Good news — voters in Albuquerque, New Mexico have voted down a measure that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks.
Voters on Tuesday rejected the measure 55 percent to 45 percent following an emotional and graphic campaign that brought in national groups and hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising. The campaign included protests that compared abortion to the Holocaust and displayed pictures of aborted fetuses.
Protests were only the start.
While a city-wide measure wouldn’t ordinarily garner the high-profile attention this one did, anti-choice zealots all but guaranteed the vote would receive national attention.
As you may recall, Albuquerque is where a woman handed out these anti-abortion fetus cards to kids on Halloween.
Actions like this that are aimed at shocking or grossing out people may not have the same amount of traction now as they may have in the past. At least not in areas that aren’t already biased against a certain issue.
Handing out fetus photos to kids on Halloween certainly isn’t going to endear your position to swing voters. On the contrary, it may have compelled some to turn out and vote against the measure out of societal disgust.