Anti-abortion message evidently not so Super
I’m fine with the NFL and CBS agreeing to run an anti-abortion ad featuring Florida’s star quarterback Tim Tebow (left) during Sunday’s Super Bowl – as a parent seeking a family-friendly viewing experience I object more to the alcohol advertising, the erectile dysfunction commercials and the leering sexual innuendo, but those seem to be the price of admission.
As long as, in the future, they sell equal time to other advocacy groups, it seems OK.
What’s less OK, however, is the way the anti-abortion message is couched in the alleged cautionary tale of how, when Tebow’s mother was pregnant with him, doctors diagnosed placental abruption — a separation of placenta and uterine wall — and recommended an abortion. She continued the pregnancy and all went well.
In “The Invisible Dead — The grisly truth about the Super Bowl abortion ad,” Will Saletan argues this:
(Pam Tebow’s) story certainly is moving. But as a guide to making abortion decisions, it’s misleading. Doctors are right to worry about continuing pregnancies like hers. Placental abruption has killed thousands of women and fetuses. No doubt some of these women trusted in God and said no to abortion, as she did. But they didn’t end up with Heisman-winning sons. They ended up dead.
Being dead is just the first problem with dying in pregnancy. Another problem is that the fetus you were trying to save dies with you. A third problem is that your existing kids lose their mother. A fourth problem is that if you had aborted the pregnancy, you might have gotten pregnant again and brought a new baby into the world, but now you can’t.
One thing I don’t know — and perhaps those who are more active in the abortion debate can tell me — is whether those opposed to abortion rights place placental abruption in the category of conditions that fall into the “life of the mother” exception that virtually all of them allow for.
As in potential GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady’s view, summarized in the Tribune candidate profile:
Brady is not for abortions in cases of rape and incest nor when just the health of the mother is at risk. The only time he said an abortion should be permitted is if the mother’s life is at stake.
Kirk Dillard, the other potential GOP gubernatorial nominee as the votes are being counted, seems to have a more nuanced view:
I am pro-life, with the exceptions of life of the mother, rape and incest.
Though certain Republican critics say he’s wishy-washy.
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