You may have noticed some graphic and disturbing political ads running on local television stations and wondered, "how can they do that?"
Fringe Presidential candidate Randall Terry is running as a candidate for the Constitution Party. The well-known Christian activist is buying anti-abortion ads featuring extremely graphic and disturbing imagery.
Some stations have been issuing warnings at the beginning of the ads, but if you're wondering why a station would agree to this, the simple answer is they don't have a choice. Under FCC rules and political free speech, they are forced to accept the ads.
"It's a political calculation and the whole point of the FCC rules is that it must be left to those political candidates, and that the stations do not have authority to censor that speech," explained University of Minnesota Journalism professor Jane Kirtley.
Kirtley says the stations have no choice but to run them.
"The Federal Communications Commission in the past has ruled specifically on graphic images of aborted fetuses," says Kirtley. "The stations tried to argue that this violated Federal Communications indecency broadcast rules and the agency said it's political speech and you must run it."
Terry is legally qualified nationally after making it on the ballot in 12 states. He's become well known for showing up to ant-abortion rallies with graphic displays of abortions and aborted fetuses.