Republican who mocked women for abortions tries softer stance in new ad

North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson has been battered for months by his Democratic rival and other adversaries for seeking additional abortion restrictions beyond current state law and for past comments upbraiding women on the issue.

“Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It’s about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down," Robinson said in a Facebook video in 2019, the year before he was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office. Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current attorney general and an abortion-rights supporter, has shown the footage in ads since June.

Now Robinson is attempting to shift the broader electorate’s views of him on the issue through empathy with a new commercial starting Friday that describes his wife’s own abortion decades ago and leaves the impression he’s comfortable with the state’s current 12-week ban on most abortions.

The policy shift would be significant for Robinson, whose campaign said earlier this year that he supported an abortion ban after roughly six weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Many women don’t even know they are pregnant at six weeks. Previously, Robinson left the impression that he'd support something even more severe, saying in 2020, for example, that “there is no compromise on abortion.”