Abortion opponents are increasingly using a Federal Communications Commission loophole to run graphic, racist, anti-abortion ads – possibly in a city near you.

This summer, Tennessee-based anti-abortion advocate Randall Terry made headlines after launching legislative campaigns in New Jersey and Hawaii. As Terry quickly learned, running two simultaneous congressional campaigns is illegal; when informed of this, Terry claimed he “did not read the law correctly” and promptly ended his New Jersey campaign.

If Terry’s goal were to successfully run and win an election, this blunder would be a less-than-promising start. Terry, however, has a different goal in mind: flooding the airwaves with anti-abortion propaganda.

To do this, Terry exploits a Federal Communications Commission loophole: according to the Federal Communications Act, “legally qualified candidates” are entitled to “fair access to ad time” without “censorship.” Closer to election days, the Federal Communications Act also requires stations to charge qualified political candidates “the lowest unit charge of the station,” allowing qualified candidates to access prime airspace for competitive prices. This has allowed Terry and other anti-abortion advocates to air ads that refer to abortion as murder and feature disturbing images of “disfigured fetuses” on major networks.

Disruption and disinformation are core to the brand Terry has built — and mentored others in building — over his long career in the anti-abortion movement.

Terry claims to have been arrested “more than 40 times” and first gained prominence in 1986 as the founder of Operation Rescue, which gained notoriety for clinic harassment campaigns that frequently led to arrests. While Terry is no longer with Operation Rescue, his anti-abortion intimidation tactics have continued. In December 2025, Terry launched “Rescue Resurrection,” an effort to bring back Operation Rescue-style harassment campaigns. The launch event saw Terry arrested outside a Memphis, Tennessee Planned Parenthood along with over a dozen other anti-abortion advocates. According to anti-abortion group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, arrestees included fellow anti-abortion political candidates Nathan Berning, the Let Them Live co-founder who is running for Hawaii’s 1^st congressional district, and Terrisa Bukovinac, Terry’s wife and former mentee, who is running for New Jersey’s 9^th congressional district.

After leaving Operation Rescue in 1991, Terry turned his attention to politics. Since 1998, Terry has launched seven different political campaigns. While the jury is still out on his 2026 Hawaii campaign, none of Terry’s previous campaigns have resulted in a political office. While that would be considered a campaign failure for many, Terry has made it clear that the primary goal of his campaigns has been to run graphic, anti-abortion ads that would otherwise never see primetime.

Terry first put the Federal Communications Commission loophole to the test in 2010 while serving as the campaign manager for fellow anti-abortion advocate Missy Smith. Smith used the $66,000 raised by her D.C. campaign to run a graphic, anti-abortion ad targeting Black communities 235 times on local networks. The ad campaign was “deemed so explicit that it was preceded by a 15-second warning that was added by the stations’ management.” It was ultimately removed from YouTube, which flagged the ad as “a violation of YouTube’s policy on shocking and disgusting content.”

The advertising success of Smith’s campaign encouraged Terry to “do what Missy did on a scale of 100 times” for his 2012 presidential race. While Terry claimed the Federal Communications Commission was “required to sell” ad space to him, the Commission ultimately issued mixed rulings about his ads. While they agreed to air Terry’s gruesome ads on some stations closer to election day, the Federal Communications Commission ruled against Terry’s request to air his ads during the Super Bowl, as they found he had not made a “substantial showing of candidacy.”

Terry’s 2024 presidential bid under the Constitution Party saw more of the same. Terry was direct, stating that, “I’m not going to be the president. . .I’m not delusional.” He repeatedly made it clear that he was running for the ad space, claiming that, “The only place that you can still have free speech is on a licensed station as a federal candidate.” When his graphic anti-abortion ads aired on ABC, many of them did not even mention his presidential campaign. They were, however, preceded by a disclaimer warning viewers of “disturbing” content.

Missy Smith’s campaign wasn’t just a catalyst for Terry’s ad campaigns: 2010 saw Terry begin encouraging other anti-abortion advocates to run ad-focused campaigns. Following Smith’s run, “Terry announced plans to field single-issue congressional candidates in the nation’s 25 biggest media markets, for the sole purpose of running graphic anti-abortion spots that would otherwise never make it onto the airwaves.”

These Terry-inspired candidates would later include his now-wife, Terrisa Bukovinac. Bukovinac first ran in 2024 as a Democratic presidential candidate who was “following in the footsteps of radical abortion rights opponent Randall Terry.” During her presidential run, Bukovinac told the National Review that the “primary purpose of her campaign is raising money to run ‘explicit’ ads showing the cruel reality of abortion in any states where she can get on the ballot.” Like her then-mentor Terry, Bukovinac noted that, “Any FCC TV station is required to run the ads of all federal candidates.” This year, Terry and Bukovinac both filed to run in New Jersey; unlike Terry, Bukovinac’s New Jersey campaign is still underway.

Abortion opponents exploiting election communications loopholes to force their misleading propaganda on the public is bad enough on its own, but we see these efforts as part of a broader anti-democracy agenda by anti-abortion advocates. The same anti-abortion group that donated to both Bukovinac’s presidential campaign and the Constitution Party National Committee in 2024 – Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America – also founded an organization that promotes undemocratic voter suppression efforts. Other anti-abortion advocates have engaged in harassment campaigns against pro-abortion ballot measures and their supporters. They’ve shared personal identifying information about pro-abortion canvassers, filed bogus lawsuits, and even sent out anti-abortion state senators to discourage potential pro-abortion ballot amendment supporters. When Randall Terry and his acolytes twist the electoral system for their own propagandistic purposes, they’re wasting the time, attention, and good faith of people who take elections seriously.

All of these costly, disinformation-fueled efforts aim to intimidate pro-abortion activists and citizens from exercising their rights – rights to vote, to support pro-abortion ballot measures and policies, and, ultimately, to decide if, when, whether, and how to grow and shape our families. We see what they’re doing, and we’re not afraid to call it out. Because we’re still having abortions, and we’re not going anywhere.