The still-unseen, yet controversial Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad is on everyone’s mind, including mine. One friend said to me, “I can’t believe you haven’t written anything about it yet!”
I’ve been wanting to, but to be honest I was waiting until I had more facts. I think I’ve got plenty now, and if you thought Focus on the Family and CBS weren’t out to sell us some propaganda, think again.
Now, before my friends who don’t like my pro-choice views (and when I say pro-choice, I mean the right to choose whatever option is the best for a woman), hear me out. This isn’t just about a happy, fluffy spot to say babies are great.
We all know babies are great. I love my baby and I love lots of other people’s babies.
But if you want a bigger picture about the back story of Tim Tebow’s mother and the real circumstances surrounding her pregnancy, spend a few minutes at About.com Women’s Issues blog. My friend Linda Lowen’s post, “Slate Exposes Complexities Behind Tim Tebow/Pam Tebow Super Bowl Abortion Ad,” should be food for thought for everyone, no matter which side of the choice debate they’re on. The vast majority of women who are diagnosed with the condition and symptoms she had with amoebic dysentary almost always have a stillborn child due to something called placental disruption, and have a very high risk that they themselves will die. Plus there’s this angle, which I hadn’t considered before, quoting from the Slate article entitled, The Invisible Dead:
On Sunday, we won’t see all the women who chose life and found death. We’ll just see the Tebows, because they’re alive and happy to talk about it. In the business world, this is known as survivor bias: Failed mutual funds disappear, leaving behind the successful ones, which creates the illusion that mutual funds tend to beat market averages. In the Tebows’ case, the survivor bias is literal. If you’re diagnosed with placental abruption, you have the right to choose life. But don’t be so sure that life is what you’ll get….
If Pam Tebow’s abruption had taken a different turn, her son would be just another perinatal mortality statistic, and she might be just another maternal mortality statistic. And you would know nothing of her story, just as you know nothing of the women who have died carrying pregnancies like hers.
Of course, CBS has said that this is a commercial like any other and since someone is paying the millions of dollars to purchase those precious 30 seconds, that’s OK by them. Except that there are many other political/advocacy ads that CBS has turned down before on the grounds that they don’t show those types of ads during the Super Bowl.
The ad isn’t, as Focus on the Family claims, an effort to celebrate families. It’s an extreme right-wing group trying to get a leg up on swaying the public debate with half-truths on a medical procedure that is still legal.
There’s apparently no discussion in the ad about how many other women with similar medical issues die in childbirth. There’s apparently no mention of how many of these children will be stillborn. And CBS isn’t running a similar spot for the pro-choice community (or for any other women’s medical procedures).
CBS isn’t celebrating families, it’s celebrating profits at the expense of alienating viewers for a political agenda. And it’s talking about a medical procedure in front of an audience of families with many children who are not old enough to hear about it or understand what’s going on.
I’m not sure CBS or any network can really afford that, especially since I think there are a lot of viewers who will be boycotting the Super Bowl, and CBS in the future, because of this decision. If you want to protest the ad and/or CBS’ disingenuous defense of running the ad, join us over at MOMocrats where we’re having a special kind of tailgate party – for choice. You can bet I’ll be having my say at that tailgate party.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Thanks for a well thought-out and insightful column on this subject.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
I totally agree with your statement
“…it’s celebrating profits at the expense of alienating views for a political agenda. And it’s talking about a medical procedure in front of an audience of families with many children who are not old enough to hear about it or understand what’s going on.”
This feels exactly like a situation we were put in by our former church. During Sunday Mass our entire family and hundreds of others were subjected to a “talk” by a guest speaker who was a woman that had had an abortion and asked God for forgiveness and then started a couseling service for other women who had done the same. Nothing was mentioned of this speaker in the bulletin or announcements leading up to her appearance and I personally feel that families with small children should not have been exposed to this “talk” and should have been forwarned and given the opportunity to leave prior to her taking the pulpit. Yes, I know now that I could have walked out with my kids in tow but I was so shocked by the event I sat frozen in the pew. When we returned home my younger daughter who was 5 at the time started asking questions I was not prepared to answer and she was not prepared to comprehend the answer to. She’s a smart cookie, but c’mon kids this age should not have to deal with such a confusing and controversial subject.
Another instance I remember at this same church, regarding the abortion topic, was when the priest lectured everyone the Sunday before Election Day 2004, when he literally told us that if we voted for a candidate that supported a woman’s right to choose we would be committing a dreadful sin and would no longer be welcome in the Catholic church. That was the last time we attended that church or any Catholic church and have found a more suitable congregation to worship with at a lovely Protestant church where the Pastor never stuffs political agendas into his sermons and knows what real life is like and that people are not perfect. He’s got kids of his own and knows that some topics are off limits in the company of the little ones. I have no fear of my children ever being a captive audience to a sensitive subject at my current place of worship, now I only need to worry about it this coming Sunday, after church, of course.
Do you know when this commercial will air? I would love to know so that I can plan something else for my 7 and 9 year old to do at that time.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
I’m just gonna have you write all of my political opinions from now on, k?
VERY well done.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
http://www.punditandpundette.com/2010/02/more-tebow.html
“If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.”
February 4th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
“The ad isn’t, as Focus on the Family claims, an effort to celebrate families. It’s an extreme right-wing group trying to get a leg up on swaying the public debate with half-truths on a medical procedure that is still legal.”
First of all, you haven’t seen the ad. Yes, FOTF is very vocal about their beliefs but we have yet to determine if we can hate the ad for what it is or hate the ad for who is behind it. Maybe it is an effort to celebrate families. If I read one more post analyzing this ad that no one has seen, I’m gonna lose it (although Gloria Allred’s analysis before seeing it was entertaining). An ad, by definition, is an attempt to persuade someone to buy something or to do something. Like PETA reminding us how evil we are for wearing our leather heals.
And how exactly does one get a “leg up” on a public debate that has been raging for over 40 years in this country? Especially on the subject of a medical procedure that is still legal? By virtue of the fact that abortion is still legal, pro-choice clearly has that leg up. Are you saying the ad should be pulled because Planned Parenthood doesn’t have the money to counter it? That’s not how it works in this country nor should it.
Further, what are the half-truths? She was told that her baby could be stillborn, she was told she could die and she CHOSE to wait it out and see what would happen. It worked out for her. My doctor told me if I didn’t have an immediate c-section, I would “kill my baby.” He’s climbing on top of the furniture right now and there was no section. Some people are skeptical of medical recommendations and make their own choices.
Her choice has been discounted because she isn’t pro-choice by virtue of her religious beliefs. So pro-life people aren’t allowed to exercise their “constitutional right” to an abortion like pro-choice are?
I feel like the choice movement has done itself a horrific disservice by the demands that CBS take down the ads. Five minutes ago I googled focus on the family superbowl. 1,090,000 matches. I then googled focus on the family super bowl. 1,540.000 matches for all six words. In a matter of weeks, it has turned from pro-choice supporters to pro-abortion supporters, a title pro-choice advocates are loathe to hear. The best thing that could happen to FOTF now is for CBS to pull the ad and give them their money back. Either way, they’re already way ahead of their $2.8 million.
Americans will rant and rave and then turn on the Super Bowl on Sunday. The people who are boycotting it that will actually be pained by it is a number so minor it won’t even register. The ad will be on YouTube not long after and the number of hits will exceed 10 million within hours. T
Yes, CBS rejected other ads, such as two men “passionately kissing” on the couch. And, I think, one of Danica mostly naked. PETA’s was something equally on the edge of appropriate family viewing.
Your argument won’t be with the message although the message is what everyone is fighting. It will be with the messenger. And I think that’s a much stronger argument that has been lost along the way.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Thank you for the plug and the link love.
At the end of my comments, I’m copying a statement I received from a reader who’s an RN and is familiar with Pam Tebow’s condition and the medications typically involved in treatment of amebiasis; she says the back story doesn’t hold up. I know K. Adelson personally and appreciated the time she took to provide input.
We will never come together on the abortion debate, but my wish is that no one — on either the pro-life or the pro-choice side — takes anything at face value.
Before we weigh in, we should do what you did…wait “until I have more facts.” A 30-second ad crafted for either side will inevitably gloss over or ignore key issues because of the many inconvenient truths that can’t be resolved quickly, easily, or convincingly.
What we should learn from this controversy is to question, question, question…and read, read, read. Even if we believe we’ve made up our minds, we should keep them open. What separates us from other species is our endless capacity to learn, and a closed mind does not grow, learn, or move forward.
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K. Adelson, NP, MS, RN says:
Saletan’s article might well-researched but it isn’t entirely accurate. What it does not say is just as interesting as what it does and I think that Ms. Tebow, and her handlers, are conveniently leaving something out. Maybe her memory is fuzzy, she was in a coma after all, but even way back in the 80’s, the stone age to some of your readers I’m sure, the treatments for amebiasis were widely available, even in the Philippines (people don’t get that problem here in the States), and were very effective. She would have had to walk around with severe and bloody diarrhea for quite some time for things to get that drastic. Whether the “heavy doses of drugs” that she was given were one or another of the three or four most commonly prescribed for amebiasis, fetal toxicity and demise are not attributable to these medications. Yes, although it is not recommended to take metronidazole (the most widely prescribed) in the first trimester of pregnancy, most drugs aren’t, Ms. Tebow apparently wasn’t pregnant when she took the cure anyway. In fact, the same drug (trade name Flagyl) used to treat amebiasis is also used to help PREVENT abruptio placenta in pregnant women with bacterial infections. Unless she was a chronic user of another drug known to be teratogenic, she would not have had any residual drugs in her system from this particular illness and its treatment, unless maybe she became pregnant while still in her coma? Go figure! No disrespect intended to Ms. Tebow, her son, and her supporters, but the back story doesn’t make sense. No doubt she had a difficult pregnancy, and maybe they don’t know why it happened (see the following for more info about her pregnancy diagnosis: http://mayoclinic.com/health/placental-abruption/DS00623) but when you have to start making up or embellishing stories to get a point across, your credibility is lost and it becomes more and more obvious that you are being used for someone else’s gain. How sad for her family and for the rest of us too. It’s never black and white, is it?
February 4th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
CBS refused other political commercials, but this one has a football tie-in. That’s exactly why Focus on the Family invited the Tebows to be a part of their campaign. If he’d been a chess pro, it wouldn’t be airing during the Super Bowl. Cynical, am I? I call it realistic.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Hmmm. Just a thought, but I do believe that a rebuttal would be more effective with accurate spelling and grammar. “wearing our leather heals”? Ahem.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Daisy,
You’re right. It would have been more effective if I had spelled “heels” correctly. LOL