RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina Mark Robinson has been criticized for months by his Democratic rival and other opponents for seeking to impose additional restrictions on abortion beyond current state law and for past comments chastising 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 she was elected lieutenant governor in her first run for public office. Josh Steinthe current attorney general and abortion rights advocate, has featured the images in ads since June.
Robinson is now trying to change voters’ views on the issue by showing empathy with a new ad airing Friday that depicts his wife’s abortion decades ago and makes it seem 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 a ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks. Robinson has previously given the impression that he would support an even tougher measure, saying in 2020, for example, that “there’s no compromise on abortion.”
For decades, the Republican Party has campaigned on restricting abortion nationwide. But while abortion rights have boosted Democratic turnout and emerged as a weak point for Republicans, Robinson’s approach reflects the ongoing efforts of conservative politicians to appear moderate on abortion rights or avoid the issue altogether on the campaign trail — or risk losing at the polls in a post-Roe v. Wade world.
The stakes are high in North Carolina, where gubernatorial races are typically tight, and the winner of this closely watched November gubernatorial race could have much to say about whether the Republican-controlled General Assembly can approve his conservative agenda without resistance.
The ad campaign, which aired on television and digital platforms, shows Robinson and his wife Yolanda Hill holding hands. They publicly discussed her abortion in a 2022 video, but the potential audience is now much broader.
“Thirty years ago, my wife and I made a very difficult decision. We had an abortion,” Robinson says in the ad. “It was like a silent pain between us that we never talked about.”
Hill added: “It’s something that will stay with me forever.”
“That’s why I’m maintaining our current law,” Robinson continued, pointing to what he called “common-sense exceptions” for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape and when the mother’s life is in danger.
Asked Friday whether Robinson was changing his views on abortion, campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan said, “The Legislature has already spoken on that issue.”
In May 2023, the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed, over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, a bill that reduced the ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy to 12 weeks.
If elected governor, Robinson “will work to make North Carolina a place to live by building a culture that does more to support women and families, including strengthening adoption, foster care and child care,” he added.
Stein’s campaign said later Friday that Robinson’s ad was the “latest example of his running away from his extreme and toxic position on abortion.” They said Robinson would seek to ban abortion without exceptions if elected.
“If North Carolinians want to know where Mark Robinson really stands on abortion, they should listen to every comment he’s made on the issue before today,” said Morgan Hopkins, a spokeswoman for Stein’s campaign.
Former President Donald Trump has sought to take a more cautious stance on abortion rights in this election, dodging questions and relying on his usual response that he brought abortion back to the states when he helped form the majority that overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
Abortion policy has been credited with helping to reverse an anticipated red wave last year and deliver victories to Democrats in the Kentucky gubernatorial race and the Virginia state legislature after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin failed to rally voters behind a proposal to ban abortions after 15 weeks with exceptions.
Cooper was unable to run for a third consecutive term because of term limits, but he effectively passed the Democratic baton to Stein, a former state senator who previously worked under Cooper when the politician was state attorney general.
Hopkins said in June that Stein “supports the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade framework that protects women’s reproductive freedoms and restricts abortion later in pregnancy unless the woman’s life or health is in danger.”
Such a framework generally allows abortion in most cases up to the point of viability, which is usually between 24 and 26 weeks of pregnancy. Robinson’s campaign team has claimed that Stein’s views are extreme, saying he supports abortion later in pregnancy, in the third trimester.
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Associated Press writer Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.
