MoveOn Ad Uses Conservatives' Own Words In 'War On Women'
In the wake of a hardening partisan debate over women's health, the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org has released a new attack ad that features a group of women repeating controversial statements from Republicans on reproductive rights.
Even some Fox News contributors predict this line of attack will be effective this election cycle.
The minute-long advertisement features an all-female cast reading selected statements from GOP leaders, including current Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum and radio host Rush Limbaugh, who has been the focus of a firestorm of criticism following the crude and misogynistic comments he made about a female law student who testified in a congressional hearing in support of the Obama administration's contraception mandate.
A woman impregnated through rape, should accept that horribly created gift, the gift of human life. Accept what God has given you and make the best of a bad situation, a woman says, quoting comments made by Santorum, a strong anti-abortion conservative. While on the campaign trail, Santorum has repeatedly voiced his opposition to abortion, to the extent that he opposes women's access to the procedure in cases of rape.
Another women than appears on the screen to repeat some of Limbaugh's unsavory comments regarding women's access to contraception.
If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex ... we want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch, the woman says, voicing some of Limbaugh's apparently confused understanding of just how birth control actually works for women.
Limbaugh, for his part, is still buried in controversy over his comments. In the three weeks since that broadcast occurred, the shock jock radio show has been dropped by at least 100 advertisers.
The ad also features GOP quotes in support of Virginia's disputed ultrasound bill that would have mandated -- until it was altered -- that women be forced to endure vaginal ultrasounds before they received an abortion, as well as an assertion from Indiana state Rep. Bob Morris that Planned Parenthood is radicalizing the Girl Scouts of America.
Judging from their comments, the GOP must have a serious problem with women. And until the Republicans get over their issues, we women have got a serious problem with the Republican Party, the video concluded.
It may be right. In a head-to-head match up, President Barack Obama has a 17 point lead over GOP front-runner Mitt Romney among female voters, according to an Economist;/YouGov poll of 1,000 respondents released on Thursday. Several other polls have concluded that Obama's approval rating is higher among women than men.
Even Republican-leaning women have acknowledged the new MoveOn ad is will likely strike a chord with many women. During a recent segment on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, network contributor Margaret Hoover said that while she, as a Republican, is not a fan of the ad, she believes it is hard-hitting and will be highly effective.
Of course, Democrats are not the only group claiming a political party is perpetrating a war on women. The Republican National Committee released its own video advertisement on the subject that alleges the Obama administration is a boy's club that has little to no regard for the opinions of women.
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