My poor husband The Packhorse has had to put up with me ranting at the TV for the last few nights. The media has been all over CBS's decision to air the Tim Tebow anti-abortion ad. In case you've been hibernating in a bunker somewhere, this is the ad in which the Heisman Trophy winner and devout Christian and his Mom rejoice over the fact that she chose to bear him despite doctors' recommendation when she fell ill in the Phillipines.
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Actually there's some doubt as to whether the story is 100% accurate as the FotF ad tells it. Gloria Allred has cast some doubt on the veracity of the tale.
Because abortion under any circumstance has been illegal in the Philippines since 1930 and is punishable by a six-year prison term, Allred says she finds it hard to believe that doctors would have recommended the procedure.
The attorney, who has represented a roster of famous clients, claims she will lodge a complaint with the FCC and FTC "if this ad airs and fails to disclose that abortions were illegal at the time Ms. Tebow made her choice," according to RadarOnline.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Whatever the truth of the story, I have gotten damned sick of seeing Jim Daly's pudgy, sanctimonious face. He's the guy who replaced James Dobson as president and CEO of FotF. He has done his best to look bewildered at the idea that anyone would object to airing such a heartwarming story with such a happy ending. And he has smiled gloatingly as he casts our own words back at us. After all, haven't we all said abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" and that reducing the number of abortions would be a good thing?
And yes, those were the words of both Clintons along with President Obama, and some of us worried that this could be used against pro-choice advocates, that it would come back and bite us in the butt. And now it has.
On the surface, it looks like he's calling us hypocrites. After all, Tim's mother CHOSE to bear him (reread Allred's critique of the story as to why she might not actually have had a choice even if doctors advised abortion), and isn't this all about choice? Shouldn't women have the right to choose life instead of abortion?
I don't think there is a pro-choice person in America who would have told Mrs. Tebow that she should have aborted. She had the right to choose whether or not to bear her child, and nobody should have interfered. In fact, I back her decision 110%-=-and her right to make that decision. Problem is, FotF wants to take away that choice and force Mrs. Tebow's decision on every single woman in America.
Then there's the fact that the idea of reducing the number of abortions may be a common goal for both sides--but the devil is in the details. How to accomplish that goal is where we differ, and that difference represents a philosphical divide as wide as the Grand Canyon. It's also an example of why there truly is little common ground to be found on abortion.
FotF and its followers and their friends want to reduce the number of abortions by telling kids to "just say no." According to their Christian beliefs, both pre-0marital sex and abortion are serious sins. The only thing a god person can do is practice abstinence until marriage. Sex with contraception before marriage is NOT acceptable, even if it reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies. They intend to reduce the number of pregnancies by teaching error-laden (even Bill Frist admitted it) abstinence only sex education programs which mention birth control but push the notion that they aren't foolproof (nothing is, but a less than 1% pregnancy rate on the Pill goes a long way to reduce the chances of pregnancy) and that condoms really don't prevent the spread of STDs. And id a girl should actually fall from grace and have sex and has to deal with the consequences, well, that's what she gets for sinning. She should suck it up and carry to term and either raise the child a la Bristol Palin, their new heroine, or put it up for adoption--because the fetus must always come first, even if it increases the chances that mother and child have a much higher chance of living in poverty.
And after marriage, certain forms of birth control are iffy--many of the right-wing anti-choice types (and not just Bill Donahue Catholics) want to ban all hormonal birth control methods and the IUD because they might (even though experts do not agree with this) prevent implantation of a fertilized ovum. Women would be left with the diaphragm ( you can't use it if you have a latex allergy or are prone to UTIs or are allergic to spermacides) and foam and condoms (some of the same issues--allergic reactions are common. BOTH have a much higher failure rate than the Pill or IUD.
The result of their agenda would be more unwanted pregnancies, not fewer, and that means MORE abortions, not fewer. And a lot of these pregnancies and abortions would occur to Good Christian Girls, because they have abortions at about the same rate as everyone else. Even the girls who do the Silver Ring Thing are generally sexually active before marriage. They may have fewer partners and delay their first sexual activity a bit longer, but they are also less likely to use condoms or birth control. Many studies have shown that abstinence only sex ed just doesn't work, verifying the common sense idea that if telling kids not to have sex until marriage actually worked, there would never have been am unwanted pregnancy in the history of the world--even though almost every culture placed a high price on female virginity.
UPATE: As one commenter reminded us, the main way they want to reduce the number is by bann8ing abortions completely--no choice at all. But even giving them the benefit of the doubt, they fail because they advocate methods of reduction that flat-out don't work--which includes making abortion illegal. That ban would merely result in an increase of back alley abortions, and women who die or lose their fertility because of infections.
The reality is that pro-choice activists have long worked to reduce the number of teen pregnancies by acknowledging reality and dealing with the fact that teens will and do have sex before marriage. We have worked to get comprehensive sex education (or what SIECUS calls "abstinence-plus) into schools. We've pushed for programs which tell kids why postponing sex till they're older is good idea--high poverty rates for young mothers, for example--while acknowledging that most will have sex before they marry. Because we're concerned with practical goals, not with labeling sexually active people as sinners, we address how to prevent pregnancy and stop the spread of STDs. We leave morality to the preachers and the kids' parents. Real solutions for real problems, not preaching.
So when Jim Daly does his fake confusion act and exclaims that we should all just celebrate life, I want to throw up. When he says he wants to reduce the number of abortions, just like we do, I want to reach right through the TV screen and choke him and I find myself screaming (for this reason I am moving my soft, no-plastic-eyes Disney fairy godmother dolls into the den, so I can throw them at TV screen and avoid laryngitis; it worked during the debates in '08). Because while we might share the goal of reducing abortions, how we get there is the real problem, and he is utterly disingenuous when he pretends otherwise.
Where do I stand on the ad? I don't think it should air during the Superbowl because it's the wrong time for it, and the subject is too complicated to cover in a 30 second commercial.