Super Bowl Sunday. A time for gathering with friends and family. Wholesome fun for young and old alike.

Make some snacks, settle in your couches, and enjoy the game – and the terrific ads! Budweiser’s horses playing football are my favorites.  And then…. there’s the ads featuring

the bloody aborted fetuses.

What the what?!?

Yep. In 40 targeted market cities around the country, presidential candidate Randall Terry will be running ads that feature horridly graphic photos of the remains of real people’s life hard decisions.

The ads are being paid for by fringe anti-abortion candidateRandall Terry:

Anti-abortion ads showing graphic images of aborted fetuses covered in blood and surrounded by religious icons will air during the Super Bowl in February, courtesy of Democratic Presidential candidate Randall Terry.

Terry, who has spent a year in jail and been arrested 50 times for his anti-abortion efforts, is using a Federal Election Commission loophole that ensures ads for political candidates cannot be prohibited within 45 days of an election. Apparently, primaries count, so Terry will be running ads on local stations during Super Bowl XLVI February 5.

The Colorado paper the Greeley Gazette notes that Terry has already run political ads with images of aborted fetuses in New Hampshire. The ads attacked President Obama for supporting “child killing.”

TV stations have typically rejected ads with graphic content, especially during events like the Super Bowl that have a large audience. But by exploiting a loophole that requires stations to air ads by political candidates within 45 days of an election, Terry has managed to circumvent those standards.

“This means that primary states that fall within the 45 day window will have to run the graphic ads during the Super Bowl if he purchases the slots,” the Gazette says… (original source)

Turns out that

…the ads won’t cost that much because they are not being run nationally. They are only being run in states that have Randall Terry on the ballot, and local ads are a LOT cheaper. And stations HAVE to run them because they are a political ad within 45 days of an election (in this case a primary or caucus, which apparently count). So, the stations cannot reject them for violent content because they fall within the guidelines of political ads. It looks like it will still cost $100,000 to do the ads in 40 cities, but that is nothing compared to the millions it would cost to do it nationally. If they did it nationally, they could not force stations to air the ad, because stations could reject them based on graphic content (which has been done before), but due to this loophole and only airing in cities where there is a state primary or caucus within 45 days, they can force the ads to run. (info courtesy of my friend Sandy Busgen Burke)