Focus on This

So the Tebow family Super Bowl ad turned out to be not nearly as scary as some pro-choice groups feared. (CBS is still full of it, though.) The commercial's main purpose seems to be to drive people to Focus on the Family's Web site, where anyone unfamiliar with Focus on the Family will read about their positions, say "WTF? Ew..." and promptly go back to watching Danica Patrick not win races. (Seriously, check out the positions. You'll come for the common-sense advice about disciplining children, but you'll stay for the persecution of environmental advocates and the loony-tunes gay-bashing!)

(Speaking of WTF... Why, in the commercial, does "Timmy" tackle his own mother? For one thing, a QB usually only tackles someone when there's been a turnover and the ball's going the other way, which doesn't speak too highly to Tebow's awesome QBing ability... But mainly, WTF? Why is he tackling his mother???)

I feel like the only pro-choice feminist in America who didn't flip out when the ad was announced. I was, and am, disappointed that someone I think of as a role model would associate himself with those nutcase bigots at Focus on the Family, but hey, it's a free country. And I think the Tebows have every right to their opinion about abortion, as much as I disagree with it. Legitimately pro-life people, who think that abortion is tragic and who therefore work to prevent it through improving support for families and promoting contraception, don't bother me at all. (It's the "pro-life" people who want to reduce abortions by pushing government intervention in private decisions, murdering doctors and harassing women at clinics that, in my humble opinion, can go frak themselves.)

In case you've been under a rock lately, here's the gist: Back in 1987, pregnant Pam Tebow was doing mission work in the Philippines when she contracted dysentery or something awful, and – according to her – doctors warned her that the medicine she’d been given could cause birth defects. She decided to go on and have the baby despite the risk to him and herself. Not only was the child born healthy, he grew up to be Heisman Trophy-winning college QB Tim Tebow. Hugs all around.

I’m just thrilled to death that everything turned out fine for the Tebow family. Pam Tebow exercised an informed choice, fully aware of the possible negative consequences of that choice. As it happens, she did so while living in a country where abortion has been illegal since 1930, so it’s debatable how things would’ve turned out had she decided to terminate the pregnancy after all. Pam Tebow can talk all she wants about her choice, but effectively, women in the Philippines don’t have one.

Here’s the thing, though. Stories like this, at least in the way they’re told, seem to say that Pam Tebow doesn’t really care that I’m happy for her. Just like when Sarah Palin drags out her youngest son (who has Down syndrome) like he’s Simba at the beginning of “The Lion King,” the implication is that those of us who support reproductive freedom are “pro-abortion.” That we’re trawling the streets looking for pregnant women to haul to the clinic. That we’re just fuming that baby Tim came out okay and grew to be a healthy adult. That when Palin decided (um, chose) to have her youngest son even after she was aware of his Down syndrome, that we were all “CURSES!” like the villain in a Scooby Doo cartoon.

And that really pisses me off. It’s insulting. It’s a scare tactic. Just because I want to help protect the right of women who CHOOSE to have an abortion doesn’t mean that I’m actively rooting for more of them.

Within the last year, both my aunt/uncle unit and my oldest friend had their first children. From the moment that each told me they were expecting, I thought of them as parents, and of their still-incubating fetuses as children. If something had happened with either pregnancy, I would’ve been devastated. And I deeply resent – to the point where this pacifist will punch anyone who suggests differently – the idea that I didn’t feel this way.

So, if you're in the pro-life camp, this is what I want you to think about: I do not disagree with Pam Tebow or the choice she made. I could not be happier that things turned out well for her, and I have no doubt that she would love her son even if he weren’t Tim Tebow ™.

But I also want you to think about the reasons people like me are pro-choice, and support reproductive rights. For me, it’s because I think that no one – not a government, not a hospital administrator – should determine a family’s reproductive decisions other than that family. If outside entities can tell women what they can or can’t do, who’s to say that will stop at abortion? Hey, if, say, a government can tell a women she CAN’T get an abortion, what’s to stop it from saying a woman MUST get an abortion?

What about this scenario? Pam Tebow’s insurance company looks at an actuarial table that shows that a baby born under her particular set of conditions will have X birth defect 72.6 percent of the time, leading to death of mother and /or child 52.3 percent of the time. Therefore, she simply must terminate the pregnancy. If she refuses, she’s on her own for her and her son’s medical expenses. Maybe her family is permanently un-insurable. Maybe she’s even prosecuted for negligence.

It’s not farfetched. Families are already being booted off their insurance. Hospitals are already telling women how they may give birth. Or else. And we want to get Congress involved?

That’s what I want you to think about. Reproductive freedom is about so much more than access to abortion. It’s about more than one family’s experiences. Once you open the door to someone other than a family determine what’s best for that family, you can’t close it.