Haley Bashes Trump and Other Male Politicians for ‘Demonizing’ Issue of Abortion: ‘The Fellas Just Don’t Know How to Talk About This’

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized how male politicians discussed the contentious issue of abortion, telling CNN anchor Dana Bash “the fellas just don’t know how to talk about this.”

In Friday’s episode of Inside Politics, Bash played a clip from former President Donald Trump’s interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which the GOP frontrunner said he was “hearing about 15 weeks” as a possibility for a federal abortion ban. The ex-president did say that he had not yet agreed to any number but expressed confidence he could “take an issue that was very polarizing and get it settled and solved so everybody can be happy.”

Bash noted that Haley had “said repeatedly” she didn’t think a federal abortion ban was possible, and asked her what she thought about Trump’s comments.

Haley replied that trying to “put a number on it” was “the problem…because all that does is divide people, it demonizes the issue, it gets people’s backs up.”

Enacting a national ban was “the wrong way to look at how do you save as many babies as possible and support as many moms as possible,” she continued. “The only thing we should be talking about is consensus, is what can 60 members of the Senate agree on?”

“Is that 15 weeks?” asked Bash.

“I don’t think it’s 15 weeks,” the former South Carolina governor replied. “I don’t — if it was you’d have it now. You don’t have it now.”

The better approach, Haley urged, was to “get the senators in a room” and “find that consensus,” and then listed several ideas where she thought that was possible:

The focus needs to be banning late-term abortions, encouraging adoptions, and making sure doctors and nurses who don’t believe in abortion shouldn’t have to perform them. Having contraception be accessible and making sure no state law says to a woman who’s had an abortion that she’s going to jail or getting the death penalty. Just start there.

“The fellas just don’t know how to talk about this,” said Haley. “They’ve got to humanize this issue and stop demonizing it. This isn’t about a number, this is about babies and women and a personal situation that they are in and it should be handled with that kind of respect, not just throwing out numbers and then expecting people to choose.”

One of Haley and Trump’s former competitors for the GOP nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, signed into law a 6-week abortion ban, a restriction that is not just unpopular with the majority of Americans, but even among a majority of Republicans.

Bash then asked Haley about the recent Alabama Supreme Court opinion on IVF and asked her if she thought there should be federal protections for IVF.

Haley commented that she didn’t know the specific details of the various bills being proposed, so couldn’t speak to that, but thought that IVF should be “as accessible as possible to parents who are wanting those blessings of having a baby…we don’t want to take that away from parents who desperately want to have a child.” She added that she and her husband Michael Haley used fertility treatments to have their children and it was important to make sure that these options “are available, that they’re protected, that it’s personal, and that the whole situation is dealt with respect.”

Bash followed up to ask again if Haley thought there should be federal protection for IVF or if it should be left to the states.

“I think there should be federal protection that we allow for IVF places to be able to function,” said Haley, adding that she hoped efforts to regulate it “don’t get into” details like “exactly how many embryos or anything like that,” but instead leave those decisions “between the parents and the doctors,” so that “the only thing that the federal government should do is make sure that IVF places are protected and available –”

“Not get into the whole question, whether an embryo is a life –” Bash interjected.

“And not get into — we don’t need government getting involved in an issue where we don’t have a problem,” said Haley.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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