Tebow Super Bowl Comericial Controversy: David Loftus

I have no problem with CBS taking big bucks for its valuable minutes, as it does this time every year. In fact, I’d be inclined to say Focus on the Family would be wasting its money on this spot, were it not for women’s groups’ apparent overreaction. “Rights” is a meaningless concept with reference to emotions: we feel fear, anger, jealousy, love outside the bounds of rights and responsibilities. It is only when we take action that right and wrong come into play.

I understand the pro-choice groups’ anger, but I think it’s a tactical error to act on it here. On the wider scale, the anti-abortionists are losing the war: with each passing year, more and more Americans accept the unpleasant necessity of choice. Rarely is it an easy decision; even Oriana Falacci, as fierce a feminist and as independent of spirit as any woman on earth, wrote a book to her unborn child (although in her case there may have been some vestigial Italian Catholic guilt involved). In the arena of Super Bowl viewers, Focus on the Family could hardly have picked a more made-to-order choir to which to preach, and any viewers who are not anti-abortion are only likely to be bored or pissed off by such a pitch because, gosh, aren’t Super Bowl ads supposed to be the most expensive and entertaining commercials of the year? The only demographic I can remotely imagine being swayed by such an approach would be unmarried and pregnant teenaged girls, and I can’t see them watching the Super Bowl unless in the company of boyfriends or parents that have already made their decisions for them.

Here’s how the women’s groups should respond: “How nice that Focus on the Family is highlighting a risky decision by a pregnant mother who wanted her baby and had to make a tough decision under risky conditions. She took a chance and she turned out lucky. Would that all dicey pregnancies came out that way. This has nothing to do with pregnant mothers who are too young, too immature, too poor, or otherwise unprepared to be good parents to an unborn child. Therefore it has no application to the issue of abortion. No harm, no foul.”