Campaign ad targets Heck’s votes to defund Planned Parenthood

By Megan Messerly

Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016 | 2 a.m.

A new ad from a pro-abortion group backing Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto hits Nevada’s airwaves today, continuing the attacks that seek to characterize her Republican opponent Rep. Joe Heck as an anti-woman candidate.

The ad — paid for by the Emily's List independent expenditure arm Women Vote! — features a man in a white doctor’s coat embroidered with “Politician Joe Heck,” who removes his coat to reveal a suit and tie with a Heck campaign button pinned on it.

“He walks like a doctor. He talks like a doctor. He even dresses like a doctor on TV. But if you look closer you see what’s underneath — a Washington politician who votes against those he’s sworn to protect,” the narrator says.

The ad makes the same argument as a Planned Parenthood Votes spot from last week — highlighting Heck’s votes to defund Planned Parenthood and attempting to suggest that Heck voted to impose criminal penalties for women who receive abortions.

“Joe Heck voted to criminalize a woman’s right to choose,” the narrator says. “No matter what he tells you, his votes say it all.”

Politifact rated the claim from the Planned Parenthood Votes ad that Heck “voted to criminalize abortion for rape victims” as half-true, since Heck did vote and co-sponsor a bill that would have imposed criminal penalties for doctors performing abortions under certain circumstances. However, the fact-checking website said the ad “blurs the issue” of whether women or doctors would face criminal prosecution.

Women Vote! is putting nearly $1 million behind the buy, which will run for two weeks on cable and broadcast television in Las Vegas in both English and Spanish.