'Disingenuous and coward': Internet slams Nikki Haley as she goes after male politicians for demonizing abortion issue

WASHINGTON, DC: In a candid interview with CNN's Dana Bash on 'Inside Politics' Friday, March 1, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley went after former President Trump and other male politicians, accusing them of 'demonizing' the issue of abortion, particularly regarding talks surrounding a potential 15-week ban.

"The fellas just don’t know how to talk about this," Haley told Bash. "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."

Nikki Haley's stance on abortion legislation

Haley, who has previously advocated for civility in the abortion debate, noted that she has not committed to supporting any specific length of a ban, asserting that she would only sign a bill that successfully passes through Congress.

"I would support anything that would pass. But you have to be honest with the American people," Haley reiterated during a GOP primary debate in November. "I would sign anything that would get 60 Senate votes."

“Don’t make the American people think you’re going to push something on them when you don’t even have the votes in the Senate,” she added at the time.

Regarding her position on abortion, Haley underscored its nature for every individual. “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,” she said.

“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.”

“This is about babies and women and a personal situation that they are in,” Haley added.

President Biden's re-election campaign has labeled her as 'no moderate' due to her anti-abortion stance. “Nikki Haley is no moderate — 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 campaign said in a statement, The Hill reported.

Social media backlash

However, Haley's remarks drew backlash on social media, with some questioning the consistency of her stance.

"So @NikkiHaley says that today. Tomorrow, she’ll have a different opinion," one posted on X.

"Word salad," another wrote.

"Listening to Nikki Haley talk about IVF on NPR and it sounds exactly like how pro-choice people talk about abortion. She even said that she sees embryos as babies but that not everyone agrees with it," someone else added.

"Nikki bobs and weaves in an effort to appear on the side of each of the competing proponents. Nikki Haley is disingenuous and a coward," another chimed in.

Support for IVF Access

When asked about potential federal protections for IVF, Haley expressed support for ensuring accessibility to fertility treatments. She said 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.”

“I think there should be federal protection that we allow for IVF places to be able to function," Haley offered.

She said that she hoped efforts to regulate it “don’t get into” details like “exactly how many embryos or anything like that,” but leave those decisions “between the parents and the doctors” instead, so that “the only thing that the federal government should do is make sure that IVF places are protected and available."