SBA List to launch Missouri ads against Obama on abortion

The conservative Susan B. Anthony List is poised to embark on a TV ad campaign challenging Barack Obama’s record on abortion, an official with the group tells POLITICO.

The initial ad is a $150,000 buy in Missouri, and shows a woman – Melissa Ohden – speaking to the camera about having been born alive in spite of an abortion procedure.

Abortion opponents have long decried Obama’s record in the Illinois legislature on regulating late-term abortions, but little money has been spent to advertise on the issue since he became president.

“Many children, more than you might think, actually survive failed abortions and are born alive. I know because I’m one of them,” Ohden says in the SBA List ad. “When he was in the Illinois state Senate, Barack Obama voted to deny basic constitutional protections for babies born alive from an abortion – not once, but four times."

She concludes: “I know it’s by the grace of God I’m alive today, if only to ask America this question: is this the kind of leadership that will move us forward, that will discard the weakest among us? How will you answer?”

(Also on POLITICO: GOP abortion plank rejects global trends)

The SBA List describes the commercial as part of a campaign aimed at “Obama’s extremist record on abortion.” In a statement, SBA List president Marjorie Dannenfelser branded the president as outside the social mainstream.

His views, she said, “fly in the face of mainstream American views and run counter to the President’s first term pre-election talk of finding common ground. Recent polling reveals the majority of Americans support bans on these horrific practices.”

National Republicans have argued in recent days that it’s the economy and spending, more than issues such as abortion, that will tip the outcome of the 2012 election. And in the wake of the Todd Akin controversy, Democrats have zealously gone on the offensive against GOP lawmakers who favor restricting access to abortion.

(PHOTOS: 5 controversial Todd Akin quotes)

Thanks to the SBA List, Democrats won’t be the only ones trying to gain the initiative in Missouri, where the presidential race isn’t competitive but the debate over abortion is likely at its national peak.