Mark Robinson has called abortion ‘murder.’ Now he’s trying a softer tone.

A new campaign ad obscures Robinson’s long record of anti-abortion comments that demonize women seeking abortions and frame the issue as good versus evil.

Mark Robinson suggests in a new campaign ad that he is content with the state’s 12-week abortion ban, a position that clashes with scores of his other comments, speeches, and writings in which he has called abortion murder, said abortion should not be illegal for any reason, and pledged to push for a full abortion ban if he is elected governor.

In the ad released Friday, Robinson, who has previously said there should be “no compromise” on abortion and wrote in his memoir that “you’d best not bring up rape and incest,” said that “I stand by our current law,” and praised its “common sense exceptions for life of the mother, incest, and rape.”

Election Day is less than 100 days away.

While Robinson has not changed his tune in speeches so far, the ad presents a clear attempt to appeal to a wider audience and smooth his record on an issue that could play a huge role both in the governor’s race, and up and down the ballot.

But the tone of the ad obscures Robinson’s long record of much harsher anti-abortion comments that demonize women who seek abortions and abortion providers, and frames the issue as a matter of good versus evil. 

‘Those who advocate for [abortion] are morally reprehensible’

On the campaign trail and in his 2021 memoir, Robinson made it clear what he thinks of abortion.

If elected governor, he said in February, he would call first for a 6-week ban, and then for a full ban.

A year earlier, Robinson said he would push the legislature to “pass a bill saying you can’t have an abortion in North Carolina for any reason.”

Abortion, he wrote, in his book, “is now one of the things that I just cannot tolerate. I find it morally wrong, and those who advocate for it are morally reprehensible.”

He has also consistently dismissed concerns about rape, incest, and the life of the mother.

“For me, there is no compromise on abortion. It makes no difference to me why or how that child ended up in that womb,” he said at a speech at a church during his run for lieutenant governor in 2020.

In a speech to another church in 2021, Robinson went further, claiming that women who get abortions at any stage of the pregnancy are murderers.

“I don’t care whether you just got pregnant. I don’t care if you’re 24 hours pregnant. I don’t care if you’re 24 weeks pregnant. I don’t care. If you kill that young’un. It is murder. You got blood on your hands,” Robinson said.

“Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers,” he said in a video. “It is about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

The ad

Robinson and his wife, Yolanda Hill, sit facing the camera, holding hands. They start with the story he has told often on the trail and in his book.

“Thirty years ago, my wife and I made a very difficult decision. We had an abortion.”

The camera cuts to a close up of their fingers, entwined.

“It was like this silent pain between us, that we never spoke of,” Robinson says, his voice cracking.

Hill reaches up to wipe her eye.

“It is something that stays with you forever,” she says.

“That’s why I stand by our current law,” Robinson says, as the ad cuts to scenes of the couple walking hand in hand, and of Robinson reading to children.

“[The 12-week abortion ban] provides common sense exceptions for the life of the mother, incest and rape,” Robinson says, as the same words appear on screen.

The law, he adds, “gives help to mothers and stops cruel late term abortions.”

(Quick aside: Abortions later in pregnancy are rare, and almost always connected to an emergency procedure to save the life of the mother.)

“When I’m governor,” Robinson says as the ad ends, “mothers in need will be supported.”

‘Abortion is murder.’

Here is a look at some of the other speeches, comments and writings that clash in content and tone with the more seemingly measured approach in the ad.

From his 2022 memoir:

• “When you talk to me about abortion, you’d best not bring up rape and incest. Those are side issues … the percentages of abortions for these reasons are tiny in comparison to the total number of abortions.”
• “Abortion is murder. People who do that are murdering a human being because that human being is inconveniencing them.”
• “[Abortion] is no different than, for instance, me killing my neighbor because he’s standing in the way of me having the job that I want. 
• “Abortion is a root cause of many of our society’s problems,” like gun violence in school. 
• “When people don’t respect life at its beginning, at its most vulnerable, how can you expect to have a generation of children who will respect life at all.” 
• “I’m hard pressed to get people to agree that legalized abortion has these terrible effects on society,” he wrote. “But I’m not going to give up bringing it up and calling it out.”
• “We must acknowledge that life exists at the moment. God endows his creation with life, and each individual has the God-given right to life. That is why I am so determined to fight for the unborn.”
• “A pre-baby is a baby. And a baby is a human being.”

Speeches and social media

• “When I first started running for office, I was advised not to say that abortion is murder. What else am I supposed to call it? Abortion is murder. You are killing a human being, in a nation where you’ll go to jail for killing the manatee or a bald eagle. You can go down to Corner Clinic and kill a human being and discard it like trash, what does that say about this nation? Abortion is murder, and it has gotten purged from our shores. Same way we purge slavery, and I’m not ashamed to say it.” (2021 speech.) 
• “We’ve got it down to 12 weeks. The next goal is to get it down to 6, and then just keep moving from there (2024 speech)

‘I’ve changed what I’m saying’

During an appearance on a Christian-conservative politics show in January, Robinson said that Republicans should stop using the word “abortion,” and should instead emphasize “life” when discussing the subject. 

He had learned, he said, to shift how he talked about things without changing how he felt.

“I have not changed my position,” he said, “I’ve changed what I’m saying.