Jon Ossoff, the Democrat running in Georgia’s 6th congressional district, slammed his Republican opponent in a new attack ad over her time at the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
The ad features an OBGYN from Cobb County, Ga., who notes that early screening for breast and cervical cancers are essential to saving lives.
“But Karen Handel cut off funding for Planned Parenthood cancer screenings when she was an executive at Susan G. Komen,” Dr. Mindy Fine says in the ad.
“I don’t usually get involved in politics, but as a doctor and a breast cancer survivor myself, what Karen Handel did is unforgivable.”
{mosads}Handel resigned from her post at the Susan G. Komen Foundation in 2012, after the organization overturned a previous decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood.
Handel, who released her first TV ad for the June 20 runoff election on Tuesday, dismissed Ossoff’s attack in a statement.
“We always knew Jon Ossoff would lie and distort in order to get back to Washington,” Handel said. “I am proud to have advocated for women’s health issues for virtually my entire adult life and will fight every day in Congress for Georgia women and their families.”
The race for the seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (R-Ga.) is heating up as Democrats seek to make it a referendum on President Trump’s tenure thus far. While Republicans have long cruised to victory in the district, Trump won by just a narrow margin in the November election.