Nikki Haley: State Legislatures Need to ‘Tweak’ Abortion Laws

Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), a Republican presidential candidate, said Sunday on “This Week” that state legislature will have to “tweak” abortion laws to avoid women having to carry nonviable pregnancies.

Anchor Jonathan Karl said, “We had the Texas Supreme Court abortion occasion, really kind of a tragic case. Kate Cox, the Supreme Court ruled she could not have an abortion even though her doctor said it might jeopardize her ability to have children in the future and the fetus was almost certainly not going to survive. You disagreed with that decision by the Texas Supreme Court?”

Haley said, “I think it is the right thing that unelected justices no longer decide this, and it’s in the hands of the people. I appreciate that Texas went more on the pro-life side. But as we go through this, listen, my heart broke for her because I had trouble having my children. These states are now going to have to look at these because what we don’t want to see is a woman with a rare condition having to carry a baby until term.”

She added, “So that’s when a state corrects itself and says, how do we make sure that doesn’t happen again? We tweak things all the time as governors.”

Karl asked, “Was it the right decision by the court?”

Haley said, “The court had to follow the law. The law said that she couldn’t have the abortion. Now it’s up to the legislature in Texas to say, how do we make sure there are no more Kates that go through that? As a governor, you don’t just say, this is golden. When something happens that churns your stomach, you go back and say, okay, what do we do to make sure that we are saving as many babies as possible but also supporting as many moms as possible? It’s not as cut and dry as everybody wants, but states will self-correct to this. That’s what they do.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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