The National Organization for Women has protested the decision of CBS to allow a pro-life ad from Focus on the Family to air during the Super Bowl game. The ad features Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. Pam returned the kickoff of a life-threatening pregnancy to put Tim in the red zone for claiming that Heisman trophy. NOW has called on CBS to dump the ad, prompting Sarah Palin – currently the starting quarterback of the pro-life team, and a player with serious skin in the game – to respond with a characteristically bold forward pass from her Facebook pocket:
What a ridiculous situation they’re getting themselves into now with their protest of CBS airing a pro-life ad during the upcoming Super Bowl game. The ad will feature Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mom, and they’ll speak to the sanctity of life and the beautiful potential within every innocent child as Mrs. Tebow acknowledges her choice to give Tim life, despite less than ideal circumstances. Messages like this empower women! This speaks to the strength and commitment and nurturing spirit within women. The message says everything positive and nothing negative about the power of women – and life. Evidently, some women’s rights groups like NOW do not like that message.
NOW president Terry O’Neill says Palin is missing the point:
The goal of the Focus on the Family ad is not to empower women. It’s to create a climate in which Roe v. Wade can be overturned. There are always going to be women who need abortions. In this country, one in three women will have an abortion.
So, the point is that people who think Roe vs. Wade should be overturned lose their right to free speech? Does this principle apply to all Supreme Court decisions? If so, I guess we’d better get started on the Obama impeachment hearings, after the embarrassing disrespect he showed the Supreme Court during the State of the Union address.
It’s nostalgic to read a press release from NOW again. The organization was last seen sinking into the bubbling tar of the Clinton impeachment saga, babbling incomprehensibly about how sexual harassment really isn’t such a big deal when pro-abortion Democrat presidents do it. Like every appendage of the socialist state, NOW has no principle beyond fealty to the political party that grants it power, and the Democrats used to grant them a remarkable amount of power – enough to end the careers of Navy officers and combat pilots, after “investigations” that stopped just short of waterboarding. When NOW talks about “empowering” women, it speaks in the collective sense. Empowerment comes from obedience to feminist organizations, which use that power to drag an oversized chair up to the grim carving table where the Democrat Party wields its redistibutionist cleavers.
Some critics cite unquestioning support for unrestricted abortion rights as the primary demonstration of loyalty power feminists seek from their supporters, but the NOW offensive against the Tebow ad, and their response to Sarah Palin, suggest the true sacrament of radical feminism is not abortion… it’s opposition to the pro-life movement. Power in a collectivist system comes from tribal loyalty, and hatred is a powerful glue for holding collectives together. As with leftist racial groups, NOW has very little positive to offer its supporters these days, so it thrives by pointing fingers at its enemies. Religious people in general, and outspoken pro-life advocates in particular, look very good on the business end of a trembling finger.
The Tebow ad will not call for the overturn of Roe vs. Wade. It’s meant to be a heartfelt endorsement of life, from a mother who chose it against the recommendation of doctors, in the face of her own suffering and possible death. As Palin says:
NOW is looking at the pro-life issue backwards. Women should be reminded that they are strong enough and smart enough to make decisions that allow for career and educational opportunities while still giving their babies a chance at life. In my own home, my daughter Bristol has also been challenged by pro-abortion “women’s rights” groups who don’t agree with her decision to have her baby, nor do they like the abstinence message which she articulated as her personal commitment.
My own opposition to abortion-on-demand is not religious in nature. I believe there aren’t enough people in the world. The decision to deny a human being his, or her, opportunity to enter the living world and make the choices that compose a lifetime should never be made lightly. For people of religious faith, the exercise of free will was a parting gift to creation from its Author. For the atheist, the expanding nova of human choice brings light and meaning into a universe of cold dust and searing plasma. Either way, life is precious, and it follows that those who follow Pam Tebow’s path are worthy of respect. How can we render that respect, if we insist her choice was absolutely equivalent to terminating little Tim, right up to the moment when his head emerged from the birth canal?
We’re nowhere near the repeal of Roe vs. Wade, a naked exercise of raw judicial power… which is apparently so fragile that a son thanking his mother for the gift of life could tear it to shreds. I wonder how many of the other iron laws supporting statism are actually written on tissue paper. If Roe were repealed, the question of abortion restrictions would return to the states, and people contemplating the examples of Sarah Palin, Bristol Palin, and Pam Tebow would gain the dangerous freedom to express their beliefs through smaller, more responsive governments. I can understand why NOW and its fellow travelers would be terrified of that possibility. It has nothing to do with “keeping abortion legal,” for there is no chance Americans would ever vote to outlaw it completely, in every state. It has everything to do with siphoning power from the useful fantasy of a world that will never exist, and the ugly caricatures who tower above it with scourges and holy books.
A society reveals much of its character in the way it treats its women and children. Palin finds common cause with NOW in calling out “advertisers and networks for airing sexist and demeaning portrayals of women that lead to young women’s diminished self-esteem and acceptance of roles as mere sexed-up objects.” Abortion on demand has been very useful for preserving the self-esteem of men who desire casual sex without consequence. Perhaps those men would be less likely to view the women in their lives as problems, if they didn’t know there was an easy solution right around the corner.
The Tebows are not planning to use their Super Bowl minutes for a sermon, or to impose their views on anyone. They only want their chance to testify that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not an equation that balances out to zero. The idea that such a statement is unacceptably political is further evidence that our lives have become too politicized, because too many decisions have been bumped to an upstairs office that doesn’t even have a suggestion box.
NOW is mistaking a compelling narrative for compulsion. No organization that demands suppression of the other side’s free speech is “pro-choice” in any sense of the words. Feminists are certainly free to produce their own Super Bowl ad, trumpeting the virtues of partial-birth abortion, or any other practice they don’t think Pam and Tim Tebow support with suitable enthusiasm. Something tells me most people would choose to change the channel during that ad.
Cross-posted at Hot Air.
Doc, I agree with your central thesis: the right to exercise free speech should never be impeached. NOW is completely in the wrong, and they are scrambling because they are concerned with the audience. The Super Bowl is the highest-rated television program annually; how many high-profile athletes on the field wouldespouse the same message that Tim is forwarding? But, I’m rambling.
I do have a problem with the following statement, though:
I contend that anti-abortionists would never stop until the law is enacted in every state. In 1965-1973, that was the case. Roe v. Wade may have been a supreme breach of justice; however, with NO access, they felt that they needed to act, even if it was in a decidedly unConstitutional manner.
This is such a powerful and uplifting post, I wouldn’t know where to start commenting. Awesome wordsmith…with such true and incisive logic. Thank you!
“For people of religious faith, the exercise of free will was a parting gift to creation from its Author. For the atheist, the expanding nova of human choice brings light and meaning into a universe of cold dust and searing plasma. Either way, life is precious, and it follows that those who follow Pam Tebow’s path are worthy of respect.”
Having followed your work from the Green Room to your wonderful site here, this is the best statement I’ve read regarding a very delicate subject.
Awhile back, I wrote a piece at C4P about being an atheist and an active supporter of Sarah Palin – reading the comments that followed was not only heartening, it illustrated that Conservatives, especially religious Conservatives, are not only open to having skeptics at the table, they are welcoming. For atheists like myself from extremely religious-conservative parts of the country, this is not a surprise. As you point out, religious belief is not a litmus test for views on abortion, and I’d add that not all atheists are pro-totalitarian, anti-human nuts.
With each statement like the one directed at NOW, Gov. Palin is demonstrating the false choice the Choice movement offers – it has nothing to do with women, nothing to do with abortion: it is a matter of control, of limiting the options other people have regarding how they choose to live their lives.
Excellent piece.
“So, the point is that people who think Roe vs. Wade should be overturned lose their right to free speech?”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think NOW is asking the government to interfere and violate the Tebow’s right to free speech. As a conservative, I would have hoped you realized that free speech is freedom from GOVERNMENT interference. This is a fairly minor point, but this incorrect assumption underlies your entire argument.
“The Tebows are not planning to use their Super Bowl minutes for a sermon, or to impose their views on anyone.”
If you are serious about your thesis, please consider the following: Suppose Planned Parenthood produced a superbowl ad. The ad does not say that abortions are good, simply that they are an option for women. By your reasoning, this would be an acceptable superbowl ad. Do you agree?
Well put Doc. This also puts the lie to their alleged advocacy of choice. What a crock. By definition life is 50% of the choice they claim to support. How can it follow that they are against half of what they are for? Even more maddening is they know they cannot be honest and advocate abortion but somehow want us to believe motherhood and empowerment are mutually exclusive. Have they no clue what an insult that is to working mothers?
Beautifully said.
@Michael:
At first, I thought that you may have read too much into the good Doctor’s argument, but I found the line that I imagine must have tripped your alarm bells:
No organization that demands suppression of the other side’s free speech is “pro-choice” in any sense of the words.
Demanding that an ad or other programming be pulled, even at the threat of boycott, is a tactic that groups on the Right have used many times, and to my mind properly so. You are absolutely correct that “censorship” is only relevant vis-a-vis government action, as I have tried to impress upon my friends on the Left countless times. It is a free-market action, after all, to try to change the course of a corporation through commercial means. You will find very few people more opposed to infanticide, or more contemptuous of NOW, than am I, but on this score I think that the good Doctor may have overreached slightly. What’s good for the goose is sauce for the gander, as they say. Obviously, this is not a negative comment on my part concerning the content of the ad itself; it sounds perfectly lovely. However, if NOW wants to pound on its high chair and hold its breath and threaten not to watch . . . um . . . whatever is on CBS these days, that is its prerogative, just as it is the prerogative of the Christian Coalition or Brent Bozell’s group or similar groups on the Right. Now, if only the NOW harridans and their crew would extend the same consistency of argument . . .
@DOne:
You say:
I do have a problem with the following statement, though:
“I can understand why NOW and its fellow travelers would be terrified of that possibility. It has nothing to do with “keeping abortion legal,” for there is no chance Americans would ever vote to outlaw it completely, in every state.”
I contend that anti-abortionists would never stop until the law is enacted in every state. In 1965-1973, that was the case. Roe v. Wade may have been a supreme breach of justice; however, with NO access, they felt that they needed to act, even if it was in a decidedly unConstitutional manner.
Um . . . what?
If Roe is a “supreme breach of justice” and “unconstitutional,” then the Supreme Court violated its very raison d’etre, and each Justice in the majority violated the oath that he swore upon assuming his office . . . no matter what injustice they felt was being perpetrated by the state legislatures. This is supposed to be a constitutional republic. If the Constitution is silent on a matter, according to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, the matter is supposed to revert to the states. Just because Earl Warren passionately believed that there should be a right to unrestricted infanticide does not mean that he and four of his confreres had the right to override the democratically expressed will of, as you say, ALL fifty states, individually as well as collectively. Again — constitutional republic, not theocracy of reason, or of sentiment, and not oligarchy.
Actually, weaving my first two posts together a little bit, what the pro-infanticide forces have been trying to do for the last forty years is to silence those who disagree with them by removing the issue from the political realm. Obviously, from the volume of the debate, they have not been entirely successful . . . but they have been partially so. There can be no truly meaningful political debate on the issue because the people have no ability to influence outcomes except on the periphery; everywhere opponents try to maneuver, they run into the stone wall of Roe. This is the reason that this is a volatile and occasionally violent issue; the vast majority of the country that favors at least some restriction has been rendered powerless, or at least hobbled. On no other issue is the idea that this country is governed by the will of the people more directly challenged than by this one. The Left’s optimal outcome is that the bulk of those who oppose the drawing and quartering, and fthe caustic scalding, of infants will become discouraged and weary, and the remainder caricatured as zealots by a polity weary of worrying about something that FIVE MEN decided that it could do nothing about and anxious to move along to something else. Who knows — they may be right . . .
Michael says:
January 29, 2010 at 5:48 pm
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think NOW is asking the government to interfere and violate the Tebow’s right to free speech. As a conservative, I would have hoped you realized that free speech is freedom from GOVERNMENT interference. This is a fairly minor point, but this incorrect assumption underlies your entire argument.”
And “GOVERNMENT” is what, Michael? Government is the PEOPLE. Therefore, the good doctor’s post (not argument) is absolutely legitimate. A segment of the people are attempting to stifle a point of view of another segment, which just so happens to be the opposite of theirs. In America, that’s wrong. Restricting one side or the other is a violation of Freedom of Speech.
As for your question; allow me my take – Of course such an ad would be OK…and for the very same reason. All opinions should be heard. That’s how informed choices are made.
@ loneloc:
Alright, perhaps I should clarify. My initial point of contention was with the Doc’s speculation that a fifty-state ban on abortion would never happen. As stated in my response to the pro-life march, the anti-abortionists won’t rest until it is the case. UnConstitutional decisions have been issued throughout many courts, not just the Warren court (see Gibbons v. Ogden, or Plessy v. Fergusson as only two examples). Despite that this is a breach of power, the language issued by the court was structured well enough to appear Constitutional. Politics, n’est pas?
@ loneloc:
In retrospect, perhaps I should have put the term “unConstitutional” in quotes in my original post.
@ Dell:
I’m sorry, but you’re incorrect on your last point; in much the same way that Tebow is being vilified on liberal blogs, if, say, Britney Spears were “celebrating” an early abortion that saved her career in a Planned Parenthood sixty-second spot, the Doctor and pro-life groups would be seeking the same suppression of the ad.
@DOne:
Or, as Justice White put it in his dissent to Roe, “an exercise of raw judicial power.” Since you bring up the word “politics,” allow me to pose the point that any rational group of five or nine men, faced with the judgement of all fifty states to the contrary, might have understood that their imagined new “right” was (to engage in epic understatement) not universally agreed-upon, and thus have allowed the political branches and the states to perform their constitutionally-determined roles. The Roe decision was the most galactically arrogant action by one of the three branches in the history of the Republic, absolutely unsupported by any word or phrase of the Constitution or of any of its Amendments. As I said in an earlier post, at no point has it ever been the intention of the vast majority of the American people to be ruled by nine philosopher-kings. The American system of government, in theory, belongs to the people — who, again, had spoken in ALL 50 STATES. If those were more vigorous times, we might have said, invoking the words of the Democratic icon Andrew Jackson, “Earl Warren has made his decision — now let him enforce it.” The times when each branch and every state felt its own responsibilities to the Constitution are long gone, alas, and they now routinely abdicate their responsibilities to the Court. What can we do?, they ask, giving the fatalistic Gallic shrug. That’s the caliber of elected officials we have today, alas . . .
No, I wouldn’t. It’s interesting that virtually every critical response I’ve seen, both here and on Hot Air, has accused me of the pre-crime of hypocrisy by assuming I’d be all in favor of banning all sorts of speech I disagreed with.
It also seems as if the game of criticism must consist of a single volley – if I criticize NOW for attempting to stifle Focus on the Family’s speech through strong-arm tactics, it’s tantamount to suppressing NOW’s speech. Michael, above, asked if I’m serious about my thesis by positing a hypothetical situation that exactly matches what I explicitly suggested NOW should do in my last paragraph. That’s happened five or six times on Hot Air, as well. I would suggest that Michael contemplate what such an ad for NOW would look like – DOne’s idea is realistically tasteless, but much funnier than anything they would come up with. In this contemplation, you’ll realize why there’s no way in hell NOW would do it, even if CBS gave them the airtime for free. Quite simply, they wouldn’t dare engage Focus on the Family on these terms, because they would lose, badly. Much easier to just demand CBS break its contract and shut those troublesome Jeebus freaks up, with all their crazy talk of choosing life.
As to the question of suppressing free speech: neither Sarah Palin nor I stated this is a First Amendment issue. NOW is not a government agency – although they were pretty close to one, during their heyday in the 90s. CBS is perfectly free to sell airtime to anyone it wishes. NOW is free to call on them to break that contract… and Palin and I are free to call for CBS to ignore them. The First Amendment addresses the suppression of free speech by the government, but the government isn’t the only force that can suppress speech. Just ask anyone who’s been on the wrong end of an SEIU goon squad, or the pie-throwing campus thugs that try to shout down conservative speakers.
Now that we have the straw men out of the way, please continue.
@Doctor Zero:
I absolutely agree with you about union beatdowns and pie-throwing; I could all but throw a rock from my house to the spot where one of the more notorious SEIU thug actions occurred, and in my Student Activities days in college, I called for the removal of a volunteer who told a reporter that he couldn’t cover a “Take Back the Night” march because he was a man. In case I was vague on this point, I didn’t mean to say that you implicated the First Amendment in your post, as I believe that Michael did. My only point was that if we count pressuring a media organization to pull an ad in a non-violent fashion as “suppression,” it will be hard to take umbrage at being accused of “suppressing” speech the next time that the Media Research Center goes after some ad or TV program. With the Fairness Doctrine continually looming in the distance, I think that keeping some of that powder dry might be a good idea. In the meantime, again, I enthusiastically agree that, just as NOW has the right to pressure CBS to remove the ad, right-thinking folk have every right (and, in fact, the duty) to pressure them to not remove it.
Oh, by the bye, Kate Michelman and some other abortion peddler have an op-ed in the Washington Post today proposing to do exactly what you suggest. The link is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012902505.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
They think that it would be a good idea to have a 30-sec spot where women representative of several walks of life state their reproductive choices: “I had a baby . . . ,” “I had an abortion . . .,” “I adopted . . . ,” etc. They want to try to steal the PR high ground from the pro-life movement. Not so easy when they’re peddling DEATH instead of LIFE, but, like you, I would be immensely amused (and, to be honest, immensely offended at the same time) to see the attempt . . .
It seems to me that a larger point is being missed here.
Can we all agree that Focus on the Family and the Tebows have a perfect right to free speech?
Can we all agree that NOW has a perfect right to respond?
Can we all agree that certain venues are simply inappropriate for certain subjects?
Not illegal, just not wise?
“Feminists are certainly free to produce their own Super Bowl ad, trumpeting the virtues of partial-birth abortion, or any other practice they don’t think Pam and Tim Tebow support with suitable enthusiasm. Something tells me most people would choose to change the channel during that ad.”
In that last sentence Doc, you get close to what bothers me about this, people will change the channel, as people are put off by controversy. Predictably, in a few years this will all ‘evolve’ into vociferous ‘social issue’ ads airing during non-political events and everyone will quickly find it tedious in the extreme.
It’ll ruin not football but what is of far greater importance, a day when we put aside our divisions and simply enjoy an afternoon of sporting competition and ‘funny’ non-controversial ads. After the SuperBowl, why not run advocacy ads during the Olympics? Why not on the Disney channel or Saturday morning cartoons? Why not during American Idol? Why not during the top ten TV shows?
Think about how tiresome political attack ads get during election seasons, with each side making plausible arguments, made so by conveniently leaving out the other sides valid points. How about a world in which any widely viewed sporting or entertainment event, by the nature of its high ratings attracts continuous attack ads?
Where the bile and accusations are incessant and unending? That is what we are asking for…and we shall get it because we lack the wisdom to understand that just because we have the right to do something, doesn’t mean that it’s the greater part of wisdom to engage in it.
Focus on the Family is running this ad during the SuperBowl because that is when the viewership is greatest. Other special interest advocacy groups will now realize this as well. The result of that will be the social divisions within this country deepening even further, as less and less, will we be able to escape our fellow citizens screaming in our ear that their message is really, really important.
@ Doctor Zero:
I retract my citing your direct involvement in the suppression, but, you must admit, there would be the Conservative call for boycotts, rallies, and the pulling of that tasteless ad.
Nicely challenged, Doc.
@ Geoffrey Britain:
Excellent response! I think that all of us do agree that the Tebow’s have the absolute right to run the ad. I’m not certain, though, that these political messages will inundate our football; the reason that Focus on the Family has found this appropriate to air during the Super Bowl is because Tim Tebow, whom some call the greatest college football player of all time, was almost aborted. It connects to the football audience and, I believe, that his message will resonate strongly with a football audience. If other political groups attempted the same, without such a high-profile player, their message would not resonate at all.
@ DOne:
“I’m not certain, though, that these political messages will inundate our football; … If other political groups attempted the same, without such a high-profile player, their message would not resonate at all.”
I agree that given Tebow’s high-profile football achievements, his message may well be a particularly resonant one with football fans. However, the SuperBowl’s audience is arguably made up of far more non-football watchers than fans. For them, it is an excuse to attend a party and watch entertaining commercials. That is certainly the case with women watching the SuperBowl and at least short-term, that is the demographic that the ad is most interested in reaching with its message.
I think it highly predictable that now, political messages will gradually inundate sporting and entertainment events. Just as when Laurence Olivier, the premiere actor of his time, appearing in an Polaroid SX-70 commercial in 1972 opened the floodgates, as prior to Olivier’s endorsement, the paradigm was that no ‘serious movie actor’ would appear in a TV ad. There has been a similar unspoken agreement that certain venues, such as sporting and entertainment events
As for the ‘resonance’ issue, advocacy groups won’t care. As their primary interest in running an ad is reaching as many viewers with their message as possible.
Plus, football fan or not, we all ‘resonate’ to many issues, such as the abortion issue, who our collective choice for President shall be, immigration ‘reform’, etc. The ads will be endless because the argument is unceasing. Nor will it lessen. Voices will simply become more strident because now they shall invade previously sacrosanct venues.
Current affairs are never without interest and blogs such as this exist solely because that is so. If it’s not one thing, it will be another because whatever the ’cause’, it always demands expression.
Oops! trying to multitask too much.
Corrections:
“That is certainly the case with most women watching the SuperBowl” (There are of course plenty of women football fans. The SuperBowl however attracts many more women.)
“There has been a similar unspoken agreement that (at) certain venues, such as sporting and entertainment events” controversial subjects would not be allowed to impinge upon the venue or event. CBS and Focus on the Family have now broken that unwritten agreement; CBS out of economic interest and the freedom of speech issue and Dobson’s organization because their passion for the importance of their cause does not allow them to properly weigh other factors, such as the probable lessening of societal cohesion.
@Geoffrey Britain:
Your post made me think of something that I haven’t really seen discussed: Where is the NFL in all of this? I thought that they had some sort of consulting power re advertisements almost tantamount to a veto. Considering that the “No-Fun League” seems to prefer a vanilla line with slightly risque touches, I’m surprised that Roger Goodell hasn’t had a little talk with the CBS honchos.
@ loneloc:
I’ve been wondering the same thing. The NFL is a business and the last thing any business wants is for their customers to be upset about anything even remotely connected with them.
Dang … you guys are right. It hadn’t occurred to me re: Goodell and Focus on the Family, but a quick Google search returned a .mp3 file of crickets chirping. Maybe the NFL office thinks any sort of reaction to it is bound to upset somebody.
@ DOne:
Or, maybe Goodell realizes that this faux controversy will bring in another one million viewers.
@navtechie:
If it were anyone else, I’d agree without hesitation. However, “no such thing as bad publicity” has never seemed to be Goodell’s modus operandi . . . Still, I concede the possibility.