Tim Tebow and the anti-choice ad

[lightningandsnow]

To read the mainstream media spin in the Tim Tebow / anti-abortion ad controversy, you’d think that us Hysterical Feminists ™ were at it again, getting whipped into a censor-happy frenzy just because some lady decided to have a baby.

The issue, though, isn’t that we disagree with Pam Tebow’s choice (although it’s worth pointing out that she had a choice she now wishes to take away from other women, and that the choice she made — to continue a pregnancy after she became ill while on a mission trip in the Phillipines — isn’t actually available to most women in the Phillipines, where abortion is illegal and most procedures happen clandestinely); it isn’t that we don’t think anti-choice ads should be allowed on the air; it isn’t that we think anti-choice views should be censored. It’s that CBS has, for the past few years, regularly rejected ads from left-of-center organizations — MoveOn.org, PeTA, and the United Church of Christ. CBS was clear that it did not accept ads on contentious or controversial subjects such as, apparently, democracy, animal rights and gay rights. But an ad about abortion, from Focus on the Family — one of the most radical, right-leaning organizations out there? Apparently totally fine.

That’s why pro-choice and lefty folks were angry and calling for this ad to be pulled. I personally think those calls were not the best strategy, and that we should have focused on trying to buy our own ad, but that opportunity has passed. Even though I don’t support CBS pulling the ad, I am floored at the hypocrisy of their shifting standards. It also adds insult to injury that this ad is being aired during the Superbowl — not a “man’s event” by any real measure, but an event that is widely perceived to be All About Men. It just feels a little shameless and extra offensive to run an ad that forwards an anti-woman political position at an event where the advertising has traditionally focused on Stuff Dudes Like (beer, trucks and titties, for the most part).

More at: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/02/02/tim-tebow-and-the-anti-choice-superbowl-ad/