WATCH: Nikki Haley Proposes National ‘Consensus’ on Abortion

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley delivered a speech on Tuesday in Arlington, VA, proposing a “national consensus” on abortion, amid signs the issue could prove decisive in the 2024 presidential election.

Haley is trailing former President Donald Trump in the race for the party’s nomination. But some Republicans are concerned that Trump — or even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not yet declared his candidacy — could face strong headwinds from Democratic voters highly motivated by the issue of abortion.

The issue drove women — especially single women — to the polls in 2022, as Republican legislatures enacted pro-life laws in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down the troubled Roe v. Wade precent that essentially created a right to abortion by judicial fiat in 1973.

Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who signed pro-life legislation during her tenure, cited her personal experiences in explaining her viewpoint. She noted that her husband had been adopted, and that she herself had tried hard to conceive children before succeeding with fertility treatments.

She said that she was unapologetically pro-life, but that it was unrealistic to expect — or to warn — that pro-life bills would be adopted nationwide.

“The pro-life laws that have passed in strongly Republican states will not be approved at the federal level. That’s just a fact, notwithstanding what the Democrat fear-mongers say. … No Republican president will have the ability to ban abortion nationwide,” she said. She added that no Democratic president would be able to sign laws to override pro-life laws at the state level, as President Joe Biden has proposed in “codifying” Roe v. Wade.

“But that does not mean we can’t save as many lives as possible,” the former UN ambassador said. “I do believe there’s a federal role on abortion. Whether we can save more lives nationally depends on … find[ing] consensus.”

She cited her experience in forging a statewide consensus on the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol in the wake of the mass shooting at the predominantly black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston by a white gunman in 2015.

She implied that she could bring the same skills to forging a national consensus on abortion — one that saves the most babies possible, without overriding moderate pro-choice laws in liberal states.

She listed several areas of “broad political agreement” on abortion — that “babies born during a failed abortion deserve to live,” that “we should never pressure moms into having an abortion,” that pregnant mothers “should get support to carry their baby to term,” and that they “should be able get information … especially on adoption.” She added that Americans “can all agree” that “abortion up until the time of birth is a bridge too far,” that “contraception should be more available, not less,” and that “women who get abortions should not be jailed.”

She noted that pregnancy resource centers needed to be protected from attack, in the wake of left-wing terror campaigns against them. (Attorney General Merrick Garland has acknowledged these attacks, but said that arrests of pro-life demonstrators are more common because pro-abortion activists operate at night.)

She faulted President Joe Biden for doing nothing to discourage the violence, and for in fact encouraging radical pro-abortion protests.

Haley concluded that Americans should “show love for one another, not judgement or contempt,” and work together to “save as many babies as we can while supporting women in difficult situations.”

“I acknowledge the humanity of both the unborn baby and the pregnant mom,” she said.

Haley is the only major female candidate of either party. Polls suggest that pro-choice voters played a crucial role in the 2022 midterm elections, keeping an expected Republican “red wave” from swamping Democrats.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.