Feminists For Choice

In case you hadn’t heard, CBS has recently come under fire for accepting an ad written by Focus on the Family, featuring college football phenom Tim Tebow and his mother Pam.  While the specifics of the ad’s content have been kept carefully under wraps, the decision to air what will likely be a choice (pun intended) piece of anti-choice propaganda–a reasonable conclusion to draw considering that neither Tebow nor FOTF are known for a moderate stance on abortion and that the 30 second ad cost just under $3 million to air–has resulted in a firestorm of controversy for CBS.

Setting aside my already intense dislike for Tim Tebow (I mean, seriously, God–assuming such a being exists at all of course–would not, should not, could not give a flying rat’s ass if your team wins a football game! Its one thing to thank such a being for your talent or whatever, but to say that the outcome of a given game is divinely ordained is a level of hubris that drives me batty!), and for Focus on the Family (do I need to say why, really?)–CBS is dead wrong to air this ad.

Analysts from all over the spectrum are screaming that groups like Planned Parenthood, NOW, NARAL, etc, should not be upset about the ad–they should be celebrating it because Pam Tebow was allowed to make a choice and had control over her body. I am compelled (perhaps by God?) to call bullshit here. In a Washington Post editorial, Sally Jenkins writes:

But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the “National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.” For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

WHOA! Holy Ms. Misses The Point Batman! As someone who is proudly pro-choice and who believes that position necessarily entails supporting the right to chose to have a child as well as the choice to abort a fetus–I fully support Pam Tebow’s decision to go ahead with her pregnancy and I celebrate the fact that that choice worked out for her (even though her son is a self-righteous, proselytizing, tool)!

My objection to the ad is not about Pam Tebow’s choice. First and foremost it is about the fact that in agreeing to air this ad, CBS has violated its own (longstanding) policy blocking ‘advocacy’ or issue oriented ads. Moveon.org anti-W ad: DENIED. United Church of Christ pro-gay ad: DENIED. But they will sell Focus on the Family air time? Not. Cool.

And another thing. Ms. Jenkins may be pro-choice, but the idea that this ad is IN ANY WAY about celebrating Pam Tebow’s right to chose is just plain ridiculous! No matter what actual dialogue is included in the ad, I guarantee that Pam and Tim Tebow would not agree to appear in, nor would FOTF agree to fund an ad that featured her along side a woman who wanted to celebrate her choice to abort! Even if the ad says, “We are happy we live in a country where women have reproductive choices and while having a child against medical advice worked out for our family, we honor and support the right of other women to choose differently,” the very fact that the ad was paid for by FOTF and that it features Tim Tebow (and his reputation for supporting abstinence, etc.) automatically makes the ad about something other than a celebration of Ms. Tebow’s right to bodily autonomy!

There is no way in HELL CBS or the Tebows or FOTF would want an ad featuring a woman who rued the day she went against medical advice and didn’t end up with football’s Golden Boy eighteen or so years later or featuring a woman who took her doctor’s advice and didn’t regret it one bit.

This isn’t about group think or elitism or about NOW’s stance on the issue of abortion. This is about CBS and its hypocritical policy on issue ads. It is about this network’s history of silencing voices it doesn’t agree with. It is about CBS making a choice–not about my choices or Pam Tebow’s choices.

Tim Tebow should stick to football and CBS should either stay out of politics all together or it should allow all voices to be heard.