Sunday, February 7, 2010

Super Bowl Sunday




It's that time folks. Grab your corn chips, your salsa from a jar, and a good old American Bud Heavy and sit down to watch the Saints try to keep the American Dream alive and beat the Colts. And also to see the much talked about, much hyped Focus on the Family commercial.

For those of you blissfully unaware: Pam Tebow, Tim Tebow's mother, was pregnant when she was on a missionary tour in the Philippines. She became extremely ill and went into a coma. The drugs used to get her out of her coma and to treat her dysentery caused a severe placental abruption to occur. Basically, the pregnancy detached from her uterus. REALLY BAD. In fact, "fetal mortality rate of 20-40% depending on the degree of separation. Placental abruption is also a significant contributor to maternal mortality." So the doctors said that the baby was likely to be stillborn and recommended abortion. She was in the Philippines, where abortion has been criminalized and illegal since 1870, so I am not sure how great her doctor was since he was apparently ignorant of the country's laws?? Anyway, she said no, and carried the pregnancy to term. AND TIM TEBOW WAS BORN WOWOWOW MIRACLE OF LIFE.

This commercial is getting a TON of press, and my head is about to explode if I have to read another article talking about how IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL AND TIM TEBOW IS SO NICE AND WE LOVE HIM. (Note Revolutionary Vagina commented on this briefly a few weeks ago) Take for example, Roland S. Martin of CNN, who says
There is no rule anywhere in existence that says that the Super Bowl should be free of politics and social causes. None. So what's the big deal over Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother starring in a pro-life ad?


I agree with you, Mr. Martin. Whole heartedly. Expect that apparently there ARE rules, put in place by the Super Bowl, about what kinds of ads they air. In 2004 PETA wanted to run an anti-fur commercial and they were rejected. Moveon.org wanted to air a commercial about how much Bush is running up the deficit, and they were rejected. The United Church of Christ wanted to air a commercial letting the world know they don't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and that EVERYONE was welcome at their church. They were rejected. Why? The Super Bowl peeps said they had to reject those ads because they were not going to “touch on and/or take a position on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance.” Even this year, a homosexual dating website wanted to air a commercial about the site and they were rejected as well. I am just confused how Pam Tebow's story is not a controversial issue? Abortion has been and seems like always will be a hot button issue in this country.

Oh wait! CBS has CHANGED THE RULES about what is "controversial" this year. So I guess a gay dating website is, but anti-abortion is not. Ohhhhhhhhhh okay I toadily get it. Thanks guys.

I guess what bothers me the most, besides CBS playing favorites on political issues, besides the story of Pam Tebow's pregnancy being riddled with inconsistencies that don't add up, is that everyone is forgetting, as Revolutionary Vagina pointed out, Pam Tebow did have a choice. If she was really in the Philippines were abortion was 100% illegal, then not really, but the point in all of this is that she CHOSE to keep the pregnancy despite the risks to the fetus and to her own life. I know we are not getting the full story here in terms of what actually happened, but either way, she chose to carry a pregnancy that was dangerous to both her and her fetus and she was aware of this and made that choice anyway. That is a brave choice and I give her props for that. I do not give her props for making it seem like it was NBD and that we should always choose life. Unfortunately, carrying a pregnancy to term is not always choosing life because sometimes both the mother and the fetus die. Sometimes the mother dies but the fetus lives. Sometimes the fetus dies. There are a lot of risks and complications involved with that kind of stuff and it appears as if they are sweeping all that under the rug. Just not cool, you know?

And this is from Upright Citizen's Brigade, so, you know it's gonna be hilarious:

4 comments:

  1. Whee, I love that ecard! Some thoughts I've had in the past week and/or while reading your post:

    1) I'd think that since she had the ability to return to the US, and possibly that was part of her delivery plans anyway, maybe the doctor's advice was to obtain a legal abortion in the States?

    2) This article I read last week was awesome - I usually find Will Saletan a little douchey when he thinks he's saying something brilliant about abortion, but in this case he hit the nail on the head: http://www.slate.com/id/2243218/

    3) I just found this blog post that takes the topic of the FoF ad and the topic of bump and makes a good point:
    http://www.theoldhag.com/1435.html
    Bump’s supposedly novel convention–allowing strangers to determine what the women will do about their pregnancies–has been depressingly real for some time.

    4) To be fair, I saw that ad for Mancrunch.com and it almost looked like it was MEANT to be rejected - it was pretty crappily produced and involved painfully fake makeouts.

    4b) On the other hand, it wasn't any more terribly acted or produced than those confusingly dumb commercials for GoDaddy.com when they first advertised during the SB. In fact I still don't even know what GoDaddy.com is and have never felt the urge to find out. Ad fail!

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  2. The plus side to the snomaggedon is that I no longer have to watch that ad in the midst of my BFs anti family. Nice job, Mother Nature.

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  3. Wow. Tebow is the result of a placental abruption? That sure does explain A LOT.

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  4. Lets not forget CBS rejected an ad from a gay dating Web site that shows two male football fans making out.
    http://www.thrfeed.com/2010/01/cbs-rejects-gay-dating-sites-super-bowl-ad.html

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This is not a debate forum -- there are hundreds of other sites for that. This is a safe space for abortion care providers and one that respects the full spectrum of reproductive choices; comments that are not in that spirit will either wind up in the spam filter or languish in the moderation queue.