My work dreams, starring Nikki Haley - and a bat
I ask Haley about IVF, abortion, and her campaign strategy
On Friday morning, in Washington, D.C., I sat around a hotel conference room table with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and a group journalists who are covering her campaign. We took turns asking questions - about the future of the Republican Party, about her strategy behind continuing to stay in a Republican primary that looks more and more difficult for anyone not named Trump to win, and about her party’s increasingly complicated messaging around abortion and IVF.
Haley announced she’d raised $12 million in February - not as much as her personal record-setting haul of more than $16 million in January but a notable sum for a candidate who has yet to win a presidential nominating contest. (UPDATE, Sunday night 3/3: Haley just won her first primary contest, winning all 19 of Washington, D.C.’s Republican delegates - but not fundamentally shifting the shape of the race).
She reiterated her argument that the country wants another option beyond Trump or Biden. She again declined to tell us her plans beyond Super Tuesday next week.
I took the moment to probe Haley’s thinking about the legal, ethical, and political questions that have been swirling around in vitro fertilization, or IVF, -the fertility procedure at the center of the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling last month that embryos are tantamount to children. Haley had made several public comments on the ruling, initially appearing to side with the court by telling NBC that “embryos, to me, are babies,” before quickly clarifying that while she personally sees embryos that way, she would not want to stand in the way of another couple having the “blessing of a baby” through IVF.
Haley’s mixed messaging - and the recent scramble by Republicans to express at least nominal support for IVF - reflects the following: while anti-abortion activists often say that “life begins at conception” and push for laws restricting abortion at every stage and under all or most circumstances, most voters - even conservative religious ones - support access to IVF.
I’d heard her bring up the issue during a campaign stop in Richmond, Virginia, the day before this sit-down with reporters. While Haley is often asked about abortion, she doesn’t often bring it up, but in this case, she dove right in:
“I've been watching in the news, you've had a lot of conversations about abortion,” Haley said. “And this is what I'll tell you. I respectfully don't think the fellows know how to talk about it.”
Haley then reiterated her support for the overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision in 2022. She told the crowd, “I personally am pro-life.” And when it comes to the decision in Alabama, Haley said, “We need to make sure that every parent has access to getting any fertility treatments that they need to have the blessing of a baby. And the decisions of what happens to those embryos should be strictly between the parents and the doctor.”
“I've been watching in the news, you've had a lot of conversations about abortion,” Haley said. “And this is what I'll tell you. I respectfully don't think the fellows know how to talk about it.”
Between the parents and the doctor. That sounds…an awful lot like a standard rhetorical line the abortion-rights movement has employed for decades in talking about abortion: “a decision that should be between a woman and her doctor.”
So I asked Haley about this on Friday. I was curious about her choice of words, and how she parses the differences between ending a pregnancy and, in many cases, discarding embryos left over from the IVF process.
Here’s a transcript of our exchange (you can hear some of it here) - very lightly edited for clarity:
Sarah McCammon: You mentioned abortion. And you also said yesterday in Richmond that you think that “the fellows” in your party sometimes don't know how to talk about this issue. You talked about IVF and embryos created by IVF as a decision that should be “between patients and their doctors.” That language strikes me as very similar to the way a lot of people who support abortion rights talk about abortion. You know, the phrase “it should be between a woman and her doctor.” And I'm just curious why decisions about IVF should be between a patient and a doctor, and decisions about abortion should be, you know, restricted and regulated by the government? You do support some restrictions on abortion.
Nikki Haley: So I think, first of all, I've said that people need to decide. I'm a big advocate for this is too personal and it needs to be decided in the state. So I'm happy with the fact that the states are deciding, that people are having their voices heard. And, you know, some states are going one way. Some states are going the other way. But I think that that's where it needs to be. With the whole issue of the IVF: so I am unapologetically pro-life. You know, do I think embryos are babies? Yes, I think embryos are babies. That's my personal thought process. I had trouble having both of my children. I had to go through fertility to have both of mine. But just because I think embryos are babies doesn't mean everybody else thinks embryos are babies. And it is a painful process when you're going through fertility because you aren't able to get pregnant and you're having to go through all of this technical stuff to do it. And you sit there and you pray for a month hoping that that's the time it happened. When you're going through something that hard, you don't want government telling you anything else to get in the way of that conversation. That's between the doctor and the parents who have to decide it. It's very personal. It is something that requires a lot of respect. What we should do is make sure those embryos are protected and respected. But what we also need to do is make sure that the patients, the parents and the physician decide how best to manage what they do. In some cases, you know, they never go and say, “Oh, we're going to have X number of embryos.” It's very limited. They're very careful about how they do it. It's just too personal of a conversation for government to start dictating what they're going to do with that.
SM: Would you support, say, state-level restrictions on IVF that required, for example, a limited number of embryos to be produced?
NH: I just - I mean, I don't think we need to get government involved in a conversation that hasn't been an issue at this point - like don't create an issue. At this point, I think IVF has worked. It has worked well. There are a lot of blessings because of it. Let that continue. When you see a problem, something needs to be fixed, that's one thing. Don't create the problem. And I think that's creating a problem where you're going and dictating that. We don't see people saying they're having 50 embryos. That's not happening. What they are saying, you know, in my case, I had one and a half. So the half didn't work. You know, it just doesn't work like that. And so you're not having mass pools of embryos. You're having very limited numbers. And some are viable and some aren't. And so it's very - it's surgical.
SM: There are leftover embryos. And I guess if I could, ask one more follow-up: the distinction I'm trying to get at is you seem to be treating abortion decisions and IVF decisions differently, saying that IVF decisions should be personal and nuanced. And you may have a personal belief about embryos that someone else might not hold. I hear that same language around abortion very often when I talk to people who are pro-choice. But I see, you're making a distinction between the two. And I wonder what you see as the…
NH: So I'm giving you my personal opinion on IVF. I think states need to decide that, too. I think the people need to decide what's happening. And you're going to see that play out in Alabama and other places. They're going to now start to weigh in. But that needs to be close to the people where the people can give their voice. That's my overall thing is - this never should have been in the hands of unelected justices. This always needed to be where the people can have their voices heard.
Haley walks out to speak with reporters after voting with her family in South Carolina on Kiawah Island, S.C.
It was the second time in less than a week that I’d had the opportunity to question Haley directly. On February 24, the day of South Carolina’s Republican primary, I stood among a gaggle of reporters who gathered to shout questions in her direction after she cast her ballot with her mother, adult children, and other family members on Kiawah Island, S.C.
I noted that Haley has been sharpening her attacks on Trump in recent weeks, and I asked if she believed she should have done so sooner.
“Not at all,” Haley told me, noting that she initially faced a large pool of competitors for the Republican nomination. “If I had done that in the beginning, I would have been a Chris Christie.”
On another note, you know you’ve been working too much when it haunts your dreams.
“Not at all,” Haley said. “If I had done that in the beginning, I would have been a Chris Christie.”
Does this happen to you? Do you have work nightmares?
Mine, when I was a Morning Edition host at Iowa Public Radio a dozen years ago, used to involve showing up to work at the last minute (okay, that part was real sometimes) and finding no news scripts, just piles of those mail-order catalogues that used to come in the Sunday paper - the ones hocking floral housedresses and “massagers” and compression stockings. I would try to piece together a few sentences to fill the dead air, but I suddenly couldn’t read, and even if I could, the sentences were incoherent compilations of unrelated words.
But on Friday night, after our sit down with Haley, I dreamed she was visiting my home - in the dream it was an older home, but not the 111-year-old colonial I actually live in. Some other old house - with a bat! It flew toward us and landed on my neck. I looked and her and we both froze for a second. I wondered if I should…bat…it away? Or would that make it angry? So I didn’t move. It fluttered away suddenly, and the dream was over.
For this, I blame too much campaign travel, and my friend Lyz Lenz’s engaging new book, This American Ex-Wife, which I’ve enjoyed listening to while I drive around. I won’t spoil anything, but there’s a bat. And it’s a fun and fascinating read/listen.
Speaking of books - mine is out in just over two weeks!!!
I’m thrilled to announce that Amazon has named The Exvangelicals one of its Editor’s Picks for the History category in March!
As a reminder, if you pre-order here you will not only receive the book itself, but also a bookplate signed by Yours Truly.
I’m fully in book launch mode, fitting in lots of pre-interviews around my campaign reporting. A couple have already rolled out: A World of Difference with Lori Adams-Brown and Spiritual Misfits based in Australia.
Also, a book tour is in the works! I’d love to see as many of you as possible and sign books in person! More on that in a coming post…
For now, if you’re affiliated with a university, NPR member station, or other organization that would like to host me for a book talk in the coming months, please reach out! Email me at sarahmccammonwriter@gmail.com, or leave a comment below.
Fascinating interview ... baffling inconsistent views re abortion vs IVF by Haley.
(BTW, a note to AI: there are more women journalists than men ... and some are actually people of color!)
My anticipation for the book is overwhelming ... both to read and listen to. Can't wait! 😍
I love the fact that you confronted her with her inconsistencies. We need to get you on the Commonwealth Club! We used to belong but now watch on TV. I took Greg there a few years ago. Saw Joyce Vance and Barbara McQuade Monday night.