Abortion Rights Groups Go Nuclear on Tim Tebow Ad
Advocates of legalized abortion bristle when pro-life advocates call them pro-abortion. Their typical position is best defined by President Clinton’s position on the procedure: that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
Six years ago, I examined the abortion polls, and the polling data indicated Americans were quite conflicted on the issue. A change of wording changed the whole outcome of the poll.
A 2003 CNN poll did show some amazing results regarding abortion restriction questions asked in straightforward ways. Americans oppose abortion in the second (68%) and third (84%) trimesters. Americans likewise support informed consent laws (88%), a 24-hour waiting period (78%), parental consent for minors (73%), and even spousal notification for married women (72%).
Yet not many on the left advocate for these policies. Indeed, each restriction on abortion only passes as a result of herculean efforts to shepherd the bill through the legislature and then fend off years of court challenges. While many Americans are sincerely pro-choice, the leftist groups that claim to represent pro-choice Americans have shown themselves to be sincerely pro-abortion.
First consider the Super Bowl ad starring college football standout Tim Tebow. The ad is a thirty-second spot produced by Focus on the Family that tells the story of how Tebow’s mother continued her pregnancy despite complications that threatened her life. Abortion rights groups have gone nuclear with calls for the ad not to be aired and attacks on Tebow and Focus on the Family. (A second ad, also featuring Tebow, was announced by the pro-life group on the Friday before the Super Bowl.)
The ad doesn’t advocate for or against any legislation. It only encourages women to choose to continue their pregnancies. If the goal of pro-choice America is to reduce the number of abortions, why does anyone have a problem with the ad?
Consider also the attempts to crackdown on crisis pregnancy centers with nuisance laws. In Baltimore, the city approved an ordinance requiring pregnancy centers to post signs indicating they don’t do abortions or offer contraception, but the city refused to require that abortion clinics inform patients they don’t offer abortion alternatives. In Washington state, legislation backed by the National Abortion Right Action League and Planned Parenthood would regulate crisis pregnancy centers, which provide $15 million in free services to women in crisis pregnancies.
The argument for this regulation centers on a few allegations of inaccurate information being provided. Some of this is not so much inaccurate as it is disputed between the two sides of the abortion debate, or the information is accurate but politically incorrect. One witness at a committee hearing said that one pregnancy center told a woman that some studies showed a link between abortion and breast cancer. The truth? Some studies have.
But again, why is the left attacking pregnancy centers? They help to reduce the number of abortions. Isn’t the goal to make abortion rare?
Mr. Graham, the question, as with most questions that pertain to public policy, is self-answering. Abortion is a very big business. Lots of money flows through it. “Women’s health and safety” have nothing to do with it. Neither does sexual freedom or any aspect thereof.
The notion that abortion is “a tough and courageous choice” is foolish on its face. For a few hundred dollars, a mother-to-be can legally (if not morally) rid herself of an eighteen-year-long burden and limitation on her pleasures and indulgences. It’s so seductive an offer that more than forty million unborn babies have been fed into hospital macerators since 1973.
The sole remaining questions are:
1. How long will it be before a sufficient majority of horrified Americans masses behind the sanctity of life to overturn the execrable Roe v. Wade decision?
2. Once Roe v. Wade has been disposed of, what legal limitations can the states put on abortion that would prove enforceable in practice without violating the privacy of women’s bodies?
We shall see.
Pro-abortion rights activists are akin to murderers. call a spade a spade.
Never underestimate the power of spin. Consider the subtlety of a solemn national conversation about the encroachment of man on “Mother Earth”…the greater good at stake. Suddenly, an abortion becomes heroic in the semi-eternal pantheistic worldview.
As you stated, there is a lot of “business” involved in these decisions. And since it is such a hot button issue, there are businesses which take advantage by utilizing the visceral sales scheme. As an example, pet owners and their feelings for their domesticated pets.
With government and ethics becoming increasingly restrictive on emotional expression, it is easier for a “business” to target and capitalize on the pent-up hostilities.
The so called “educated masses”, in the United States, are going to become their own enemies.
All that had to be noted about the whole affair is the over-the-top reaction to the existence of the ad by so-called “women’s groups”. Nobody’s seen it and it has already been branded hate speech.
If that didn’t expose them as just another industry-protection lobbying group, rather than selfless defenders of a woman’s right to choose, I don’t know what else would.
Thanks for the ugly truth. Abortion factories, like any other factory, need more business to stay in business. Amazingly, given the nature of this business, they feel and display no sense of shame.
They bristle because they are ashamed, but also because these people lie about everything even when the truth might serve them better. When they say that a trillion dollar entitlement program will lower the deficit and expand freedom, they are simply saying something else just like “we want abortions safe, and rare.” If they said what they actually think they’d be lynched. They understand this, so they are “pro-choice.” But if you are “anti-choice,” watch out.
Their days are numbered. I say, Let’s get on with it.
I think most of the ire related to this ad has to do with CBS refusing to air other issue related spots. CBS has clearly aligned itself politically with Focus on the Family, while excluding ads from more moderate voices. Instead of a neutral standard for which ads to accept, CBS has elected to exclude certain points of view from this broadcast, while promoting others. This is not how the public airwaves are meant to be used.
Peace.
DS
Obama was strongly against the born alive infant protection act. He is more than quesy in that some Dems are now opposing abortion and funding abortuaries.
Why isn’t abortion a racial issue? It would be if the Republicans favored abortion and the dems opposed it!
I don’t remember the numbers but more black babies are killed each year than white babies. IIRC, something like 70% of black mothers in the District of Columbia had abortions. The democrats have shifted from hanging blacks in trees to killing them much more efficiently in labs. Why isn’t abortion a racial issue?
I am glad to see that Dr. Joel Brind is still active in the ABC field. I remember corresponding with him in the early 1990s about abortion-breast cancer links. We used this with out pro-life handouts, simple quotations and complete references to the medical and epediomiological journal articles.
From that correspondence, I began educating myself about the consent protocols that came out of the Nuremberg tribunals after WWII.
Now the circle approaches repeat status, with the death panels advocated by Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of the White House’s new Haldeman, Rahm Emanuel.
http://xcontra.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/ezekiel-emanuel-and-his-charnel-house/
Thanks, Dr. Brind. You are still on the alert.
8. You know what, CBS is free to air whatever ads it wants. If you object to them refusing to air other issue ads, punish them by refusing to watch their shows. As it is, CBS determined that the benefit of airing this ad outweighed the cost, and they came to the opposite conclusion about other ads (probably because they figured that the public would view them as so distasteful that they’d have more to lose by airing the ads than not airing them).
#8. I don’t believe at all that “most of the ire related at this ad” is connected to CBS’s prior decisions not to carry other, controversial ads. I believe that is a smokescreen, meant only to hide a pro-abortion, as opposed to a pro-choice, perspective. Most people are able to see, quite easily, through their obfuscations. As it were, I think that mythbuster, @ #12, stated it very succinctly.
David S. – “CBS has elected to exclude certain points of view from this broadcast, while promoting others”. Too rich! Would promoting Barack Obama to the exclusion of all common sense be one of those occasions? You continue to amaze with your brilliant observations.
I would like to add that had CBS decided against running this ad, Focus on the Family would have simply posted it on Youtube, and the resulting controversy would make it go viral. Millions of people would see the ad anyway, either on Youtube or on the news, but CBS wouldn’t have gotten any money for it. Remember, you are free to speak your mind, and I am free to say, “I want no part in it.” These pro-abortion groups are free to run all the ads they like, provided someone is willing to air them for a price the pro-aborts are willing to pay.
Abortion rights groups, generally speaking, are only “pro-choice” when the choice is abortion. And wiping life from the womb is big business, very big business.
So we can see that kind of rage out of some sort of an equal-airtime dispute?
David S, just do us all a favor and start signing of “BS”.
Pro-choice, thy name is hypocrisy. Kind of like NOW and the protection of women and their rights (if you’re liberal). If you want to see how pro-choice the pro-choice crowd is, ask them about school vouchers and then they will demonstrate how pro-choice they are.
The question I always want to ask those who favor infanticide and mouth the words safe, legal and rare? “If there’s nothing wrong with abortion and its just a product of conception, what does it matter if it is rare or not?”
FEH…
As far as I’m concerned, a pro-abortionist is someone who is too lazy or stupid to use birth-control. Or a racist per Tex #10. Roe vs. Wade is unconstitutional and hopefully someday the Supreme Court will overturn that disgraceful ruling. Good for Tim Tebow and his mother. I’ve enjoyed watching Tebow play football many times. He’s a fighter and I’m sure he’s saying “Bring it on!”
Advocates of legalized abortion bristle when pro-life advocates call them pro-abortion.
The premise of your article is based on an asinine assumption. Either you’re an idiot, or you are slightly smarter than an idiot and, because you cannot defend your opinion, have resorted to straw man. There may be some pro-choice people who state that it should be infrequent, but others who don’t. If you wanted to talk about CLinton, you should have talked about CLinton. Anything else is bs and here’s why. I’m pro-choice and I don;t believe abortion should be infrequent. Quite the opposite, I think that it should happen as often as women want to have it happen. They should have as many abortions as they care to, and they should deal with the moral issues themselves, because it certainly isn’t any of your business. And I definitely doubt that the world is a significantly better place with this egotistical, over-paid enabler of the greatest distraction from our problems that we have. We’d be better off if a lot of people, including Tebow, hadn’t been born. We’d be better off if you had been aborted, and I bet, like Tebow, your poor mama considered it. I say these things to illustrate the rank stupidity of this argument. If there is reason to be elated that someone was born, then also we should wish that others hadn’t been. That is if you want to live your life fantasizing about processes over which you have no control in the past. So there’s your argument, shown up for the bs that it is. You’re welcome.
Adam Graham should look at medical school catalogs for the
“Abortionist” career he so despises. I doubt he will find it. The
profession is gynecology and the doctor is responsible for the overall
health of the woman, not encouraging pregnancies at all costs. That’s
called malpractice.
Repubs are caught contradicting themselves, because anti-abrotion and
pro-gun are the incompatible stances. You can’t propose arbitrary laws
on abortions just because one is pre-natal and the other is
post-natal.
I doubt the mouth-breathers here ever glean awareness to see
themselves as the buffoons everyone knows them to be.
Translation: “I’m in favor of legalized infanticide, provided the victim is still inside the womb where its human rights are not respected.”
Seems to me that a certain someone, who’s very free with insult and derision, ought to consider the implications of his — her? — words more carefully. Especially since his — her? — grammar and sentiments qualify him — her? — neither to the status of a moral giant nor to a place in the Four Sigma Club.
Just about the only can’t phrases we didn’t hear from him — her? — are “women’s health and safety” and “safe medical procedures.” Probably just an oversight.
“If the goal of pro-choice America is to reduce the number of abortions, why does anyone have a problem with quarterback Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad?”
Because it encourages women to ignore the advice of doctors. I think it’s pretty straightforward – do you REALLY need to have it explained?
It’s up to pro-life groups to now put up an ad which points out the risks of pregnancy and tells women to take medical advice seriously.
It’s a pity that the debate has to be conducted at such a stupid level, though.
OCB doesn’t even realize it proved the point it was trying to debunk.
OCB, if you ever took a debating class, please tell us where/when, so we know not to waste tuition dollars attending that fine “institution”.
the ad is about a woman who did not care if she lived or not.<:(
If she was thinking of the abortion on her own is one thing…but it was medical…'she showed a lack of common sense.<:(
We are glad things turned out okay..however…this is bad advice to vunerable women and girls. Bad advice <:( to such a huge audience , sad
There should be an ad/following this ad, encouraging women to heed the advice of their doctors on this subject.:)
Those who say CBS is promoting one point of view over another are simply factually incorrect. CBS changed their policy since last year when Right to Life produced a powerful and beautiful ad featuring the life of Barack Obama. CBS chose not to run with it last year becasue it was an “issue” ad. They did in fact change their policy since then and Planned Parenthood was and is free to run an ad of their own; it’s a free market. But they’re also not stupid – they know that their message – when side by side with the Tebow’s message – would crumble under the weight of the truth. The sheer outrage of the pro-abortion lobby is the most telling of all.
Without knowing what Mrs. Tebow’s doctor told her and recommended, it seems strange to read Matthew@23 and Gracie@25 claim that she is encouraging women “to ignore the advice of doctors.” After all, if the doctor advised her the risks of carrying the child to term were too high and that she was better off aborting him, I’d say the doctor was incorrect in this case and she was right not to follow her doctor’s advice. On the other hand, perhaps her doctor explained the risks and also some possiblities for alternatives to mitigate the risks, and rather than abort her child she made an informed choice to take actions that fit her situation better than abortion. I think that should be celebrated.
If empowering women to choose is really the point, perhaps we should note that Mrs. Tebow is encouraging women and girls to take the medical information and/or advice provided by doctors and then think for themselves in light of a wider variety of factors than only one: “My doctor thinks I should abort.” Matthew seems to think that “to take medical advice seriously” means to do whatever a doctor says, which seems to illustrate the mindset that the author, Mr. Graham, suggests exists, that the opponents of the Tebows’ message are more interested in women not really exercising a choice that does not fit their prefered view. At least Gracie acknowledges that things turned out well for Mrs. Tebow after the choice she made for herself.
Most ObGyns don’t perform abortions and not all doctors who perform abortions are ObGYNs. America is seeing a decline in abortion providers but no overall decline in ObGyn.
kochevnik, since you are a liar, a thief and a murderer, it is completely unsurprising that you would come up with such an asinine statement. First, the right to life is the right not to be murdered or otherwise have your person violated. If you threaten another person’s rights, you justify them revoking yours to defend their own. Furthermore, there’s also the matter of deterrence- more guns means less crime, as study after study has shown. If would-be criminals live in fear, they will stay their hands and live, rather than attack and perish. That, too, is pro-life.
Translation: “I’m in favor of legalized infanticide, provided the victim is still inside the womb where its human rights are not respected.”
Close. Sorry I don’t speak retard, or I would have written it in your dialect so that you wouldn’t have to go to google/translate/retard to translate it. “I’m in favor of abortion, provided the organism is in the womb. A woman can dispose of her womb however she wishes. Its no business of yours. Keep your snout of it.” Didja get that, you repugnant idiot?
22@Francis W. Porretto
Wait you’re against a woman’s control over her body, yet you despise the Theist Talibans with whom you share so much in common? Furthermore you are pro-abortion in the case of guns. Prey tell how do you support one form of abortion while hoping to ban to other? Are you some new Taliban branch say, a REPUBLIBAN?
30. and 31. Get this through your concrete heads- abortion has NOTHING to do with a woman’s body. It has everything to do with the child’s body that is being torn apart. But, because you are liars, thieves and murderers, you have stony hearts and concrete heads, that can be pierced by neither reason nor emotion. You make Satan proud boys.
Get this through your concrete heads- abortion has NOTHING to do with a woman’s body.
yes, of course it doesn’t. It just happens to be in her womb. I’ll be coming round to harvest your kidneys later in the day. That will also have nothing to do with your body, so don’t make a big stink of it.
32. myth buster:
>Get this through your concrete heads- abortion has NOTHING to do with a
>woman’s body.
Well given that as fact, what’s wrong with emptying out the womb? You say it’s not necessary, right? It seems you have proven my point. Thanks!
Another point you forever keep proving: Theists are noting but missed abortion opportunities.
Harvesting both my kidneys would kill me. Thank you for proving my point. I rebut you perverted logic, and you threaten my life.
34. Well you keep proving yourself to be a liar, a thief and a murderer, so I guess it balances out.
Harvesting both my kidneys would kill me.
As much as that would probably be doing the world a favor, you have a point. We’ll just take the one, then. That won’t kill you, so obviously you shouldn’t have a problem with it. [sort of rolling my eyes at what an idiot you are, but hey, god made you for a reason, right.]
As usual with left wing moonbats you have to look at what they ACTUALLY DO once you fall for their WEASEL WORDS not what they try and TELL you they will do.
I am with you Myth Buster seems these moonbat and LIARS have learning difficulties too. Are you listening kochevnik and Original Child Bomb:. Abort a baby out of a woman’s womb and the womb is still there intact and working, unless a complete moonbat moron does the abortion, the baby on the other hand is a 100% write off no second chance no chance at all in fact. But hey FEMINISTS and MOONBATS don’t care abut babies and children just a debauched life with no consequences.
I detect behind all this bluff and moonbat bluster the sick perverted desire for POPULATION CONTROL that is shaping up to be the NEXT left wing Green NAZI control freak scare story as their AGW SCAM has been exposed for what it surely is.
Well, OCB:
1. It’s a pity you’re unable to speak anything but Infanticide-ese;
2. When you can tell me what the difference is — the qualitative difference — between a baby inside the uterus and the same baby outside the uterus, I’ll allow that you might have a point. But inasmuch as no pro-abortion mouthpiece has ever dared to address that little matter, I’d imagine that you’ll revert to insult, or change the subject. It’s in your nature.
37. Knowing you, you’d probably do something stupid with it like transplant it into someone without checking the patient’s blood type against mine, and inadvertently cause the patient to reject it, killing the transplantee and ruining a perfectly good kidney.
Focus on the Family needs to hire an agency next time. That thing looked like a 9th-grade pep rally project.
Knowing you, you’d probably do something stupid with it like transplant it into someone without checking the patient’s blood type against mine, and inadvertently cause the patient to reject it, killing the transplantee and ruining a perfectly good kidney.
Hey, I just harvest them. You’ll have to speak to the police about that other stuff. After all, your body is not yours to control. Your kidneys are the property of the state, and the state will set the rules on how they are managed. DOn’t worry, we do no lasting harm to your body. NOne that we acknowledge, anyway.
43. God owns my body, not the State. Likewise, God owns the bodies of all humans, from conception until death. The world and all that is in it is the Lord’s. For the purposes of executing justice, the Lord establishes authorities on the Earth to maintain order. But, you will not acknowledge this, for you are a liar, a thief, and a murderer, like your father, the Devil.
God owns my body, not the State. Likewise, God owns the bodies of all humans, from conception until death.
Praise Allah, you’re absolutely correct.
#45. If you truly believe that God owns the bodies of all humans, then isn’t it wrong to go about destroying God’s property?
You’re some retarded piece of work Paul. The idea of someone called myth-buster claiming that he wants to state federal law because god owns our bodies is the most repulsively stupid thing that I’ve ever witnessed. The fact that this person gets to vote, regardless of the fact that he believes that an invisible being guides him, talks to him and listens to his feelings, and wants him to do his business in the voting booth….well, that would be, in a sane world, all that it would take to torpedo this movement of troglodytes.
Dear Original Child Bomb,
By the amount of vitriol that you spew, I think you may have had one too many abortions.
45. It is, except as appropriate to do justice. Each person has the authority to defend his or her body against assault, the head of a household has authority to defend the household and all who live in it, and the State has authority to defend its citizens and the aliens it accepts as guests from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Each of these authorities was established by God, and they have the power of the sword to enforce their defense. Indeed, God not only permits the use of force to do justice when appropriate; He commands it. The use of force must, however, be proportional to the threat currently imposed or the crime actually committed, such that deadly force can only be used to stop or punish a crime that violates a person’s bodily integrity- kidnapping, rape, dismemberment, home invasion, murder. In the case of dismemberment and home invasion, deadly force is justified only in the act, not as an after-the-fact punishment; the reason being that it is not dismemberment or home invasion itself that merits death, but that in the act the attacker endangers the victim’s life.
Mrs. Tebow was faced with a threatening medical situation and had to make a choice about her pregnancy. She chose to carry to term. The key word here is CHOICE. She had a choice–which she and others like her want to deny other women. You are all a bunch of hypocrites.
50. I thought we resolved the matter of one person owning another nigh 150 years ago. If you don’t own it and you aren’t wielding just authority to destroy it then you have no right to destroy it.
Mark:
“Without knowing what Mrs. Tebow’s doctor told her and recommended, it seems strange to read Matthew@23 and Gracie@25 claim that she is encouraging women “to ignore the advice of doctors.””
It’s not hard to find out. The placenta had separated, the doctors were expecting a stillbirth and they recommended an abortion for the mother’s own safety (placental separation can apparently lead to hemorrhaging)
“After all, if the doctor advised her the risks of carrying the child to term were too high and that she was better off aborting him, I’d say the doctor was incorrect in this case and she was right not to follow her doctor’s advice”
She chose to rely on prayer. She got lucky. You MIGHT be able to walk across a freeway blindfolded, and make it to the other side safely – that doesn’t mean it was a good idea to try.
“On the other hand, perhaps her doctor explained the risks and also some possibilities for alternatives to mitigate the risks, and rather than abort her child she made an informed choice to take actions that fit her situation better than abortion. I think that should be celebrated.”
Tha might be true – but I bet none of that is discussed in the ad. It’s an appeal to emotion built on confirmation bias. If somebody refused medical treatment for, say, bowel cancer and chose to treat themselves with hot stones and incense instead, and suppose they (incredibly unlikely) somehow survived, do you think it would be a good idea for them to make a super-expensive ad to run on prime-time to tell people that they should do the same?
“Matthew seems to think that “to take medical advice seriously” means to do whatever a doctor says”
No, not at all. What I’m saying is that mothers shouldn’t think of TV spots when making life or death decisions. I also suggest that people should place the advice of medical professionals ahead of prayer and other people’s opinions.
“the opponents of the Tebows’ message are more interested in women not really exercising a choice that does not fit their prefered view. At least Gracie acknowledges that things turned out well for Mrs. Tebow after the choice she made for herself.”
I can’t speak for anyone else – I just reckon this campaign dangerously misrepresents risk.
And how many times have doctors recommended abortions warning parents that the baby has no chance of survival or will be horribly deformed, only for the baby to be born and it turns out THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE BABY?
53@myth buster
What baby?
myth buster:
That’s a rhetorical question. Give us some statistics, or continue to look ridiculous.
Thans
for the nice post.