Obama Attack Ad Selectively Edits Romney on Abortion

A new Obama campaign ad directed at women voters states that Republican candidate Mitt Romney would ban abortion, but uses a Romney quote that has been cut off to distort the candidate’s stance toward the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.

The quote is from a Republican primary debate during which moderator Anderson Cooper asked the candidates, “If Roe v. Wade were overturned, Congress passed a federal ban on all abortions and it came to your desk, would you sign it? Yes or no?”

The ad depicts Romney’s response as, “I’d be delighted to sign that bill,” but truncates the remainder of his sentence, which was, “But that’s not where we are. That’s not where America is today.”

The ad comes as a new USA Today/Gallup poll finds more women in swing states are leaning toward Romney. The Obama campaign and the campaigns of many other Democrats around the country are doubling down on the left’s “War on Women” canard, a sure sign that the “women’s vote” is no longer a certainty for Democrats.

In the state of Connecticut, for example, abortion and access to birth control took center stage during the final debate between U.S. Senate candidates Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Linda McMahon. Similarly, on Thursday we reported that Planned Parenthood is spending an additional $828,000 on Romney attack ads in the swing states of Colorado and Virginia.

In response to the ad, Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said:

President Obama’s campaign continues to mislead voters in a desperate attempt to distract from this president’s failed economic record. Five and a half million women are struggling to find work in the Obama economy, and they are suffering from record unemployment under this president.