Anti abortion ad to air during Super Bowl
 

I was disturbed to read today that in the all out media blitz that is the Super Bowl CBS will be airing an anti-abortion ad paid for by Focus on the Family.

This is from Mother Jones magazine
CBS to Air First Super Bowl Abortion Ad
— By Elizabeth Gettelman
| Fri Jan. 22, 2010 12:19 PM PST.
I have a general, albeit sometimes irrational, distaste for quarterbacks. There's something about their deified status, the fact that they're often positioned as Great White Hopes on mostly black teams, their 'me'-in-team attitudes; I admittedly look for reasons to knock them down a peg. Joe Theismann: ridiculous (he changed the pronunciation of his name, 'THEES-man,' to rhyme with Heisman, as in trophy). Joe Montana: privileged (Joe Cool played for the wine-and-cheese 49ers and had the best receivers in the biz). Peyton Manning: whiner (no-huddle does not have to mean all-tantrum). Michael Vick: dog hater (no explanation nec). I could go on, but this isn't a sports' blog, so I'll get on with it.
Tim Tebow. The Heisman-winning, Florida Gators' QB is headed to the NFL, and for the past few years he's been the darling of college football. He's capitalized on that exposure, declaring his virginism and etching bible passages into his eye black for every game. Now Tebow is taking televangelism to a whole new level: the Super Bowl. Even better, the still-college boy is going to star in a commercial in the Super Bowl, and everybody knows that the ads are the most-watched, most memorable, and most expensive part of the 6-hour affair (halftime is a close second). Tebow and his mom's Super Bowl ad is sponsored by James Dobson's Focus on the Family. Tim's mom will tell America how she was young and not sure she wanted a baby, but then she had Tim who's a star about to make gobs and gobs of money (she probably won't say that last part, but you'll get the picture). Ergo, you'd be crazy to consider an abortion, ladies, and gents and those not of child-bearing age, don't even think about supporting a woman's right to chose, because how could you choose not to gestate and give life to a person as successful and handsome as Tim Tebow?
This "false choice," as TAPPED's Monica Potts so rightly calls it, is fucked. Sorry, it just is. You cannot tell a woman that she might give birth to the next superstar, the next president, the next great thing, or even the next maybe-not-great-thing but still-deserving-of-your-love human being. Because no matter what you might believe, or I might believe (and the idea of having an abortion is a horrifying prospect to me, as it is to most pro-choicers, for the record) when it comes right down to it, when it's 3rd and 25 and you're deep in your own territory, Tim, you're your only coach in this scenario. What you won't hear in this commercial is that a woman might die giving birth, or go broke after she has the child, or lose her own future and compromise her kid's. All these things are 'maybe's,' and women and their partners in this situation are left with difficult, horrible choices no one wants to be beset with, but in the end this simply isn't anyone else's, including Tim Tebow's, damn business.

thats not the place for it........
but then again in our local halloween parade they had an anti abortion group march with huge pics of mutilated babies on the float.....freedom of speech should have its limitations.......

i'm considering celebrating by having an abortion. ...well, or sponsoring one.

:angry:I heard about this a few days ago...I have no words...except DISGUST and OUTRAGE!

And, the exaltation of sports figures in the U.S. as some sort of demi-gods makes me sick.

I guess I found a few words...add arrrghhhhhh!

In other news...Bristol Palin has decided to re-virginize until marriage.



*eyeroll

Wow. This is a majorly huge disappointment. My last refuge, or safe zone from the fanatics was sports - I thought...

christ!

I about spit my coffee on that one thanks for the laugh!

how does one re-virginiz oneself.....exactly...? lol.

I kinda made that word up or heard it from elsewhere. *shrug

“I just think it’s a goal to have and other women should have that goal,” said Bristol, appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show via satellite from Alaska.

WHA? and WHY? A goal for women to remain virgins until they are married? B/c THAT is what ALL women want and/or must have in order to BE women. AND, define virginity?

I Can't Deal.

----

Tim Tebow is IDOLIZED in Gainesville, FL. (and elsewhere--you can travel FAR outside of the city and it's all about the GATORS and Tebow and his biblically smeared cheeks!)

I agree with Corkey. If they are so concerned cut the beer commercials and show more condem ads.

Oh and can we squeeze in a Public Service Announcement for anti-domestic violence in between the GoDaddy ads?

Excerpted from change.org
 

Change.org

Here's hoping Tim Tebow knows what he's getting into, though. Does Tim Tebow know that he's supporting an organization that has called gay marriage perverted and has said that homosexuals want to destroy human civilization? Does Tim Tebow know that he's supporting an organization that believes you can repair homosexuality, and that sexual orientation is a condition that can be treated? Does Tim Tebow know he's supporting an organization whose founder has said that sex education strips girls of their modesty?

We could go on.

Oh well. Maybe Tim Tebow has decided that since a future in the NFL is not looking so bright, he can always fall back on the homophobia of the radical religious right to keep his name out there.

OMG, me too. Samesies.

i had a ribbon sewn across my vagina so that i'm a virgin EVERY time--it's pink satin.

aprettyvagina!

:bouquet:

Wrong Wrong Wrong
 

It proves my point about having money. If you have it, you can buy anything you want. I think this is just so inappropriate and on so many levels.:canoworms: :football:

Tebow is the deeply religious son of christian missionaries. He probably thinks that this is just swell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mister and I learned about this last week. We're boycotting the super bowl this year, and are writing letters to let folks know why.

http://thecollegefootballguys.blogsp...t-lurking.html

http://www.insomniacslounge.com/2008...pier-than.html

really. wtf.

*hands you a staple gun, a hot glue gun and a leather needle and thong...* Your choice ! :D

$$$$$$$$$$
 

ooooowwwwiiiieeeeeee:crybaby::hiding:

wtf.

More than 250 people underwent medical and dental procedures, some of them from "Dr. Tebow," who has no formal surgical training.

"The first time, it was nerve-racking," he said. "Hands were shaking a little bit. I mean, I'm cutting somebody. You can't do those kinds of things in the United States. But those people really needed the surgeries. We needed to help them."...

Tebow helped with the last few circumcisions, growing more comfortable with each one.

"I got a kick watching him," Bob Tebow said. "He did a great job, and he didn't look really nervous. I wouldn't let him cut on me, but he did well and helped where there was a need."


I wouldn't let him cut on me...but some poor, foreign kids? Why the hell not? I'm a little disappointed that Tebow even had to use a scalpel. I would have thought that the Heisman winner would have only needed to scowl at the penises and the foreskin would have leapt off in fright.

No, it's not. Other organizations have tried to purchase SB ads and have been refused.

This not about a dollar will buy anything. It's about denying organizations like PETA and MoveOn SB air time, but allowing it for radical christians.

Almost certainly he does, to the degree he thinks about that at all.

If I were a betting woman (which I'm not) I'd put better than even odds that, in fact, he does.

Again, almost certainly.

One of the things that I think we forget is that the anti-choice movement is also a profoundly anti-sex movement. They believe that sex is sinful EXCEPT in the context of a heterosexual couple and then only when the man is calling the shots and the woman is complying at which point pretty much anything goes. The pro-choice movement would do well to remind the voting public of this.

Cheers
Aj

That is so very fucked up....:bigcry:

Anyone else remember this United Church of Christ ad which was banned from the superbowl a few years ago?
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH04hj1Q_IM"]YouTube- United Church of Christ - Bouncer[/ame]

Wow ... I never heard anything about that ad, and I grew up UCC. It's hugely more appropriate for general viewing than an anti-abortion ad. And Tebow? WTF is he doing performing genital mutilation on poor kids and being praised and encouraged for this? That is so messed up.

I don't forget that (underlined part) and agree with all your answers to the questions that change.org posed.

He's all about flaunting his virginity and biblical verses, (until a suitable heterosexual wife/marriage occurs) and it is unsurprising that he is connected to and wishes to espouse the rhetoric of the anti-choice movement.

Superbowl?

HOW DARE THEY!!!!!

I truly believe their minds would change should something (unfortunately) happen to one of their children. Say for example, one of their children was a victim of a violent rape. Would they condone that pregnancy? What if it was incest? What if it the pregnancy threatened the life of the birth mother?

How DARE anyone believe they have the right to tell me (or anyone else) what to do with my own body? They have NO RIGHT dammit.

Shame shame shame on anyone that financially benefits from this. And the Super Bowl no less. It takes alot to get me to the point where I verbally express my anger, however, when I do, I have the ability to chew you up and spit you out into the gutter you crawled out from. I know NO fear. This topic is so irritating to me that I don't believe I could physically be in the company of anyone that feels so strongly they have the right to tell a complete stranger what to do with their own bodies.

CBS welcomes more ads
 

From OpenSalon:
 

Thank God for Tim Tebow--Right After These Messages

--Jodi Kasten


Tim Tebow is the second coming of the Christ child according to most Florida fans. If you ask them, he single-handedly delivered two BCS championships, won the 2007 Heisman Trophy and just one touch from Tebow can heal leprosy or rickets. There’s no doubt that Tebow is a magnificent ball player. He’s a great role model, a leader and a very public proponent of abstinence until marriage. I have to applaud the dude’s tenacity in that arena. I can only imagine the legions of women who have thrown themselves at Tim Tebow’s cleats.

Like any admirable young man, he loves his mother. He loves his mother so much that he’s going to appear with her in an ad during the Super Bowl on CBS. Evidently, while on a Christian mission trip to the Philippines in 1987, Pam Tebow got sick while pregnant with her fifth child. Doctors counseled her to have an abortion. She refused and Tim Tebow was born.

All abortion debate aside, that is a heartwarming story. Tebow is a fine young man with amazing prospects. His leadership and squeaky clean image are a welcome change in a world of sports stars who work games into their schedules between weapons arrests and affairs. We do need more Tim Tebows in the world.

But, in spite of the message, many believe that this anti-abortion ad has no place in the commercial line-up on Super Bowl Sunday. My first yellow flag was thrown when I saw who sponsored the ad. This isn’t Nike saying, “Just Do It.” This is Focus on the Family – a conservative Christian group. The funds for the ad, according to Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger, came from “very generous friends” rather than the group’s general fund. One thirty second commercial during the Super Bowl is selling for $2.5 - $2.8 million.

Schneeberger was “a little surprised” that the proposed ad has caused a furor. The Women’s Media Center’s Jemhu Greene says, “An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year – an event designed to bring Americans together.” She went on to say, “By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers.”

As election seasons stretch out to cover 90% of the year, it’s conceivable that instead of seeing flatulent horses selling Budweiser, we could soon be seeing many more ads bought by political action committees at the Super Bowl. Furthermore, with the recent Supreme Court ruling about corporate political funding, we could soon be seeing “Proposition 8 – Brought to you by Sarah Palin for President and Pepsi. Palin & Pepsi – two great tastes that taste great together!”

I’m sure that Focus on the Family believes that this is not an anti-abortion message on the surface. Instead, they are reminding every woman who is in the heartbreaking position of terminating a pregnancy for any reason that they could be “killing” a Heisman trophy winner. The worst of this for me is that Tebow’s mother is sending the message that women should ignore the advice of their doctors and continue any and all pregnancies, no matter what the peril may be to their own lives.

If Tebow and his mother were telling a different story, perhaps one where she thought she didn’t have the money for another child or she was pregnant out of wedlock, I’d shake my head and say, “There’s another anti-choice ad riding on the backs of someone’s fame and money.” But, this ad actually endangers the lives of women. How many women, just like me, who are told that they might die if they continue a pregnancy, will refuse abortions because they are reminded that the baby they have could be a star?

Football fame is powerful stuff in the south, as is religion and the Focus on the Family group. There is a distinct possibility that women will die because of this ad. It has no place in the Super Bowl or anywhere else. Considering Focus on the Family’s deep association with Rev. Ted Haggard's prostitution and drug scandal, it appears that they would do best to focus on their own families for once.

maybe we should gather together and sponsor a pro-gay marriage ad....see how the religious right like our ad and theirs running back to back.....

If you want to sign Naral's petition, click on the link:
 

From NARAL:


Call on CBS to Drop Focus on the Family Super Bowl Ad

CBS cleared the way to subject nearly 100 million people to Focus on the Family’s extreme agenda by agreeing to air its new pro-life ad during the Super Bowl.

Focus on the Family has an unmistakable anti-choice, anti-birth-control, anti-sex-education, anti-gay agenda. If that wasn’t bad enough, its views on women are just plain insulting and dangerous. For example, its web site urges women facing an unintended pregnancy to seek “wise advice” because “the hormones and extreme emotions of pregnancy make reasonable decisions more difficult.”

We can’t just sit by while CBS lets Focus on the Family place a political ad during the Super Bowl, when millions of people are watching ads.

CBS still has time to change course if enough of us apply pressure. Urge CBS to drop Focus on the Family’s ad.

WTF!?!
 

I actually just read this section from FF's website...unbelievable.
:furious: