The Obama campaign is keeping pressure on Mitt Romney over women’s health issues in a new campaign ad.
“Mitt Romney's position on women's health, it's dangerous,” a woman says in the ad.
The narrator then says Romney and running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, “allow employers to deny coverage for cancer screenings and birth control,” and says both have backed legislation that would outlaw abortions in cases of rape and incest.
“We can't afford to let him take away our choices, to take away basic healthcare,” the woman in the ad continues. “I don’t think that women’s health issues have faced a crises like this in decades.”
“This misleading, tasteless ad released today says more about the President’s failure to change the tone in Washington than words ever could,” Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said in an email to The Hill. “It also serves as a stark reminder that the President’s policies on the most important issues facing our country have been an abject failure. Fortunately, the American people will have the chance in November to judge President Obama on his record.”
The president has a healthy lead over Romney among female voters.
The gender gap has come back into focus as some Republicans fear Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-Mo.) remark — that in a “legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” — will reignite a Democratic line of attack from earlier in the cycle that the GOP is looking to “turn back the clock” on women’s issues.
Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who became a national figure during the debate over the administration’s contraception mandate, and Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards both spoke at last week’s Democratic National Convention.
