Kaine

[Nanjeanne]

9. So basically same as Mello if you actually believed facts

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-was-heath-mello-thrown-under-the-bus/

Here’s the truth about Mello’s record: Back in 2009, he co-sponsored a bill requiring a physician performing an abortion to tell a woman that an ultrasound is available (as most already did). It neither mandated that the ultrasound be performed nor, if performed, that it actually be viewed by the woman—although it did require abortion providers to position the screen is such a way that the ultrasound was easily viewable.

All of these bills were opposed by Planned Parenthood—and, given the realities of Nebraska politics, all easily passed.

What’s more interesting is what happened next—and what didn’t. In 2012, Mello voted with Planned Parenthood on two out of three bills tracked by the group—and was excused from voting on the third. After that, Mello, who had become the influential chair of the state legislature’s Budget Committee, voted with Planned Parenthood 100 percent of the time. By 2015, the group was celebrating a “fourth straight year….without enacting any new abortion restrictions in Nebraska, thanks largely to committed women’s health advocates engaged in the legislative process.”

Like many of his supporters—including some of his most fervently pro-choice supporters—Mello told me that he would like abortion to be a private matter between a woman and her partner, or her conscience. So long as women’s rights are under threat, that can’t happen. But when I ask Mello if, when he says he “will not restrict women’s reproductive care,” that includes abortions, he doesn’t equivocate: “Of course. I thought that was obvious.”

Bolding mine.