he announced that he had changed his views and was now "pro-life."

But many abortion opponents were never fully convinced of Romney's conversion, and they blasted Romney throughout the GOP primaries as being insincere. He responded by pledging to work to overturn Roe v. Wade, defund Planned Parenthood, and to take other steps demanded by anti-abortion groups.

Since winning the nomination and moving to the general election, however, those statements appeared to hurt him with key voting blocs -- women, in particular, but also independents and young adults.

So several weeks ago, facing an uphill slog in the polls, Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, a Catholic, began to de-emphasize issues like abortion and gay rights in order to win over some of those voters. When they did discuss abortion,it was in terms that seemed to soften or even contradict Romney's earlier positions.

In late August, for example, Romney dismayed some hard-line abortion foes by sharply denouncing Missouri GOP senate candidate Todd Akin for his controversial remarks about rape and abortion. Romney followed that by distancing himself from the Republican platform that bars abortion in all cases, adding that he viewed the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe decision legalizing abortion as "settled."

Then on Oct. 9, Romney told The Des Moines Register that he would not push any abortion-related legislation if elected -- which seemed to contradict a column he wrote in National Review last year detailing the anti-abortion legislation he would support.

And this week, the Romney campaign released a new ad aimed at women voters that stresses Romney's support