U.S. Senate candidate Bob Kelleher has raised eyebrows with some of his radio ads, including one that suggests abortion causes breast cancer and a second that links oral sex and suicide among teen-aged girls.

Kelleher is running as a Republican, however, he has often run for office from other parties, including as a Democratic and Green Party candidate. He is challenging Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who is widely expected to win his sixth term this November.

The Montana Republican Party has disavowed Kelleher’s candidacy.

Wendi Carpenter, the political manager for two Missoula radio stations airing a pair of Kelleher’s minute-long spots, said they had received a complaint from a woman upset by one of the ads.

That ad, which according to a recording of the ad provided by Kelleher, states that “the major cause of breast cancer in all ages is abortion in younger women.” The woman, a breast cancer survivor who had never had an abortion, was upset that the ad suggests cancer-survivors caused their illness by having abortions.

Kelleher’s ad buy with the radio station expired Friday, Carpenter said.

Broadcasters are generally compelled to run the advertisements of all federal political candidates if they accept advertising from a single candidate.

Kelleher said he received a message on his campaign answering machine from an upset woman in Missoula complaining about the ad. She left no return number, he said, so he couldn’t call her back.

The American Cancer Institute said there is “no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.” The institute, which is part of the federal National Institutes of Health, instead listed a woman’s age, a family history of breast cancer, early onset of menstruation and obesity as among the risk factors for developing breast cancer.

Kelleher said he based the ad on information from a publication called The Actuary written by insurance experts who study the likelihood of disease among certain groups. Kelleher could not provide an exact citation of the report.

“All I did was cite the data,” he said.

Kelleher said he was somewhat concerned about airing the second ad, which deals with what he calls “America’s toxic culture.” That ad, like many of his others, consists of Kelleher talking while John Phillips Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” plays in the background.

On the “toxic culture” spot, Kelleher addresses himself to “Montana women” and cites information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about an increasing rate “female, teen-aged suicides.” He then talks about Meg Meeker, a pediatrician who has written several books.

Kelleher said that Meeker “tells us America’s toxic culture begins with the teen-aged girl’s humiliation when a boy demands she perform fellatio. The real Satanic clincher is teen-aged abortion.”

Kelleher said he hasn’t received “any adverse comments” about the spot, although he suspected he might, given its content. Kelleher said he spoke the word “fellatio” so quickly “maybe either medical people or Latin scholars would know what it was.”

So far, he has received two comments on the ad, both positive. One man e-mailed him to say he and wife both agree with the idea of a “toxic culture.”

“I had someone tell me on the street tell me they liked it,” he said.

Kelleher said he would go after the nation’s toxic culture by challenging the notion that sexually charged language which “demeans” an underage American girl is protected speech under the First Amendment.