absolutely would sign” a 15-week ban as president if Congress passed one. Pence and Haley thus agree on two important points: Both think there is a legitimate federal role in regulating abortion, and both would sign a 15-week ban.
In February, around the time of her campaign launch, she expressed openness to a ban that kicked in even earlier than that so long as it reflected a consensus. “Is that consensus 15 weeks? Is it ten weeks? Is it six weeks? I don’t know what that is, but we need to figure this out for the good of these babies and for the good of the moms.”
Since that time, Haley has placed more emphasis on the political obstacles to enacting even a 15-week ban. She has declined to sign a pledge committing her to such a ban on the ground that it would not be “honest” given the odds against enactment: “I’m not going to lie to the American people.” She has sometimes suggested that a consensus could, on the other hand, form for a ban on abortion later than 15 weeks. At the debate itself, her initial answer referred approvingly to the possibility of such a ban. Afterward, she asked whether President Biden and Vice President Harris favor legal abortion in the 39th or 40th week of pregnancy.
I see three ways of interpreting what Haley has been saying.
The first is that she genuinely thinks that a federal ban on abortion that is extremely modest in scope has a greater chance of success and should therefore be a pro-life president’s priority. If so, I think she is making two mistakes. A ban that limited would draw practically identical opposition from the Democrats. As former senator Ben Sasse learned when he sponsored the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, Democrats were nearly unanimous in their willingness to filibuster legislation that would merely extend the ordinary protections of the law to children born in the course of attempted abortions. At the same time, a ban so limited would garner equally limited enthusiasm from pro-lifers, some of whom consider 15 weeks much too late.
A second possibility is that Haley is trying to dodge the abortion issue: trying, that is, to get credit from pro-lifers for an intention while also signaling to pro-choicers that she will not follow through on it. Opposition by Democrats to a 15-week ban is on this reading an excuse for preemptively surrendering to that opposition. If that’s what she’s doing, then I think the political strategy will suffer from a pincer movement.
Pro-lifers will rightfully ask why, when politicians including Haley routinely adopt positions they know will not immediately carry the day, she cites the opposition to justify her refusal to take this one. In her announcement speech, Haley endorsed two specific policies: “We’ll have term limits for Congress and mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.” Neither of these ideas is likely to get past a filibuster, let alone muster the two-thirds supermajorities in each legislative chamber plus three-quarters of the states that they might require.
Pro-choicers, meanwhile, will attack her over her stated willingness to sign a 15-week ban. The Democratic National Committee is already doing it: “As South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley signed an abortion ban into law that had no exceptions for rape or incest, and now she’s running for president on a pledge to sign a national abortion ban.” (That supposedly “extreme” ban kicked in at 20 weeks.) They would not be mollified by reassurances that she is not serious about getting such a ban.
A third possibility is that Haley has not quite finished filling out her position: She recognizes the obstacles to a 15-week ban, she doesn’t want to lead pro-lifers to think electing her will be enough to get one, but if elected she will fight for one. Even if she does not succeed at first, the effort will help expose the extremism of the ban’s opponents.
I hope that’s what she means, and that she finds a way to say so.