Jesse Taylor of Pandagon asks it succinctly:
[I]f the anti-choice position is so true, so mainstream and so critical to the future of our nation, why did Focus on the Family spend $2.5 million to avoid saying anything whatsoever about it? Pam Tebow’ lines were all oblique references to her choice not to have an abortion, but if FotF felt the need to couch her story in such coded and oblique terms that it could have been an ad for Wii Family, doesn’t that say something incredibly telling about how weak and radical their position actually is?
Yep. They had to water it down to make it palatable, in the hopes that they would simply look like an organization that “embraces life,” much as one might embrace puppies and flowers!
I also believe that they intended to make the ad lame and benign in order to score a cheap point against those of us who were raising very real concerns about their true message. (Look at dem mean abortionists! All I see is a big miracle baby tacklin’ his mama!)
Women like Pam Tebow wouldn’t be heroes in any sense if it weren’t for Roe v. Wade. Those of us on the pro-choice side of things are the ones who actually support women like Pam Tebow, because we want them to be able to make these choices for themselves, with their doctors.
If her story is true (which is in question) and she made a conscious choice to tough it out and things turned out well, then we’re happy for her! But the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t always turn out that way, and pro-choicers believe that women should be able to weigh the pros and cons of their own individual circumstances and decide what’s best. And yes, sometimes a safe termination of a pregnancy is the best option. Sometimes it’s not. The point is that it’s not up to the men who run Focus on the damn Family!
Sheesh.
If you missed the ad (you didn’t miss much), here it is.
