Focus on Your Family: The pro-life case for pregnancy termination.

[G_j]

http://www.slate.com/id/2244381/

Focus on Your FamilyThe pro-life case for pregnancy termination.
By William SaletanPosted Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010, at 8:31 AM ET

Tim TebowFocus on the Family certainly knows how to stir up an abortion debate. For two weeks, the country was buzzing about the group's Super Bowl ad. The ad, which featured college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, was expected to be preachy and controversial. Then Sunday arrived, and the commercial aired. What a letdown! Tim hugged his mom, they smiled, they said sweet things about love and family. Not a word about abortion. Liberals shrugged and moved on.

But wait a minute. Let's throw a challenge flag and review the video. The 30-second spot that ran on TV was just a teaser. It drew people to the Focus on the Family web site. There, Focus has posted a much longer follow-up video in which its president, Jim Daly, interviews Tim's parents, Pam and Bob Tebow. That's where you'll find the abortion preaching we were expecting in the TV ad.

<snip>
In a previous account, Pam said she had been diagnosed with placental abruption, a premature—and often dangerous or lethal—detachment of the placenta from the uterine wall. In the Focus interview, Bob confirms that the abruption was serious. When Tim was born, "There was a great big clump of blood that came out where the placenta wasn't properly attached basically for the whole nine months," he says. "He was a miracle baby."


A severe abruption in a 37-year-old high-risk patient in the Philippine countryside in 1987 could easily have killed her. It's hardly surprising that Pam's doctor recommended an abortion to protect her life. But Pam said no. "We were determined to trust the Lord with the children that he would give us," she calmly explains in the interview. "And if God called me to give up my life, then He would take care of my family."

Wow. She was ready to sacrifice her life—and leave her children motherless—to give her fetus a chance at birth. That's serious commitment. But this isn't just a story. It's a message. Looking into the camera, Bob Tebow delivers the closing plea to women contemplating abortion: "Don't kill your baby."
..more..

[LiberalFighter]

1. Maybe that clump of blood was Tebow's twin?

[midnight]

2. Can you imagine that we could get help without accessing lots of preaching first.

[customerserviceguy]

3. Nope, it didn't get anyone other than the fundies to FOTF

The rest of us just reached into the bowl for another handful of chips.

Where FOTF got its bang for the buck was in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. They waved the red flag in front of progressives, got a big reaction, then the letdown of the "Is that all there is?" when the commercial aired.

They tossed out the bait, and many of us bit. The best thing to have done was to ignore the whole thing.

[Maru Kitteh]

6. I disagree. I think silence always equals permission.

I absolutely agree that most people just headed for the John or reached over for some more chips. But I"m glad it did not go by without protest.

[customerserviceguy]

10. Permission for what?

For the right to free speech? They've already got it with the First Amendment.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. You know, when I had my abortion 33 years ago, I still held a belief in God. Since I had been

taking a dreadfully harmful to fetuses drug, I think I did exactly the same thing that Pam Tebow did. I trusted God with the 'child' and he told me for the sake of my living son, to abort.

[lame54]

5. here is the flip-side to that argument...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_8NwD9_EVA

[Maru Kitteh]

7. Many people, myself included will never follow a link without any explanation

to accompany it. I dislike surprises.

[lame54]

8. enough will - so it's cool

[lame54]

9. i guess it depends on who's posting it...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7690853