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A North Carolina Republican who mocked women for abortions runs ad with his wife's own story

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A North Carolina Republican who mocked women for abortions runs ad with his wife's own story
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A North Carolina Republican who mocked women for abortions runs ad with his wife's own story

2024-08-03 05:33 Last Updated At:05:40

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson has been battered for months by his Democratic rival and other adversaries for seeking additional abortion restrictions beyond current state law and for past comments upbraiding women on the issue.

“Abortion in this country is not about protecting the lives of mothers. It’s about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down," Robinson said in a Facebook video in 2019, the year before he was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office. Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current attorney general and an abortion-rights supporter, has shown the footage in ads since June.

Now Robinson is attempting to shift the broader electorate’s views of him on the issue through empathy with a new commercial starting Friday that describes his wife’s own abortion decades ago and leaves the impression he’s comfortable with the state’s current 12-week ban on most abortions.

The policy shift would be significant for Robinson, whose campaign said earlier this year that he supported an abortion ban after roughly six weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Many women don’t even know they are pregnant at six weeks. Previously, Robinson left the impression that he'd support something even more severe, saying in 2020, for example, that “for me, there is no compromise on abortion.”

For decades, the GOP campaigned on restricting abortion throughout the country. But as abortion rights have driven turnout for Democrats and appeared as a vulnerability for Republicans, Robinson’s approach reflects ongoing efforts by conservative politicians to appear moderate on abortion rights or avoid the topic altogether on the campaign trail — or otherwise risk losing at the ballot box in a post-Roe v. Wade world.

The stakes are high in North Carolina, where races for statewide office are usually close affairs and the winner of this closely watched gubernatorial campaign in November could have much to say about whether the Republican-controlled General Assembly will be able to advance its conservative agenda without resistance.

The campaign ad on television and on digital platforms shows Robinson and his wife Yolanda Hill holding hands. They discussed her abortion publicly in a 2022 video, but the potential audience now is much greater.

“Thirty years ago, my wife and I made a very difficult decision. We had an abortion," Robinson says in the ad, adding that it was like a "silent pain between us that we never spoke of."

Hill added: “It's something that stays with me forever.”

“That's why I stand by our current law,” Robinson goes on to say, pointing to what he calls “common-sense exceptions” for pregnancies through incest and rape and when the life of the mother is in danger.

Asked Friday whether Robinson was altering his views on abortion, campaign spokesperson Mike Lonergan said that “the legislature has already spoken on this issue."

In May 2023, the Republican-controlled General Assembly enacted over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto legislation that scaled back the state’s ban on most abortions from after 20 weeks of pregnancy to 12 weeks.

If elected governor, Robinson “will work to make North Carolina a destination for life by building a culture that does more to support women and families, including bolstering adoption, as well as foster and childcare,” Lonergan added.

Stein’s campaign said later Friday that the Robinson ad was the “latest example of him running away from his extreme and toxic stance on abortion.” Stein's team has alleged that Robinson would seek an abortion ban with no exceptions if elected.

“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,” Stein campaign spokesperson Morgan Hopkins said.

Former President Donald Trump has sought a more cautious stance on abortion rights this election by dodging questions and leaning on his go-to response that he brought abortion back to the states when he helped form the majority that overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion politics have been credited for turning back an anticipated red wave last year and delivering wins for Democrats in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race and in the Virginia state legislature after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin failed to rally voters behind a proposal to ban abortions after 15 weeks with exceptions.

Cooper was barred by term limits from seeking a third consecutive term but essentially handed the Democratic baton to Stein, a former state senator who once worked under Cooper when the politician was state attorney general.

Hopkins said in June that Stein "supports the Roe v. Wade framework of the past 50 years that protects women’s reproductive freedoms and restricts abortion later in pregnancy unless a woman’s life or health is at risk.”

Such a framework generally allows for abortions in most cases through the point of viability, which is usually between 24 and 26 weeks of pregnancy. Robinson's campaign has alleged that Stein's views are extreme, saying that he supports abortion later in pregnancy entering the third trimester.

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Associated Press writer Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.

FILE - North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, right, Republican candidate for governor, kisses his wife, Yolanda Hill Robinson, after speaking at an election night event in Greensboro, N.C., March 5, 2024. A nonprofit operated by Yolanda Hill Robinson that she recently shuttered was "seriously deficient" in its recent operations, according to a state review examining how it carried out a federally funded meal program helping some child care providers. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)

FILE - North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, right, Republican candidate for governor, kisses his wife, Yolanda Hill Robinson, after speaking at an election night event in Greensboro, N.C., March 5, 2024. A nonprofit operated by Yolanda Hill Robinson that she recently shuttered was "seriously deficient" in its recent operations, according to a state review examining how it carried out a federally funded meal program helping some child care providers. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)

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The Gulf of Whatnow? Mapmakers grapple with Trump's geographic renaming plans

2025-01-23 15:31 Last Updated At:15:40

What's in a name change, after all?

The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Mt. Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.

But Trump's territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump's lead.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”

Map lines are inherently political. After all, they're representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world.

There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.

“Denali” is the mountain's preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley" is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.

The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”

Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.

Trump's executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”

But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?

“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it."

As of Wednesday night, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.

A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it "strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.

In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it's still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York's Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.

“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.

“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”

Wrote another user: “I'll call it the Gulf of America when I'm forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

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