Pro-Life Lobby in Super Bowl XLIV Slot

I could expound on the following story for days, but time being about as rare as empathy from a pro-life group for a pregnant rape victim, I shall keep it short.

The crux of the story rests in the deployment of the Florida Gators quarterback, Tim Tebow, as the focus of the 30 second advocacy ad run by Focus on the Family:

The advert will feature the story of Tim Tebow’s mother, Pam.

As a Christian missionary in the Far East 23 years ago, she fell very ill while pregnant and was advised by doctors to have an abortion. She ignored that medical advice and gave birth to a fifth child, her son Tim, the future football star.

The implications are clear: abort a fetus and you could deprive a child of a long and healthy life.

This story is particularly pertinent on a personal level, for my own mother was advised on numerous occasions to abort due to health reasons.

At worst, she was advised, the child will be stillborn.

At best, it might live, before dying anyway.

Yet here I am, all 28 years later romping in the fields and expostulating in blogs.

Am I grateful for my mother’s ability to hold fast and pray hard?

Without a doubt.

Would I ever condemn a woman for having a termination?

Never.

It is a woman’s inherent right to own her body and determine her future: whether it is illness, rape, accidental or importune, the right should never be removed.

Honey-coating the obliteration of choice in ‘family values’ is merely masking the issue.

That women like Pam Tebow and my mother should be celebrated is doubtless; but this does not give the anti-choice lobby the right to shame women into submission.

If only the pro-choice lobby could screen a parallel advocacy ad – now that would provide a real choice for viewers.