Today’s New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan reveals that Mark Ronchetti’s latest campaign ad features yet another extreme abortion ban advocate, former co-worker and longtime news anchor Dick Knipfing. This news comes on the heels of Ronchetti’s thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Susan B Anthony List, which is leading a national campaign to ban abortion “in every state and every legislature.” Knipfing’s ad for Ronchetti is the latest example of anti-abortion extremists lining up behind Ronchetti’s campaign, given Knipfing’s decades of anti-abortion activism, including protesting with the extremist anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

“Anti-abortion extremists are lining up behind Ronchetti as their choice, because they know he plans to ban abortion in New Mexico,” said Daniel Garcia, Communications Director for the Democratic Party of New Mexico. “From Operation Rescue protestors to Susan B Anthony List campaign contributions, Ronchetti has made it absolutely clear that he’s fighting to ban abortion in New Mexico.”

In this morning’s New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan, the blogger traces Knipfing’s activism from one-time trusted newsman to Ronchetti partisan, writing, “Today he is a hardcore partisan on abortion with demonstrated Republican leanings – not an objective observer committed to delivering the proven truth to a TV news audience – or the the one tuning into his campaign commercial.”

Knipfing’s 1988 activism in which he protested with Operation Rescue protestors blocking access to an abortion clinic was first reported at that time by The Albuquerque Journal. “Knipfing, news co-anchor at KGGM-TV, Channel 13, stood with a prayer group in support of nearby protesters who were blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. He left before police arrived and arrested 56 people,” the paper reported October 15, 1988 as seen below.

Knipfing’s own boss at the time told the Journal he was “disappointed” in Knipfing’s participation and that journalists “should be observers, not participants in an event in which they can become the object of news.”

Operation Rescue is an an extremist anti-abortion group that has been working to build “an Abortion-Free America” since 1986. They believe that abortion is murder and their protests involved physically shutting down clinics, like the protest that Knipfing attended in Albuquerque. This is only the latest connection between Ronchetti’s campaign and extremist anti-abortion groups. His campaign accepted thousands of dollars in donations from Susan B Anthony’s List, a anti-abortion lobbying group promoting a national ban on abortion and recently hosted Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence as part of his tour to ban abortion in every state.

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