Isn't it nice Tim Tebow's mom was given the CHOICE not to have an abortion?

[Drunken Irishman]

[MadBadger]

1. I thought she wasnt given the choice.

At least in the eyes of the law.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Yeah, I don't have that story straight

but if abortion was illegal where she was doesn't that put a big ole hole in the commercial?

[FLDCVADem]

4. No

Abortions take place in the Phillipines just like they do everywhere else, illegal or not. And she wasn't a prisoner - she could have left at any time to go back to the U.S. to procure an abortion if she had wanted to do so.

[Bolo Boffin]

3. Probably she was being encouraged to go somewhere she could get an abortion.

That's my take on it.

[murielm99]

5. Abortion was illegal when my mother became pregnant

at an inopportune time. She considered abortion anyway, or so she says.

She tells me that she went ahead and had my brother despite her misgivings. I tell her that she only proves my point. She made a choice. Other women are entitled to the same choice.

I am glad that she is now too old to stand outside of abortion clinics and pester people. She made me ashamed when she did that.

[LiberalFighter]

6. So she made the choice to have it.

She apparently had given thought to aborting.

[ChicagoSuz219]

7. She was very ill and her doctor advised it...

...she said No. That's basically the gist of the commercial. She was lucky they both didn't die.

If you go over to HuffPost, Jimmy Kimmel has a very funny take on the commercial.

[immoderate]

9. I couldn't find Jimmy at HuffPo

Got a link? :hi:

--imm

[ChicagoSuz219]

11. Your wish is granted...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/05/jimmy-kimmels-rebuttal-to_n_451185.html

[immoderate]

31. Thanks.

--imm

[davidpdx]

8. I just hope neither of my teams draft this nitwit

I want to root against him. I'll publically put up $5 for each sack someone gets on him to PP when he gets to the NFL.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Tebow will flop in the NFL.

He doesn't have the arm to get it done.

[WeDidIt]

12. With my luck, the Bears will pick him up.

:evilfrown:

[davidpdx]

30. I'll cross my fingers for you that they don't

Hoping the Niners and Raiders won't.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

13. His mother had No Choice. He was born in the Philippines where

abortion is illegal.

This whole thing is a bunch of bullshit.

[Obamanaut]

14. illegal =/= not done. At one time in the US, abortions were illegal, yet

they were done.

In the PI, the same situation exists - they are performed. I realize that facts will not change the belief of the Tebow-haters, but abortions are performed, and have been, in the Philippines.



<snip>Studies from the 1970s onward have shown that despite the law's severity, abortion appears to be widely practiced.6 Evidence from the mid-1990s indicates that Filipino women of all social classes and backgrounds are having induced abortions.7 They do so under varying circumstances, ranging from safe medical procedures performed for better-off women by trained personnel to procedures in extremely unsafe conditions for poor women who cannot afford to pay for a surgical abortion. The evidence of a survey of health professionals in the mid-1990s suggests that about one-third of women seeking an abortion obtain it from a doctor or nurse, but a high proportion of women consult traditional practitioners or attempt to induce the abortion themselves.


<snip>In 2000, an estimated 78,900 women were hospitalized for postabortion care, 473,400 women had abortions and the abortion rate was 27 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 per year. The national abortion rate changed little between 1994 and 2000; however, large increases occurred in metropolitan Manila (from 41 to 52) and Visayas (from 11 to 17). The proportions of unplanned births and unintended pregnancies increased substantially in Manila, and the use of traditional contraceptive methods increased in Manila and Visayas.


<more at link> http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3114005.html

What is so fascinating about the tenacity with which the Tebow haters hang onto this 'illegal so it couldn't be true', the tenacity with which the 'Obama birth certificate seekers' hold onto their argument is ridiculed right here in this very forum. And it's the same - facts do not deter either group.

[FLDCVADem]

16. Spot on observation at the end of your post n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

18. In your facts, 78,900 women were HOSPITALIZED for post abortion care.

Yeah, let's bring the back alley hanger abortions here! Yippee!

[Obamanaut]

20. Read closely both posts - yours, and mine. That is a whole lot of

abortions for a place you contend have none due to their laws.

By the way, not my facts. I posted the link. Read it. Or not. But remember, every time one of the folks who keeps saying there are none, actually, there are. Really.

Like the guy in the movie said "You can't handle the truth."

edited to repost this

What is so fascinating about the tenacity with which the Tebow haters hang onto this 'illegal so it couldn't be true', the tenacity with which the 'Obama birth certificate seekers' hold onto their argument is ridiculed right here in this very forum. And it's the same - facts do not deter either group.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

23. May I ask you why you're so hostile? Actually, in my reply to another poster below,

I did admit that illegal abortions are performed and even that my mother had one.

BTW... as a point of fact, calling other DUers "haters" can now be a reason for having a post deleted.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7623624

[Obamanaut]

25. alert on it if it makes you happy nt

[Lyric]

21. But doctors don't advise abortion when it's illegal.

At least not if they want to keep from going to jail. Advising illegal marijuana for the sake of relieving pain is one thing, but advising an act that the Philippines legally defines as murder? Not effing likely. I think she's lying her ass off, personally.

[Obamanaut]

22. Did you read the whole post, or the link provided? There must be

some advising or there wouldn't be so many procedures.

I'll repost this

What is so fascinating about the tenacity with which the Tebow haters hang onto this 'illegal so it couldn't be true', the tenacity with which the 'Obama birth certificate seekers' hold onto their argument is ridiculed right here in this very forum. And it's the same - facts do not deter either group.

[Lyric]

26. What an enormous assumption!

There's a great, big, fat difference between a doctor or nurse agreeing to perform a REQUESTED illegal abortion and a doctor ADVISING an illegal abortion to someone who HADN'T requested one. Doing the latter would put a doctor at an incredible risk--how would he or she know that their patient wasn't a staunch pro-lifer who'd march straight from the doctor's office to the police and report him?

Your post addresses only the fact that there are medical professionals in the Philippines who will perform them illegally when asked. It is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether or not a doctor is likely to ADVISE an illegal abortion to a woman who was NOT seeking one.

Now, proceed to backtrack and sputter and try to equate the two. You'll fail, but it will be amusing after your snotty condescension.

[Obamanaut]

28. So you don't think it is possible that a medical professional listed

various options in order to assure the patient's own survival, including abortion?

It does not necessarily follow that the doctor suggested he or any of his peers would perform such a service, merely that it was a consideration.

If such a patient were then to request such a service and the doctor chose not to participate, is it remotely possible that the aforementioned patient could fly to some other place? Air travel was available, even in the 80s, you know.

I think many people just want to glom onto the one little word, illegal, and then wrap their whole being around 'she must have lied.'

[csziggy]

27. Maybe in some places where abortion is illegal it is permitted when medically advised

Even before Roe v. Wade, medically advisable abortions were performed. And if a woman was well to do, or her parents were, medically 'necessary' abortions were often performed. It was just poor women who were truly penalized for having sex.

It is appalling that in this country where abortion is supposed to be legal, so many procedures that are medically advisable are hard to get - or even prohibited in some areas.

As far as Tebow is concerned, his mother had the choice and she is rightly condemned for trying to keep other women from having a choice.

[FLDCVADem]

15. Yeah, because abortions never happen when they're illegal n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

19. Yes, and in fact my mother had an illegal abortion back in the 40's between my sister and brother.

That was her Choice, albeit illegal, and then she CHOSE to have me, 6 years after my brother.

Luckily my parents had the money to obtain an abortion from a very respected Gynecologist who believed back then in CHOICE and risked his career to make it happen.

[Obamanaut]

24. So one CAN do illegal stuff when it's illegal. Imagine that. nt

[CTyankee]

29. has it occurred to you that she was scared out of her mind at the thought of an illegal

abortion? Do you have any idea of how risky it is to go ahead and get an abortion in a country where abortion is strictly banned? Have you not read of the women who were forced to let their abortionist essentially rape them as part of the deal of doing the abortion? And that's the least of it. Bleeding to death was not uncommon and if you DID get to a hospital and they determined the cause was from the illegal act of abortion, you could face jail time (in the Philippines).

And yes, if you have the money, you can "get on a plane" and go to the U.S. or somewhere else where abortion was legal. What if she didn't have the money? Do you have any IDEA of what it would cost?

Look, I don't hate Tebow or his mother. I'm perfectly OK with her decision to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, despite the risk of dying in childbirth (altho it does seem to me she might not have thought thru the whole thing a little more -- the fetus would die with her). I trust the decision that women make about their own reproductive status and health. That is what CHOICE means. But what does disturb me is the strong indication that she has lied about a choice she really didn't have in her zealotry around this issue. But I can even understand THAT. She really, really believes in this, it is her crusade. And I must admit that zealots make me nervous.

I say we let this go. The state will not totter...

[superduperfarleft]

17. Actually, I find it incredibly unfortunate that she wasn't forced to have an abortion.

I kid, I kid...