Groups launch ads against Heck over women’s health

Two organizations are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into a new ad campaign that takes aim at U.S. Rep. Joe Heck’s record on women’s health.

Planned Parenthood Votes and EMILY’s List’s WOMEN VOTE! announced the joint $500,000 campaign Friday, calling Heck’s positions on women’s health “dangerous,” and highlighting his votes on Planned Parenthood funding.

The organizations are targeting Heck as the Republican vies to replace retiring Minority Leader Harry Reid in the Senate. Heck and former Nevada attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto will square off in the Nov. 8 general election.

EMILY’s List mailers are expected to reach 70,000 Nevada residents, while Planned Parenthood Votes digital ads are forecasted to reach 300,000.

“Congressman Joe Heck has a long record of driving an extreme anti-woman and anti-immigrant agenda that hurts Nevadans across the state,” EMILY’s List executive director Jessica O’Connell said in a statement.

Heck is anti-abortion with exceptions of rape, incest and if the mother’s life is in danger.

EMILY’s List, a political action committee whose mission is to help get pro-abortion rights Democratic women elected, and Planned Parenthood Votes are homing in on Nevada. They are seeking to appeal to millennial women while backing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and also investing in down-ticket races in the state “to ensure diverse perspectives are at the decision-making table,” the groups said in a release Friday.

In a statement, Heck campaign communications director Brian Baluta drew on Heck’s experience as a physician, contending he “served on the front lines of our health care system.”

“As a husband, a father of two daughters, and a physician, women’s health is a vital priority for Dr. Joe Heck,” Baluta said. “Serving as an emergency room physician, he treated women who were victims of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Dr. Heck earned the respect of his patients, their families, and the medical community for his willingness and ability to handle these emergency situations professionally and effectively.”

Baluta also contended Cortez Masto and her allies put politics “ahead of women’s health,” something the Heck camp argued recently in a fact check of a recent Cortez Masto ad.

Planned Parenthood Votes has been organizing a field program with phone banks and canvassing, reaching out to women, Latino and young voters in Clark and Washoe counties. The organization depicts Cortez Masto as a “women’s health champion,” while pushing the idea that some of Heck’s votes have sought to restrict women’s access to health care.

The Heck campaign frames the Planned Parenthood funding vote differently, arguing that his vote to move federal funds for women’s health from Planned Parenthood to Federally Qualified Health Centers or Community Health Centers was because they’re “better positioned to provide such care,” particularly in rural Nevada. Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Find @JamieMunksRJ on Twitter.