Abortion

Feminists Still Fretting Over Tebow’s Super Bowl Ad

Shelby Knox, a Huffington Post blogger who bills herself as a "full time speaker and organizer working with progressive organizations to promote sex education, women's rights, and youth empowerment" admitted to Fox News's Megyn Kelly this afternoon that women's groups are upset about the Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad because it was produced by the conservative organization Focus on the Family.

"We definitely respect Pam Tebow's choice, and the ad in itself, as was expected seemed very benign," claimed Knox. "The point is, Focus on the Family's agenda is not benign at all, and you can't consider something a choice when the entire agenda of the organization is to make sure other women can't make reproductive health decisions that are different than the one Pam Tebow made."

Knox also called Focus on the Family "a very radical, anti-choice, anti-woman organization" and decried the notion of CBS "partnering" with them to produce the ad.

CBS Cites Left-Wing Advocate of Infanticide to Encourage Charitable Giving

Peter Singer, CBS In a story on American charitable giving on CBS’s Sunday Morning, correspondent Mark Strassmann cited liberal Princeton University bio-ethics professor Peter Singer on how much people should give: “[He’s] worked up a giving guide. The more you make, the more he believes you should give....He believes it’s within our power to virtually end world poverty.”

A clip was played of Singer arguing: “Well I think we should be giving something quite substantial....the right thing to do in this situation, where there are millions of children and adults, of course, dying from avoidable poverty related causes is to give something pretty significant. Something that makes a difference to how you live.”

While Strassmann simply introduced Singer as a bio-ethicist, in reality, the professor has a history of promoting radical ideas, such as justifying infanticide. In an excerpt of his 1993 book Practical Ethics, entitled “Taking Life: Humans,” Singer concluded: “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.” CBS certainly picked an odd person to lecture Americans on caring for those less fortunate.

New Pseudo-Reality Show Lets Viewers Vote for Abortions

"Their choices are up to YOU" is the tagline for the new pseudo-reality show "Bump+." A fictional Web series designed to look like a reality show, "Bump+" follows the stories of three women facing "unintended pregnancies." Their decision as to whether to abort, or bring their babies to term and either put them up for adoption and keep them, rests on the viewers, who weigh in via the "Bump+" Web site. Yes, killing of the unborn has now become interactive entertainment.

Washington Post's Kathleen Parker described the show as "Jerry Springer meets Oprah meets ‘American Idol' meets Dr. Oz meets ... America's conscience." Christopher Riley, the show's co-executive producer it was "inspired" by President Obama's call last year to find "ways to communicate about a workable solution to the problem of unintended pregnancies."

Deutsch Says Tebow Ad Starts Down 'Slippery Slope'; Compares it to Gay-Dating Spot

Even though, the day after it aired on the Super Bowl broadcast, the consensus on the Focus on the Family advertisement featuring former Florida quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow was that it wasn't as bad as the left had feared, at least one person that isn't going to let it go.

On MSNBC's Feb. 8 "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough made the point that the TV spot played during the Feb. 7 game was inoffensive and painted the opponents of it as being upset about nothing.

"One other thing too, talking about the soft touch - Focus on the Family's ad with Tim Tebow was soft, it was subtle and it made all the people who criticized it over the past week look like shrill idiots," Scarborough said. "It was a mom talking about a son she loved - her take with soft music."

AP Error: Writer Suggests Tebow Ad Had Abortion Talk

The sharp eyes at Powerline caught AP writer Emily Fredrix really messing up on the Tebow ads for Focus on the Family that aired on the Super Bowl last night, which did not discuss abortion:

And a commercial by conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, perhaps the most anticipated ad of the night, hinted at a serious subject although it took a humorous tone too. Heisman winner Tim Tebow and his mother talk about her difficult pregnancy with him and how she was advised to end the pregnancy—implying an antiabortion message—but ended with Tebow tackling his mom and saying the family must be "tough."

John at Powerline wondered: "How can anyone misreport on a 30-second commercial? How many people saw it, 150 million? Is there any explanation for the AP's hallucination other than pro-abortion paranoia on the part of the reporter?"

It's additionally mysterious since Fredrix filed a whole story on the Tebow ad and its aftermath, which more accurately described the commercial.

The First Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad Doesn't Mention Abortion

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Second one doesn't mention abortion either.

The first of the two Pro-Life Super Bowl ads featuring college football's Tim Tebow and his mother has been made available on the Internet, and it doesn't even mention or refer to abortion.

Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com posted it a few hours ago; makes you wonder what all the fuss was about.

As you watch, keep in mind that this was the one CBS rejected for airing during the actual game, and will only be shown during pre-game festivities (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Hot Air):

Second Pro-Life Tebow Ad to Run During Super Bowl Pre-Game

The Left and their media minions may not have enough time to fully express their anger before it happens, but a second ad featuring Pro-Life advocate and college football star Tim Tebow is now scheduled to air during the Super Bowl pre-game show.

Adding insult to injury, this one's supposed to run four times.

Try to feel the liberal media's anger as you read USA Today's article on this subject:

CNN: Tebow Ad is the Result of Pro-Lifers Becoming More 'Feminist'?

Carol Costello, CNN Corrrespondent | NewsBusters.orgCNN’s Carol Costello bizarrely claimed on Friday’s American Morning that the upcoming Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother is the “culmination of a brilliant marketing strategy by the anti-abortion movement... [which] has quietly found a way to rebrand itself as hip...and feminist.” Costello also misrepresented pro-lifers as people who regularly call women who abort “baby-killers.”

The correspondent made her claim at the beginning of her report: “Have you heard? Tim Tebow is doing an ad that will run in the Super Bowl. This morning, I’d like to actually step back from the issue itself and break it down another way. Some say this is the culmination of a brilliant marketing strategy by the anti-abortion movement. It has quietly found a way to rebrand itself as hip, modern, and- yes, feminist.”

After playing two clips from Gary Schneeberger from Focus on the Family, which paid for the Tebow ad, Costello noted that “[a]lthough the ad has inflamed some women’s groups, it’s a far different message than in years past, back when the politically-powerful Reverend James Dobson was Focus on the Family’s face.” The CNN correspondent singled-out a 2008 sound bite from Dobson, where he expressed his grief over the human toll of abortion: “It just grieves me greatly of how the blood of maybe 46, 48 million babies who have been aborted cries out to God from the ground.”

Sportswriter Dan Graziano Claims Tim Tebow ‘Made a Poor Decision’ in Appearing in Super Bowl Ad

TebowNFL FanHouse writer Dan Graziano tried to sound concerned in his Feb. 4 column about the collaboration of Tim Tebow and Focus on the Family for a pro-life Super Bowl ad. It quickly became apparent, however, that Graziano's main point was to vilify Focus on the Family.

"Tebow must be careful as he moves from the world of collegiate athletics, where he was an unassailable hero, to that of professional sports, where he'll be a target," wrote Graziano. "He's going to have to make good decisions about the people with whom he surrounds and aligns himself. And in this case, by lining up with the group behind the controversial ad, Tebow has made a poor decision."

Graziano claimed Focus on the Family "conned" Tebow and used his stance on abortion "as the hook and reeled him in for use in the proliferation of all aspects of their agenda" because he is "ready-made superstar who wears his religious faith unapologetically on his eye black." He concluded that "Tebow is being used by a special-interest group whose mission is to compel people to think and live according to its rules and beliefs."

'Champions For Life': Super Bowl Winners Speak Against Abortion

There has been a lot of controversy over the Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother discussing how she chose life for her son.

The ad is a simple sincere look at a personal story. Yet the left and the "feminists" have gone nuts over it.

23 years ago, The American Life League, one of the largest Catholic Pro-Life organizations, produced a short featuring members of the Super Bowl winning New York Giants.

As you watch former superstars Phil Simms -- the game's MVP and current sportscaster for CBS! -- Mark Bavaro, Jim Burt, Chris Godfrey, George Martin, and Phil McConkey speak out against abortion, try to imagine what the reaction would be to this film if it was made today.

The roar from the left would be heard from outerspace (video embedded below the fold):

Planned Parenthood Strikes Back at Tebow Ad with Pro-Abortion Video

Planned Parenthood has just released a video in response to the upcoming Super Bowl ad featuring the pro-life birth story of college football star Tim Tebow.

The pro-abortion group's ad includes Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner and former NFL football player Sean James promoting what they call "respect for women's choices."

James said in the ad that he "respects and honors Mrs. Tebow's decision" but every woman's decision must be "valued ... trusted and respected." 

"My mom showed me that women are strong and wise," James continued. "She taught me that only women can make the best decisions about their health and their future."

Bozell Column: A New Abortion Scandal

In his book "The Courage to Be Catholic," author George Weigel surprised readers by insisting that the very secular and liberal Boston Globe and the New York Times had done the Lord’s work in rooting out the story of child sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church.

Weigel is correct, and never mind that the newsies at the Globe and the Times were relishing making the Church cringe. But these secular liberal media outlets will not tell the story when the American bishops allow the donations of Catholics to be diverted to fund abortion-rights activism, even if most Catholics view abortion as the most horrific form of child abuse. The media almost unanimously celebrate abortion as the summit of women’s "liberation," and so the treatment is just the opposite. The press is refusing to cover this scandal.

The American Life League and the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry have been demanding reform of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a project of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They charge that no less than 50 organizations (one fifth of all CCHD grantees from 2009) are in some capacity engaged in pro-abortion or pro-gay causes.

Pro-choice Sports Writer Jenkins Slams NOW for Trying to Scuttle Pro-life Tebow Ad

Tim Tebow | NewsBusters.orgForget six more weeks of winter. It's possible Hell has frozen over.

In the Groundhog Day edition of the Washington Post, liberal, pro-choice sports columnist Sally Jenkins took direct aim at the National Organization for Women (NOW) for its campaign to keep a pro-life ad featuring Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother from airing during Sunday's Super Bowl.

Jenkins slammed NOW, mocking it as one of the few "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep" (DOLL) that is coming off more "pro-abortion" than pro-choice with its anti-Tebow crusade (emphasis mine):

Slate's Saletan Fights Tebow Pro-Life Ad with 'Grisly Truth' about Pregnancy

Slate's William Saletan must hate happy endings. At least that's what you'd think after reading "The Invisible Dead." No, that's not the title of some new horror best-seller - it's the headline of his article about football star Tim Tebow's pro-life ad.

In it, Saletan argued that the Tebows were "lucky" and went on to expose the "grisly truth about the Super Bowl abortion ad." That "truth" was the idea that dangerous pregnancies carried to term often kill the baby and the mother.

"On Sunday, we won't see all the women who chose life and found death. We'll just see the Tebows, because they're alive and happy to talk about it," Saletan wrote.

Bozell Column: Tim Tebow Takes a Stand

The Super Bowl is a cultural phenomenon. It’s not only watched by godzillions of people worldwide, it’s the only televised broadcast where the audience tunes in not just for the game, but for the commercials. The top-dollar, high-profile advertising space has led to some unforgettable commercials over the years.

Sometimes the ad is so remarkable it becomes a word-of-mouth sensation before it even airs, before anyone has even seen it. It’s happened again this year.

CBS has decided to accept an ad from a politically involved group and caused a firestorm with the radical Left because that group is proudly Christian.

The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family plans to air a commercial featuring Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, who will tell the story of how doctors told her she should have an abortion, and she refused that exercise of "choice." Pam Tebow was a missionary in the Philippines and had contracted dysentery, and the medicine had a chance of causing birth defects.

Atheist Group Protests Mother Teresa's Commemorative U.S. Postal Stamp

Mother Teresa StampFor some atheists, a person should not be honored for decades of humanitarian work if she also happens to be a professing Christian.

That's the only conclusion one can draw from the recent uproar of the Freedom From Religion Foundation over the U.S. Postal Service's commemorative stamp featuring 1979 Nobel Prize winner Mother Teresa.

"There's this knee jerk response that everything she did was humanitarian," griped FFRF spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor, according to a Jan. 28 Fox News article. "And I think many people would differ that what she doing was to promote religion, and what she wanted to do was baptize people before they die, and that doesn't have a secular purpose for a stamp." She also asserted that this is part of the Roman Catholic "PR machine" to "make [Mother Teresa] a saint."

Just to clarify: the Church does not consider a commemorative stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service a necessary step to sainthood.

Shuster Shouts At Supporter Of Tebow Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad

David Shuster has left no doubt on what side he comes down in the debate over the planned airing of a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl.  Sponsored by Focus on the Family, the ad tells the story of how Pam Tebow ignored medical advice to have an abortion, and instead gave birth to Tim, who of course went on to become a legendary college football player and inspiration to millions for his faith and character.

On MSNBC this afternoon, Shuster hosted a segment on the issue bringing together Charmaine Yoest, head of Americans United for Life and Erin Matson of NOW.  Dr. Yoest was no more than a few seconds into her defense of the ad when Shuster began shouting at her.

It was NOW/Shuster united against Yoest, but she handled it as deftly as, well, a Gator receiver beating a double-team to catch a TD pass from . . . Tim Tebow.

Joy Behar: Tim Tebow Just As Easily Could Have Been 'Rapist Pedophile'

Discounting the pro-life argument of a planned Focus on the Family Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow's mother, Joy Behar told the audience of the January 26 "View" that the Florida quarterback just as easily could have been a "rapist pedophile." [audio available here]

"What are people flippin' out about," bewildered moderator Whoopi Goldberg -- herself an ardent pro-choice activist -- asked.

"The only argument against any of it is, that, you know, he could just as easily become some kind of a rapist pedophile. I mean, you don't know what someone's going to be," Behar answered, adding:

MRC's Bozell Challenges CBS to Stand Ground, Air Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell called on the CBS television network to stay the course in planning to air a life-affirming Super Bowl commercial featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, who was pressured to abort him during her pregnancy, after a bout of opposition has arisen among left-wing activist groups:

Radical leftist groups like the National Organization for Women have the gall to claim that this life-affirming ad is "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." I have to wonder, what is so offensive about celebrating the decision of a mother to have her baby?

Bozell added that "CBS has the opportunity to make this a game-changer for network television," an "opportunity to show balance and fairness -- and simple decency" and "to stand against liberal liberal political censorship."

Predictable Lefty Outrage at Tebow Pro-Life Superbowl Ad

Told ya so. When reports first surfaced a few weeks ago that Focus on the Family was planning to run a pro-life ad during the Super Bowl broadcast featuring University of Florida quarter back Tim Tebow, the Culture & Media Institute predicted liberals would be upset.

Like clockwork, an article in the Huffington Post on Jan. 25 reported that "a national coalition of women's groups" that includes the National Organization for Women and the Feminist Majority is demanding that CBS reconsider its plans to run the ad.

Tebow, a Heisman Trophy winner who led the Gators to an NCAA championship, is a famously outspoken Christian noted for wearing Bible verses on his game day eye-black. He is also a walking pro-life story: the Super Bowl ad will relate how Tim's mother, against the advice of doctors, carried him to term in a dangerous pregnancy while on a church mission to the Philippines.

'Women's Groups' Pressuring CBS to Scrap Tebow Super Bowl Ad

Tebow

The story behind Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow's arrival into this world is remarkable.

So-called "women's groups" would seem to prefer that as many Americans as possible not know the story about the courageous and faith-based decision Tebow's mother made to carry her pregnancy to term. That's the only plausible reason why they are opposing a 30-second Focus on the Family (FOTF) ad scheduled to air during the Super Bowl. So far, it seems that CBS, which will air the Super Bowl on February 7, seems disinclined to buckle.

David Crary's coverage of the story at the Associated Press (from which the photo at the top right was obtained) labels FOTF "conservative," but does not apply any descriptive label to the "women's groups" objecting to the ad.

As you'll see in the final excerpted paragraph, Crary's coverage included an over-the-top statement from the objectors:

ABC, CBS, NBC Skip Pro-Life March; NPR Airs Abortionist Calling Pro-Lifers Terrorists

As usual, ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored Friday’s March for Life protest. (Even the Associated Press skipped over the tens of thousands marching.) But the PBS NewsHour at least offered a brief from news anchor Hari Sreenivasan:

Thousands rallied in Washington in the annual March For Life. It was the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. The anti-abortion crowd rallied at the White House, and then moved on to the Supreme Court. A handful of abortion rights supporters were also present.

NPR covered the trial on the murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller on Friday night (as well as Friday morning), but had no March for Life mention. On the afternoon talk show Tell Me More, host Michel Martin interviewed Serrin Foster of Feminists for Life. But the pro-life movement was harshly smeared by late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart in an interview that led off that same show:

N.Y. Times Wrote Up Four Immigration Protesters, All But Ignored Tens of Thousands Against Abortion

As the new year began, The New York Times offered a 780-word article to a protest for illegal immigrants – with four marchers walking from Miami to Washington. But on Saturday, tens of thousands of Americans gathering in Washington for Friday's annual March for Life received – part of a sentence.

In the Saturday paper on January 23, an article on the trial facing the killer of late-term abortionist George Tiller on page A-11 featured this note in paragraph 9 of a 12-paragraph dispatch by Monica Davey:

Testimony began the same day that abortion rights groups celebrated, and abortion opponents protested, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.

Daily Kos: A Grandma Handing Out Pro-Life Pamphlets Is a Terrorist

There are times you read blog posts at the Daily Kos and genuinely think the writers are secret saboteurs trying to make the left look ridiculous. Take the blogger "Angry Mouse" on Sunday morning, who insists a grandma handing out pamphlets outside an abortion clinic is a terrorist, a regular al-Qaeda equivalent:

A distinction is often made between the violent and non-violent members of this "movement." The government, the media, and the activists are careful to point out that the Scott Roeders and Paul Hills of the world are rare. Most of the activists just want to "inform" women about their options. Most of the activists care about preserving all life, including the lives of the providers and women.

Newsweek Could Have Just Asked Colleagues at WaPo About Young Pro-Life Women (With Photo Essay)

2010 March for LifeKrista Gesaman of Newsweek.com's Gaggle blog could have saved herself from the indignity of making the absurd claim that young women were "missing" from protests marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by merely searching through the past coverage of the March for Life by the Washington Post, Newsweek's sister publication. In past years, the Post has highlighted the "youthful throng," the "large turnout of young people," and has quoted from teenagers participating at the annual pro-life March.

My colleague Ken Shepherd noted Gesaman's beyond faulty conclusion on Friday, and highlighted a recent Marist poll that indicated that "58 percent of persons aged 18-29 view abortion as 'morally wrong.'" Members of this age were all born after the 1973 Roe decision by the Supreme Court, so it's not that surprising of a statistic. He also underlined how "hundreds if not thousands of busloads teeming with teenagers and college students, many of them young women, descend on the nation's capital for the annual March for Life."