Tea Party Candidate Stages Electoral Campaign to Air Graphic Anti-Abortion Ads

Tea Party Republican and seasoned forced-pregnancy activist Missy Smith is running for Washington D.C.’s shadow congressional seat against Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), a strangely bold move considering beating a progressive incumbent in the majorly Democratic District is pretty much impossible. Smith is even running against the wishes of the D.C. GOP (who objected to her campaign because it fails to address any issue besides abortion), leading some to suspect her intentions are more about cheaply airing unregulated "shocking" anti-choice propaganda than actually getting elected.

They're right.

In a letter to the anti-choice community, Smith admits she is "running for Congress with the express purpose of running political ads on TV of graphic pictures of healthy and dead babies," as well as compelling supporters to "dig deep into their pockets and give until it hurts, as Mother Teresa would say." Randall Terry, famous anti-choice terrorist, longtime Smith associate, and current "volunteer campaign manager," appears to have orchestrated her candidacy and freely revealed the true objective of this scheme last year.

The ads supposedly began airing in D.C. on Monday, and while one was already pulled from YouTube for violating community guidelines, television stations say they're legally required to run the spots unedited.  The ads feature bootleggy slideshows of babies and "aborted" fetuses, one with Missy lamenting: "I killed two of my babies by abortion. I was told, 'it's not a baby.' They lied. They exploited me. Then I learned the truth, and I have suffered for years."

The photos used are the same few images the anti-choice movement has been circulating forever, which misrepresent circumstances and gestational age for the sake of controversial imagery (in reality, early abortions look like this). Smith denounces pro-choice "lies" while failing to acknowledge that the survival of the forced-pregnancy movement depends entirely on a spectrum of untruth -- from withholding to manipulation to blatant dishonesty -- which they rationalize with childish “ends justify the means” excuses. Anti-choice protesters lie. Anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers lie. Abstinence-only sex education lies. Anti-choice adoption agencies lie. Lies lies lies, all of it, lies.

While it's unfortunate that Smith regrets her decision to have an abortion(s), plenty of other women don't. Every story deserves to be respected, but a personal change of heart is not a legitimate reason to criminalize one of the most common medical procedures. I find it especially deplorable when women freely take advantage of their right to choose (twice in Smith's case), and then subsequently advocate eliminating that right for others.

So now we have two forced-pregnancy bullies staging a political campaign for the exclusive purpose of fundraising and pitching ideological hissy fits. Apparently harassing women entering medical centers no longer provides an adequate thrill (or profit margin), so they’ve progressed to harassing Americans in their own living rooms. Oh, quiet down kids. The grownups are trying to have an election here.

Photo Credit: Randall Terry