When the Tim Tebow "Celebrate Family" ad aired during the Super Bowl, the 30-second commercial felt almost anti-climactic compared to the weeks of debate preceding the broadcast. The morning after the Super Bowl, MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough had strong words for those who lobbied CBS not to air the controversial ad:
Focus on the Family's ad with Tim Tebow was soft, it was subtle and it made all the people who criticized it over the past week look like shrill idiots....It was a mom talking about a son she loved - her take with soft music.
But as a Newsbusters.org article reveals, Scarborough's opinion wasn't shared by former CNBC host and ad exec Donnie Deutsch. Deutsch's concern was not with the ad itself but with the website it was promoting. As he pointed out, viewers who visited the Focus on the Family website found a much more controversial message.
Aspects of that message are described by Amy Davidson at the New Yorker and Will Saletan at Slate.
In "Was Tebow All That Bad?" Davidson says the ad was better and worse than expected. Although it never uses the word abortion, the ad directs viewers to a video on the FOTF website; in it, Tim's dad Bob -- an evangelical preacher -- looks at the camera and says, "Don't kill your baby."
Davidson goes on to note that the video also contains the following:
In "Focus on Your Family: The pro-life case for pregnancy termination," William Saletan investigates the medical issues behind the risky pregnancies of Pam Tebow and other women in similar situations. He clicks through various links to find the stories of pro-life women who interpret God's will and the sanctity of life in ways that allow them to end their pregnancies early -- before their own lives are jeopardized.
Saletan cites the story of Aimee Weathers:
[Aimee] had two children and discovered 15 weeks into her third pregnancy that the fetus had a fatal genetic flaw. That was Sept. 21, 2007. Four months later, she delivered her baby girl, Sophie Ann. "Due to complications with my blood pressure and fluid build up, Dr. Daniel has said it is time for our sweet Sophie to come," Aimee writes on the day of delivery. She exults: "God's timing is perfect. Today, January 22, 2008 is the 35th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision. Our little girl Sophie, wants the world to know that every life matters."
Again, it's a beautiful story. But Sept. 21 to Jan. 22 is an interval of just 17 to 18 weeks. Fifteen weeks plus 17 weeks is 32 weeks. Aimee...pushed her baby out well before term early to protect her own health. If this was God's timing, God was speaking through her doctor.
Induced delivery at 32 weeks isn't abortion. But it's a compromise. Sophie Ann lived nine minutes.
Inducing birth involves medical intervention. So is this truly God's will at work and God's timing?
Unlike Pam Tebow, Aimee was not willing to risk her life to carry her baby to term. She didn't want to take a chance and leave her other two children motherless. When her doctor told her, "it is time," she acquiesced. This isn't a story with a happy Tebow ending. But how many viewers of the Tebow commercial will bother to click through and see this outcome?
Was the controversy surrounding the Tebow ad much ado about nothing? Not if you understand the points that Davidson and Saletan are trying to make.
Even Donnie Deutsch sees the ad as a slippery slope -- a door we've opened at our peril. As he observes, "the safe haven, the Super Bowl, what belongs there" has shifted in the past few weeks. "Forget where I stand pro-choice, pro-life - it's not about that," he argues. It's about the decision to turn an event celebrating a uniquely American pastime into another political and religious battleground.
Few will take the time that Davidson, Saletan, and Deutsch took to visit Focus on the Family's website and identify what the ultra-conservative Christian group is about...and that's the real issue at hand. Whether we're considering political candidates, social issues, or religious perspectives, 30 seconds of exposure isn't enough time to make a sound judgment, especially when we're only getting one side of the story.
Comments
Your comparison of Mrs. tebows choice and Mrs. Weathers to abortion choices is truly ignorant and unfair.
Mrs. Weather chose to have an induced delivery. She was trying to SAVE the child and herself. My twins were born at 33 weeks, many children are born early. the survival rate at 24 weeks gestation is nearly 50%.
Comparing that to a woman who chooses to KILL the child – stick a vacuum in it’s head or chop it up, is not even remotely the same.
Many women try to carry their children who have special needs, only to discover it doesn’t work. Choosing a pre-term delivery to save the mothers life when the baby is potentially viable is NOT the same thing as choosing an abortion.
And lets get the facts straight here. most women who choose abortion have no health risk, and if the baby has a problem, it’s usually down syndrom – and those babies are every bit viable, the parents just don’t want the trouble.
Abortion is about the mothers convenience being more important than the babies life. the number of instances where abortion is needed to actually save a mothers life is so low as to be statistically insignificant in the total number – and yes, it should remain legal for the purpose of saving a mothers life – but for no other reason.
Ben wrote: “Mrs. Weather chose to have an induced delivery. She was trying to SAVE the child and herself.”
Don’t kid yourself, or try to kid others. The baby would have stood a better chance had she spent longer in the womb. By opting for induction Mrs Weather was taking a calculated risk, with all the risk being taken by the foetus.
The message given by the Tebow ad, as I see it, is that it’s great to be given the choice as to whether or not you go ahead with a risky pregnancy. Other mothers deserve exactly the same choice: whether or not to proceed with a pregnancy.
The Tebows took a risk that might easily have left their kids motherless. Mrs Tebow’s decision is only brave because she had a choice about whether or not she took the risk.