On Meet the Press Sunday, host David Gregory took Virginia Governor and Romney surrogate Bob McDonnell to task over a bill he signed this week mandating that all women have an ultrasound performed before they can have an abortion. The bill was amended so that women could not be required to get an invasive, ‘transvaginal’ ultrasound.
“You backed an abortion bill initially that included a very invasive procedure as part of an ultrasound that the state would have required and then you backed off of that,” Gregory said. “Were you wrong to support that initially or did you simply back off because the political heat got turned up the way it did?”
McDonnell tried to change the subject several times, and each time Gregory brought him back to the ultrasound bill.
“Look, you ran in part talking about health care, the president’s healthcare plan,” Gregory finally said. “This was the state of the Virginia mandating women have an additional procedure, a mandated health procedure. I thought that’s exactly what conservatives opposed?”
McDonnell replied that the bill is about “informed consent” and that this is “people trying to get the focus off the abysmal record of this administration.”
