Monday, February 8, 2010

The Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad: It was really about choice

Just a quick post to direct you over to The 36-Hour Day at Work It, Mom!, where I've written about my reaction to the controversial Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad that ran yesterday during the big game.

For the record, I'm pro choice. I think that once a government can mandate that you must carry a child to term, it's only a small step away from mandating that you can't -- China's One Child policy, for example, or India's massive forced sterilization campaign in 1976 and 1977. I also think that being "pro choice" isn't the same thing as being "pro abortion." In some places, being pro choice can mean fighting to have your baby. It can mean choosing to carry your child to term and giving him up for adoption. It can mean keeping your daughter instead of abandoning or aborting her. And, yes, in some cases, it can mean having to choose whether to save your own life by ending your pregnancy. That's what Tebow's mother, Pam, faced while pregnant with her fifth child. She chose not to abort. What if she didn't have that right to choose?

For me, the ad represented one woman's choice. I don't see the controversy or offensiveness in that.


I tuned in to the Super Bowl yesterday in order to root for, well, pretty much either team -- as my husband likes to say, I'm deeply ambivelent about football -- but also because I wanted to see the controversial ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mom, Pam.

I've held off on writing about it, so far. I wanted to see it first, in order to separate the ad itself from the controversey surrounding it. Some women's groups were calling on CBS to pull the ad, which news reports said featured a strong anti-abortion message and was paid for by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. Planned Parenthood preemptively launched an ad of its own on YouTube, before the Super Bowl, featuring atheletes talking about the importance of trusting women to make their own decisions.

So I settled in, ready to be riled up. ...

(Read the rest at The 36-Hour Day.)


Photo: The Associated Press

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