Tara Shaver, who leads Abortion Free New Mexico with husband Bud, recently held a fundraiser to support a Republican congressional candidate, Michelle Holmes. In the midst of that 1st District congressional race, Democrats apparently viewed a fundraiser invitation as a political opportunity to vilify a hated conservative group then tie a hated candidate to it.
In the nasty world of political campaigns, where the other side is always defined as "extreme," that tactic is not uncommon. In fact, Bud and Tara Shaver, and Holmes, witnessed that same political tactic in 2018 when Holmes was running for lieutenant governor.
Four years later, in a repeat of that political cunning, comes a controversial press release that called the Shavers “extremist anti-abortion protestors” who came to New Mexico “solely to harass New Mexicans seeking access to health care.”
That one sentence is filled with plenty of questionable claims, such as suggesting aborting unborn children is “health care” and claiming the pro-lifers harass people. But the press release goes on from there to tie the husband and wife to the 2009 murder of abortion doctor George Tiller. That guilt-by-association accusation required some creativity: the Shavers are affiliated with Operation Rescue and the press release claims it was a “follower” of that group who killed Tiller.
“The biggest alarm,” Tara Shaver tells AFN, “was that they said that we have connections with alleged domestic terrorists.”
That accusation was stated in a giant-font headline pictured above.
In light of that allegation, and several other statements in the press release, the Shavers have lawyered up. In a letter to communications director Daniel Garcia, attorney Angelo Artuso asks the Democrat to correct three “misstatements of fact,” including tying Bud and Tara Shaver to the murder of George Tiller.
New Mexico is abortion haven
Abortion is worshipped by the Far Left as some kind of sacred right. That view is certainly true in New Mexico, where the state’s Democrats openly want it to be an abortion destination after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Back in August, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order directing $10 million in taxpayers’ funds to build an abortion clinic in Dona Ana County. That county borders pro-life Texas.
Against that backdrop of fanatical abortion supporters, Shaver says the New Mexico Democratic Party should be reflecting on what defines “extremism” on the issue of abortion.
“They're the ones,” Shaver says, “who support abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.”
Meanwhile, she says their pro-life group is attempting to change the culture in New Mexico “from one that embraces death to one that embraces life.”
