Nikki Haley says pledging a federal abortion ban wouldn’t be ‘honest’

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley refused Sunday to endorse a federal abortion ban at a specific number of weeks’ gestation, saying that to do so would be to lie to the American people about what is politically possible.

“I think the media has tried to divide them by saying we have to decide certain weeks,” Haley said in an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “In states, yes. At the federal level, it’s not realistic. It’s not being honest with the American people.”

She was responding to a question from her interviewer, Margaret Brennan, about why she would not join another likely candidate, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, in endorsing a 20-week national ban.

Haley has said — and she repeated in the interview — that the Senate filibuster makes it impossible to pass a federal abortion ban as strict as the ones that many Republican-led states have passed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, and that any anti-abortion president will therefore need to find a “national consensus.” (A Republican Senate majority could, if it chose, remove the filibuster.) But her comments Sunday stood out for the explicitness of her rejection of committing to a gestational limit.

That refusal is particularly noteworthy because just last month one of the nation’s most prominent anti-abortion groups praised her for, it said, indicating that she would support a federal ban at 15 weeks. The group, SBA Pro-Life America, has said it will not endorse a candidate who doesn’t pledge to go at least that far.

At no point had Haley made such a commitment publicly.

SBA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Haley, who signed a 20-week ban as the governor of South Carolina, is far from the only Republican trying to avoid specifics on abortion.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has said he wants to leave the issue to states. Scott and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas have called themselves “pro-life” while hedging on details; Scott has been asked, but has not answered, whether he would support a ban earlier than 20 weeks. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is likely to enter the presidential race soon, recently signed a six-week ban in his state but has not gotten behind anything similar at the federal level.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.