Sen. Mitt Romney is not the first prominent Republican to come out against the Alabama abortion law. | Rick Bowmer/AP Photo Congress Romney says he doesn't support Alabama abortion law

Sen. Mitt Romney on Sunday said he doesn't support a recently enacted law prohibiting nearly all abortions at any point during pregnancy in Alabama.

"I don't support the Alabama law," the Utah Republican and 2012 GOP nominee for president told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." "I believe that there ought to be exceptions. I'm pro-life, but there ought to be exceptions for rape and incest and where the life of the mother is at risk."


The law, which Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed Thursday, is the nation’s most restrictive abortion law. It outlaws virtually all abortions in the state — even in cases of rape and incest, allowing the procedure only in cases when a woman’s life is in jeopardy — and could lead to doctors being sentenced to up to 99 years in prison for performing an abortion.

"You're seeing laws on both sides of this argument that are in the extreme. And whether it's New York and Virginia, or whether it's Alabama and Missouri, people have gone to the — to the wings, if you will," Romney said Sunday.

"I don't think that's productive. I think something much more toward the center makes a lot more sense."

Romney is not the first prominent Republican to come out against the Alabama abortion law. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California said last week that the bill goes "further than I believe," and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said she believed the bill should have made exceptions. While not addressing the legislation directly, President Donald Trump on Saturday night tweeted that he favored exceptions in the case of rape and incest.

Still, some anti-abortion activists hope the new law — as well as other abortion restrictions passed recently in Missouri and Georgia — will boost the chance the Supreme Court will take up one of the laws in a court challenge to Roe v. Wade.