I've been listening a lot to the way Republican presidential candidates talk about abortion

these days.

Trying to figure out how they're going to walk a political tightrope.

Their challenge looks like this.

Most Americans do not want abortion to be against the law, but many Republican-based voters

do.

It leads to a lot of awkward conversations.

Well, I don't want unelected justices to be deciding something this personal.

I have long said I am pro-life, not because the Republican Party tells me to be...

This is Nikki Haley, one of the first Republicans to announce her presidential bid.

In a single conversation on CBS last week, she hopped scotched from saying she was pro-life

to saying any kind of abortion ban was simply impossible.

I think we have to tell the American people the truth.

In order to do a national standard, you'd have to have a majority of the House, 60 Senate

votes and a president.

We haven't had 60 pro-life senators in a hundred years.

So even Donald Trump is struggling here.

But if you are re-elected in your back in the Oval Office and you get legislation to your

desk, would you sign a federal abortion ban into law?

What I'll do is negotiate so that people are happy.

Though his approach mostly seems to involve ignoring any questions about abortion.

I called up Mary Ziegler to ask, how exactly is this going to work out for these candidates?

...