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WASHINGTON, D.C., June 4, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The day after former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney secured the Republican presidential nomination, Planned Parenthood formally endorsed President Barack Obama and purchased $1.4 million of attack ads.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards claimed there was “no greater champion for women’s health” than Obama, calling Romney’s pro-life stance “extreme” and “out of touch” with American women.

In an e-mail to LifeSiteNews.com, Americans United for Life spokeswoman Kristi Hamrick said Barack Obama, “the most pro-abortion president in American history,” is the one out of step, “from supporting efforts to require that a child should die if born alive during an abortion, to intertwining abortion throughout ObamaCare, to using the bully pulpit to argue that somehow his daughters need abortion to reach career success.”

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“It’s not about Planned Parenthood,” Richards told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough last Wednesday. “To me, it’s about that he wants to cut women off of birth control services and cancer screenings.”

Hamrick dismissed the notion that there was never any question which candidate the abortion giant would endorse. “Barack Obama was very clear when running for office the first time that he was a huge supporter of Planned Parenthood. And they of him.”

“Nothing has changed with the single exception that the voters now have a much better idea of what that truly means,” she told LifeSiteNews. “Consider ObamaCare – the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade – such abortion-oriented public policy with the tie in to tax monies reveals fully that when the president pledged to do something for Planned Parenthood, he meant it.”

The new Planned Parenthood ad interprets Romney’s campaign stump statements in a negative light. “When Mitt Romney says ‘Planned Parenthood – we’re gonna get rid of that,’ Romney is saying he’ll deny women the birth control and cancer screenings they depend on,” it states. “When Romney says, ‘Do I believe the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade? Yes,’ he’s saying he’ll deny women the right to make their own medical decisions.”

Carrie Gordon Earll, CitizenLink Senior Director of Issues Analysis, told LifeSiteNews that Planned Parenthood’s message would not resonate beyond the Democratic Party base “unless it masks its involvement in future messages.” The organization “has received its share of negative attention in the last couple of years and its public image has soured along with that bad press.”

The Obama campaign has sought to frame the presidential race as a question of sensitivity to feminist issues, as part of a broader theme Republicans are perpetrating a “War on Women.” A campaign memo released in early May accused Mitt Romney of sharing an “extreme agenda on women’s health” with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a reference to McDonnell’s support for requiring women to undergo ultrasounds before having abortions.

Yet polling data indicate women Mitt Romney’s popularity rose during that time. A May 14 CBS News/New York Times poll found Romney’s support from female voters rising from 43 percent to 46 percent, while Obama’s fell from 49 percent to 44 percent. An ABC/Washington Post poll released this week finds that Romney’s favorability among currently stands at 40 percent, a 13-point spike since last month.

Obama and Planned Parenthood’s favored policies have not won women over, either. A Marist College poll released last week by the Knights of Columbus found a plurality of women in favor of allowing employers to opt out of birth control coverage for “moral and religious reasons,” (46 percent to 44 percent) and a majority supporting opt-outs for “religiously affiliated employers, such as a hospital or university.”

Most strikingly, the Susan B. Anthony List said the White House’s opposition to banning sex-selection abortions is deeply “out of step” with America’s women. They cited polling data from their research arm, the Charlotte Lozier Institute, finding that 80 percent of women oppose letting women abort their babies on the basis of sex.

The Obama campaign has previously featured Richards in a May 17 “Women for Obama” video.