New ad hits North Carolina Republican Mark Robinson for anti-abortion comments that women didn’t keep their ‘skirt down’

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat who is running for governor against Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, plans to launch his first two television ads on Tuesday, one of which attacks his opponents’ views on abortion in the high-stakes battleground race, according to a campaign official who shared the ads exclusively with NBC News.

One 30-second ad, titled “Listen,” features Robinson, who has been an outspoken critic of abortion rights, talking on a Facebook Live stream in 2019 and railing against the procedure, the campaign official said.

“Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers,” Robinson says in the clip used in the ad. “It is about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

The ad, which is part of a seven-figure buy by Stein’s campaign, also features Robinson saying if he was governor and had a “willing” state Legislature, he would sign legislation into law that bans abortion “for any reason.”

The spot also features Robinson saying: “For me there is no compromise on abortion. It makes no difference to me why or how that child ended up in that womb.”

Stein, who has been an outspoken supporter of abortion rights, has vowed to defend access to the procedure and women’s reproductive freedoms.

“This November, North Carolinians will have a stark choice between a safer, stronger North Carolina with Josh Stein or Mark Robinson’s focus on stripping women of their reproductive freedoms and a vision for division that will kill jobs,” Jeff Allen, Stein’s campaign manager, said in a statement. “Over the next five months, we are prepared to make sure every North Carolinian knows the stakes of this race — and we’re just getting started.”