There's been a fair amount of heated discussion over the past week about CBS's decision to accept an ad from noted conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family to be aired during the Super Bowl next weekend. The ad reportedly features Pam Tebow, the mother of Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow, telling a story about how she ignored some doctor's advice that she get an abortion when she fell ill during her pregnancy with him. Cue the usual firestorm of back and forth between women's advocacy groups and various anti-abortion rights figures. In this instance, though, I think that fighting the decision to air the ad is a bad move. Moreover, I think that the airing of the ad has a lot of upsides for the pro-abortion rights movement that become more apparent on further analysis. Consider:1. No one is likely to be heavily influenced by the ad.
I'm not one to scoff at the effectiveness of advertising, particularly when it relates to a televised event that most people watch for the expressed purpose of seeing expensive commercials. If advertising didn't work, companies wouldn't be lining up to pay 3 million dollars for a 30 second spot. However, I do think that there's a marked difference between a TV ad that aims to convince you that Bud Light is suitable for human consumption and one that aims to talk you into reconsidering the desirability of abortion rights. And based on the description of the ad, it's not even going to be that heavy-handed. Clearly, Focus on the Family's hoping that the inspirational story of Tim Tebow's mom will convince some abortion rights supporters to change their stance, lest they be complicit in the deprivation of the nation's collegiate athletics recruiters of twenty years from now, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. Most likely, the reactions of viewers to the ad are just going to reflect their pre-existing beliefs about abortion and things will carry on much the same as they have been.
2. Featuring an athlete in this role is kind of a dumb move that can easily backfire.
In the pantheon of things I can bring myself to give a shit about, college football is about on par with the market price of soybeans. A large part of this is undoubtedly due to the fact that I went to a college that ruthlessly enforces a minimum 27 ACT score for admission and is located in one of the least desirable places to live in America, thus ensuring that nobody even remotely talented at football would be willing or able to go there. As a result, I only barely knew who Tim Tebow was before this whole ad firestorm kicked up. Upon some cursory research, I learned that he's the heir apparent to my longtime nemesis Kurt Warner in combing dual talents at quarterbacking and irritating hyper-proselytization. I also learned that he is dating, or was once photographed standing next to, a woman with an insane rack:
But although my apathy regarding college football runs deep and wide, a substantial portion of America is fanatical about it. Like the abortion debate, college football tends to be a hyper-partisan affair; people have their lifelong allegiances and focus most of their cheering on whatever is going to best benefit their favorite team. So while I'm sure Florida Gators fans will lap up the Tim Tebow Super Bowl as with a spoon, I'm willing to bet that a good percentage of the rest of the college football fans in the country will be wishing that his mom had gone ahead and had that abortion, if only because it could have helped their alma mater get a slightly higher ranking going into Bowl season this year. It would have been more effective if Focus on the Family had gotten somebody more universally beloved, like Justin Timberlake, to star in the ad.3. It's probably a huge financial boondoggle for Focus on the Family.
While Focus on the Family is putting up north of 2.5 million dollars for this 30 second ad, these aren't exactly boom times for the organization, which has laid off almost 300 employees in the past year and a half. The organization claims that the money for the ad came from donations, not their general fund, but you have to figure that anyone who likes Focus on the Family enough to give them money for the purposes of running an ad would probably also have given them that money to help them keep the lights on, so I think it's safe to say that there's some measure of financial sacrifice involved here. Since the ad doesn't appear to be selling anything except for the idea that each aborted fetus may be costing the world yet another Jesus-powered football wunderkind, I'm skeptical that Focus is going to recoup on expenses. For those who are ideologically opposed to their agenda, each dollar that Focus on the Family spends on this ad is a dollar they aren't spending pushing "cures" for homosexuality or branding mainstream entertainment as "cultural terrorism."
4. The ad actually supports the pro-abortion rights point of view.
Hey, Mrs. Tebow chose life and she loves her son and is proud of his accomplishments. Good for her! It's refreshing to see an adult speak plainly about exercising her autonomy and making a decision that reflects her personal values. Isn't it wonderful to live in a time where the autonomy of citizens to make difficult choices about reproduction is respected and encouraged?
Yes, it is. But if Focus on the Family had their way about things, we wouldn't be living in one. The truly incredible thing about this debate is that relatively few abortion rights supporters have stopped to point out that the dramatic tension, so to speak, in Tebow's mom's story is entirely due to the fact that she had the legal right to seek an abortion if she so chose. Without that element, it would be a fairly mundane story: she conceived and gave birth to a baby despite some complications. Contrary to the picture painted by fringe elements of the religious right, most proponents of abortion rights aren't misanthopic genocidists who earn a commission on each fetal termination performed, they're people who believe that decisions about reproduction are an inviolate matter of personal liberty. Focus on the Family wants us to applaud the choice that Pam Tebow made and ignore that the people who paid for the ad really wish that she had been denied any opportunity to make that choice in the first place. The most powerful message that abortion rights supporters can send about the Tebow Super Bowl ad is to highlight that simple fact.
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