The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony’s list is launching a six-figure ad campaign in West Virginia slamming Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for his mixed record on abortion.
Manchin is up for re-election in a red state that strongly supports President Trump and whose residents are deeply opposed to abortion. SBA List is spending $785,000 on TV and radio ads that will hit Manchin for his vote against a bill restricting federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
The ads will air beginning Saturday and urge voters to pressure Manchin to vote for the Women’s Health Care Act, a bill that would ban federal funding from going to Planned Parenthood clinics.
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Federal law prohibits federal funding from paying for abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or when a woman’s pregnancy threatens her life. The funding to Planned Parenthood pays for other services the organization provides, including birth control, STD testing, and screenings, but organizations opposed to such an arrangement argue that it frees up more funding to pay for abortions.
In November, Manchin will go up against West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who has strong support from SBA List. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president for the organization, accused Manchin in a statement of flip-flopping on the issue of abortion.
“He has caved to pressure from Democratic Party leadership and the abortion lobby to vote in support of Planned Parenthood and said he would do so again,” she said.
Manchin has described himself as “pro-life” in the past and voted in favor of a bill in January that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks into a pregnancy. While he voted in 2015 to cut off federal funding from Planned Parenthood, he also voted in 2017 against a Republican bill that allowed states to decide whether to withhold funding from organizations that also provide abortions. He has been photographed posing with organizations that are both anti- and pro-abortion rights.
West Virginia ranks as the state with the lowest level of support for abortion — with just 35 percent supporting legal abortion and 58 percent believing it should be illegal in most or all cases, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The state has one abortion clinic and and a ban on abortion still on the books that was invalidated by Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal nationwide.
During the past month, SBA List also has been pressuring Manchin to support the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh was nominated by Trump to fill the slot vacated by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, and will need a majority vote to be confirmed.
Anti-abortion groups believe Kavanaugh may be the deciding vote to overturn Roe. If that were to occur, then the decision to legalize abortion would fall to states.
