Yesterday I wrote a diary criticizing the message in a controversial anti-choice Super Bowl ad featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mother. The ad is paid for by Focus on the Family and tells the story of Mrs. Tebow's choice to continue her pregnancy despite medical advice to terminate. That diary, Why Not Tell the Truth, Mrs. Tebow?, centered on the anti-choice movement's strategy to cloak their message in pro-choice language, intentionally muddying the waters for the public. From some more reading I have done today, it looks like that might not be the only dishonest part of the ad.
Update: Emily's List petition to reject the ad: http://emilyslist.org/...
This morning while surfing through my usual internet spots I saw this entry from Tracy Clark-Flory on Broadsheet:
...one detail has so far been excluded from Tebow's public telling of the story: abortion was, and still is, illegal in the Philippines. There isn't even a single exception allowed for cases where the mother's life is in danger.
The Broadsheet entry links to a letter to CBS from the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) protesting CBS's reversal of a long-standing policy of not accepting political ads (a policy that led to CBS rejecting a UCC ad about that church's tolerance). The CRR letter lays out Philippine abortion law and questions the validity of the story:
Abortion was criminalized in the Philippines in 1870. It has been illegal ever since. Filipino law does not contain a single exception to its abortion ban – not even to save the life of the pregnant woman or to protect her health.
Given this context, it raises questions about whether physicians in the Philippines would have urged a married pregnant woman to illegally terminate her pregnancy in 1987.
Is Mrs. Tebow being dishonest about what happened while on that missionary trip in 1987? I don't know. I don't know who the doctors were that treated her, and I don't know what the typical response is to a pregnant woman taking the kind of anti-biotic she was on to combat her amoebic dysentery. I do know that westerners working in developing countries often have access to western medical facilities. It is possible she was being consulted by American doctors to return to America for the procedure. It is also possible that, given Philippine law, she was given no choice at all.
Who actually gave Mrs. Tebow what advice might never come out, but the ad is still dishonest. As I wrote in my diary yesterday:
If this ad were honest there would be no choice. There would be a doctor informing the Tebows that there are complications to the pregnancy and there is nothing that can be done. It would show Mrs. Tebow's life and welfare legally subordinate to her pregnancy. It would even, if it were fair and honest, show some women who chose like Mrs. Tebow did and ended up losing their lives.
Here is the reality of abortion in the Philippines:
- Induced abortion is punishable by law in the Philippines
- Philippine abortion rate is about 27 per 1,000 women. (compare to the United States, where abortion is safe and legal, the rate is about 20 per 1,000 women)
- Approximately 12% of all maternal deaths are the result of illegal abortion
- In 1994, there were 400,000 induced abortions in the country and 80,000 women hospitalized for complications of induced abortion
- Incidence of induced abortion seems to follow access to contraceptives
The Tebow ad gives us a (suspect) anecdote in which things turned out sitcom great. But if groups like Focus on the Family get their way, the America we will live in will look a lot like the Philippines world described above. Criminalizing abortion does not lead to a reduction in abortion. Women will still seek to end unwanted pregnancies for a variety of reasons. They will be forced into unsafe, fertility threatening, life threatening situations. Focus on the Familiy does not want you to have the choice Mrs. Tebow (says she) had.
So why do they lie? Simple -- it is because of this:
Group -- Generally available/Available, but with stricter limits than now/Not permitted
Overall 39% 38% 22%
Women 37% 37% 24%
Men 40% 40% 20%
Democrats 43% 35% 21%
Republicans 29% 41% 28%
Independents 42% 38% 18%
January 2003 CBS News/New York Times poll, via wikipedia
There is very little support for the anti-choice America they want.