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James Martin, S.J.February 08, 2010

I caught just the tail end of this much-talked-about ad last night on the Superbowl.  It's simple and effective.  And I wonder, How could anyone object to this?  Actually, I would have preferred for it to have been even stronger on the pro-life message, but maybe understatement is the way to go.  Dave Gibson said the ad's rollout was a brilliant strategy, too.

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Beth Cioffoletti
14 years 9 months ago
I guess it's an ok message, but it doesn't really reflect the people that I know who face unintended pregnancies.
 
I have often thought that I should make an advertizement for unwed mothers.  After many years of painful infertility (my husband and I REALLY wanted a baby), we were blessed with a teenage girl giving her newborn baby to us.  No strings attached, this baby would be ours as if it had come from our very own bodies, forever and for generations to come.  What a gift!  Even though I never met her, every year I think of this young girl who must now be in her 40s, and thank her from the bottom of my heart for the gift of life that she gave to us.  I hope that she knows it.
14 years 9 months ago
It was brilliant.  It was utterly inoffensive, and all those who objected look silly. The objections fueled publicity, and so the comercial got out a much stronger message than its actual content.
14 years 9 months ago
Padre: Amen I say and good for you! I need to give you a round of applause when you are on the right side of an argument. It was a beautiful ad.
David Nickol
14 years 9 months ago
The ad was utterly unobjectionable, but there are a number of things that don't add up about the whole story. In the recorded interview on the website of Focus on the Family, Pam Tebow says the doctor in the village where she and her husband were based as missionaries told her she needed to have an abortion, but also told her she was not carrying a fetus, but rather a mass of fetal cells - that is, a tumor. No matter how pro-life you are, I don't believe there can be any objection to ''aborting'' a tumor from the womb. It is certainly not what the pro-life movement opposes.
After rejecting the doctor's advice, Pam Tebow has no further medical treatment until seven months later, when she goes to Manila. This story makes no sense. A woman is told she is not pregnant but instead has a tumor, and she doesn't see another doctor until seven months later. Who, under the circumstances, would not at least seek a second opinion? What if it had indeed been a tumor and she let it go for seven months? Something about the story just doesn't make sense.
Additionally the story Pam Tebow tells in an interview with the Gainesville Sun give an account that can't be reconciled with the recorded interview on the Focus on the Family website.
14 years 9 months ago
Here's a quote from a Reuter's Faith World post that sums up what I think was wrong with the idea of the ad ...
 
"The ad ... is subtle, with Pam Tebow speaking of Tim as her “miracle baby.” The polarizing A-word is not mentioned, nor the term “pro life,”  but it directed viewers to a Focus on the Family link where Tebow’s mother does talk of her decision to carry him to term despite a doctor’s warning that doing so could endanger her life. In it her husband Bob talked of “weeping over the loss of millions of babies in America that were never given a chance .... could the link on the Focus on the Family web site  unduly influence women whose lives are seriously at risk because of their pregnancy? "
14 years 9 months ago
I also think that add was brilliant.  FOTF played the radical feminists for the fools that thay are.  Had they stood by their mantra of "choice" and kept their mouths shut the ad would have attracted little attention but instead they protested FOTF's and the Tebow's choice.  Made to look like fools, NOW is claiming the ad depicts violence against woman.
I think this ad will go down in history as symbolic of the collapse of radical feminism.

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