It is only in this post-Roe environment that former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley could have given the speech she delivered on Tuesday about the future of abortion.
Speaking at the Susan B. Anthony List headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, Haley tried to position herself as a common sense, but still anti-abortion, consensus builder who would unite the country on a topic that’s divided America for generations — a lofty goal if I’ve ever heard one. “My goal as president will be the same as it was when I was governor and ambassador: I want to save as many lives and help as many moms as possible,” she told the roomful of press and supporters. By the time her speech ended, though, I was more convinced than ever that the GOP will remain stuck in an ideological trap of their own making for at least another election cycle.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade last year, Republicans have been paying a heavy political price. A recent NBC News poll showed that 58% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal all or most of the time, and that those who do rank it as one of their most important political priorities. But many of Haley’s would-be competitors, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have opted to see how far they can push the country to the right now that Roe has been overturned. DeSantis earlier this month signed into law legislation that bans most abortions after six weeks; Pence has repeatedly called for a nationwide ban on abortion, period.
A recent NBC News poll showed that 58% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal all or most of the time, and that those who do rank it as one of their most important political priorities.
In her address, Haley neither supported nor rejected the thinking behind the policies that Pence and DeSantis have supported. She also didn’t offer up any solid positions on matters like how many weeks into a pregnancy abortion should be legal. Instead, she set herself up as a vote-counting pragmatist willing to tell voters that there’s no chance that a national abortion ban could become law. “We have to face this reality,” she said. “The pro-life laws that have passed in strongly Republican states will not be approved at the federal level.”
It’s a conclusion that House Republicans have already reached, according to CNN. During previous stints in the majority, Republicans have passed bills featuring limits as extreme as those taking effect in states like North Dakota. This time around, they’re more than happy to say that the issue is one that’s up to the states in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision. And while any bill that would limit abortion would certainly fail to pass the Senate, or be vetoed by the White House, their reluctance to pass one even as a message to the base is striking.
It makes sense though, given that abortion policy was a key factor in Democrats limiting their losses in the midterm elections last year. It’s clear too that there’s no sign of them letting up the pressure on the GOP on that front. Among the themes that President Joe Biden stressed in his re-election announcement on Tuesday was that the 2024 election will center on if “we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”
It’s also no coincidence that Vice President Kamala Harris’ first de facto re-election campaign event was a rally for reproductive freedom. Leaders of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, EMILYs List and the ACLU all joined Harris at Howard University in Washington, just a few miles from where Haley delivered her speech, to stress that the fight for access to life-saving procedures was still on the line. Harris' message to Republicans: "Don’t get in our way because if you do, we’re going to stand up, we’re going to organize and we’re going to speak up and we’re going to say we’re not having that, we’re not playing that!”
On one, deeply “West Wing”-pilled level, I am glad that Haley is at least attempting to find common ground between the abortion rights activists and the Mike Pences of the world. For example, unlike some of the most hardcore GOP activists, Haley thinks that contraception should be more available moving forward, not less. But here’s an excerpt from her speech that shows just how low the bar is and why even that will be tough to clear: “We can all agree that women who get abortions should not be jailed. A few have even called for the death penalty — that’s the least pro-life position I can possibly imagine.”
The problem with Haley’s approach is twofold. First, the horse has already left the barn. The Trump administration, which she was a part of, was instrumental in seeding the federal bench with anti-abortion judges like the one who moved to outlaw the abortion pill mifepristone. And unfettered from Roe’s guidelines, states under full Republican control have galloped ahead with the harshest bans that they can muster.
Unfettered from Roe’s guidelines, states under full Republican control have galloped ahead with the harshest bans that they can muster.
Second, there are still plenty of people within her own party who believe that abortion is the murder of a child and that it should be punished as such. So no, there is not agreement within her own camp about whether a woman who has an abortion should be jailed. Haley’s framing makes sense for someone thinking ahead to the general election and winning over swing voters. But that still leaves the problem of getting past the evangelical and otherwise socially conservative voters for whom abortion has been a key issue.
Former President Donald Trump has managed to avoid that problem so far by leaning on the fact that he appointed the justices that helped make overturning Roe possible. But even he reportedly knows that the GOP has been getting clobbered on the issue. Haley is right to try to ameliorate the damage, but the people whose support she needs to win the nomination are the same ones who want to hear that abortion will be outlawed entirely as soon as possible.
For now, Haley will likely remain an outlier for her stance, which may prove to be beneficiary in a primary season, when it will be hard to stand out. It may even help her with the exact kind of suburban women that swung to the Democrats last year. But Republican-controlled state legislatures and governors are going to keep pushing stricter abortion bans until something stops them. Nikki Haley’s call for moderation is not that something.
