My favorite article I've read about this subtle pro-life ad is actually one written by a pro-choice author, Sally Jenkins for The Washington Post. She delivered a solid defense of the 30-second ad that's both powerful and humorous.
"Tebow's 30-second ad...has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical."
"Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't."
I appreciate the way the author addresses the role of guys and fathers in the issues surrounding abortion:
"You know what we really need more of? Famous guys who aren't embarrassed to practice sexual restraint, and to say it out loud. If we had more of those, women might have fewer abortions. See, the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancy is to not get the sperm in the egg and the egg implanted to begin with, and that is an issue for men, too -- and they should step up to that."
You know, abortion is an issue that is at once both simple and complicated. Simple if you believe that life begins at conception, and abortion is killing of innocents. But complicated because it is women whose lives are changed forever by unplanned pregnancies - young girls who will never finish high school, never go to college, never be able to provide all they dreamed of for their children should they decide to keep them and raise them. And we are a society without enough support systems in place to help those girls succeed when they make the decision to keep their babies. And it is women who live with the guilt, to a far greater degree, should they decide to terminate their pregnancies. Because women are the ones with uteruses (uteri?). Any article that calls men to step up to the plate and accept a greater degree of responsibility wins points in my book.
"Tebow's ad, by the way, never mentions abortion... It simply has the theme "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." This is what NOW has labeled "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." But if there is any demeaning here, it's coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren't real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day."
An interesting article, all in all - worth reading.
Great article, Sarah. Thanks for linking to it. I printed it off to take in to the CPC where I work.
ReplyDelete