North Carolina GOP candidate Mark Robinson, a harsh abortion critic, reveals his wife once had the procedure

The Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina is out with a new TV ad where he and his wife reveal that she had an abortion 30 years ago.

In the ad, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and his wife talk directly to the camera, revealing few details about the procedure beyond his telling viewers, "Thirty years ago, my wife and I made a very difficult decision. We had an abortion."

Later in the ad, Robinson says he agrees with the current abortion restrictions in North Carolina, which limit the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother, and says "that's why I stand by our current law."

But the ad comes as news organizations and Democratic groups in the state have for months unearthed controversial comments Robinson has made about abortion, including in a Facebook Live stream in 2019, where he said, “Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers ... It is about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein, who is running against Robinson in the race to succeed Gov. Roy Cooper, a term-limited Democrat, used the Facebook Live comments in an attack ad against the lieutenant governor in recent weeks. The ad shows Robinson appearing to say that if he were governor and had a “willing” state Legislature, he would sign legislation into law banning abortion “for any reason.”

In a statement Friday, a spokesperson for Stein’s campaign pointed to Robinson’s previous remarks on abortion.

“If North Carolinians want to know where Mark Robinson really stands on abortion, they should listen to every other comment he’s made on the issue before today,” campaign spokesperson Morgan