The Tebow commercial: Why the heated protest?
by Richard Land
President, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
Washington Post
02/05/2010Named one of “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America” by Time, Land has worked as a Southern Baptist pastor, theologian, and public policymaker.
Q: The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family is sponsoring a pro-life ad, featuring football star Tim Tebow, during Sunday’s Super Bowl. Should CBS show the ad? Should CBS allow other faith-based groups to buy Super Bowl ads promoting their beliefs on social issues? Is a major sporting event, or a TV ad campaign, an appropriate venue for discussing such vital and divisive culture-war issues like abortion?
Why are groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Women’s Media Center, and numerous "pro-choice" groups apoplectic over a Super Bowl commercial sponsored by Focus on the Family?…
In 1987, Tim’s future parents, Bob and Pam Tebow, were in the Philippines on a mission trip. During the trip, Pam fell into a coma from amoebic dysentery and was administered several strong medications to treat her potentially life threatening illness. Later, doctors, worried about consequent severe damage to the baby she was carrying, strongly urged Pam to abort her fifth child. She declined their medical advice and gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy, Tim Tebow, on Aug. 14, 1987. Pam cited her strong pro-life Christian beliefs for her decision to have her baby over the doctor’s objections.
Why should such a story so threaten the "pro-choice" forces in America that they do not want the vast audiences watching the Super Bowl to see it? Why not just pay for a commercial of their own advocating the "pro-choice" position? Isn’t the free-speech answer to speech you don’t like, more free speech, advocating a different view?…
The act is criminalized by the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, which was enacted in 1930 and remains in effect today. Articles 256, 258 and 259 of the Code mandate imprisonment for the woman who undergoes the abortion, as well as for any person who assists in the procedure, even if they be the woman’s parents, a physician or midwife. Article 258 further imposes a higher prison term on the woman or her parents if the abortion is undertaken "in order to conceal [the woman’s] dishonor". There is no law in the Philippines that expressly authorizes abortions in order to save the woman’s life; and the general provisions which do penalize abortion make no qualifications if the woman’s life is endangered…
Religious certainty is almost always a problem…it’s a problem for the kid from Alabama who made the cover of the NYT magazine last Sunday, a problem for the people who were rescuing orphans and are now facing charges in Haiti, it’s a problem for Mrs. Tebow who is ungrateful enough in her good fortune to moralize about her freedom, it was a problem for the Jesuit mission during the reign of Elizabeth I….it’s an endless problem – enough to provoke pessimism in anyone whose views are different.
Mickey says Tim Tebow was a “wanted” child. That’s important. And it brings up another reason why religious conservatives might think about supporting the right of gays and lesbians to marry and raise families: There are no accidental pregnancies in same-sex couples.
There are no “unwanted” children — and therefore very few abortions — among gay and lesbian couples.