A pro-life PAC announced its first radio ad buy in the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday. The $50,000 ad buy is funded by Women Speak Out Virginia, a political action committee arm of the national pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. It attacks Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe for his stances on abortion.
SBA List has been a supporter of the Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, while pro-choice advocates like Planned Parenthood have lined up behind McAuliffe.
The ad claims that McAuliffe is “too extreme for Virginia.”
“In the race for governor there’s one candidate who has taken extreme positions far outside the mainstream; one candidate whose radical ideas are troubling to every woman in Virginia. It’s Terry McAuliffe,” the female narrator says in the radio ad — set to air for two weeks on stations in Northern Virginia, Richmond and Norfolk.
“Just this month Terry McAuliffe opposed basic health and safety standards for some women’s health clinics that perform abortions. McAuliffe refuses to require women’s health clinics to provide the same sanitary environment we expect of dental offices and hospitals,” the female voice continues. “McAuliffe is bowing to the political pressure from powerful corporations that run women’s health clinics. They must think they are above the law. They put their own interests above the health of safety of their patients. Virginia women’s clinics have been cited for unsanitary conditions, poor staff training, and poorly maintained equipment. But Terry McAuliffe is afraid to stand up for women’s health. He’s afraid to stand up for you.”
McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin responded to the ad by playing up Cuccinelli’s anti-abortion stances.
“Ken Cuccinelli has spent his career on a divisive ideological agenda, so its no surprise he’d make it the center piece of his campaign,” Schwerin said, according to the Huffington Post. “Ken Cuccinelli forced his divisive ideological agenda on Virginian women and it is already having real world ramifications. Cuccinelli himself said that these unnecessary regulations are designed to ‘make abortion disappear in America,’ and already we’ve seen a women’s health clinic be forced to close.”
Mallory Quigley, spokeswoman for Women Speak Out Virginia, invoked the Philadelphia abortionist on trial for the murders of one women and four babies born alive in botched abortions in charging that McAuliffe is not pro-woman.
“In light of Kermit Gosnell’s ‘house of horrors,’ it is an outrage that anyone who purports to care about women would oppose efforts to ensure that Virginia women are treated with basic dignity and respect,” Quigley said in a statement. “More than 80 violations have been discovered in Virginia abortion clinics including blood-stained equipment and operating tables, improper disposal of fetal remains, staff failure to properly sanitize instruments, and even doctors performing exams with unwashed hands.
“Despite evidence that these common ground health and safety standards are needed, Terry McAuliffe refuses to defect from his abortion industry allies, who have vigorously fought these pro-woman efforts from the beginning. The Women Speak Out Virginia PAC will be calling out Terry McAuliffe’s shameful opposition to protecting Virginia’s women until Election Day,” she concluded.
