A Story of Life - "A Mass of Fetal Tissue" - A Heisman Trophy

I heard about this story on 1/25/10. The story is being told in an advertisement placed during the NFL's Superbowl on the CBS Broadcasting Network. The ad was produced by and paid for by the Christian group Focus on the Family. The cost to place the ad is reportedly about $2 million dollars, all of which has been paid for by donors to Focus on the Family who donated specifically for this project. Almost immediately after hearing this story, a twist was filtered through and given center stage in mainstream media - certain groups that claim to advocate on behalf of women, and groups that call themselves "pro-choice" were raising a ruckus about the ad. Though, representatives from such groups admit they had not seen the ad ... they were opposed to it. In fact, the only ones that had seen the ad were those involved in its production and some Focus on the Family staff. CBS had reviewed a script and determined the ad met whatever guidelines CBS imposes. What is interesting is that the groups that oppose the ad oppose it - without having seen it or having reviewed scripts or poster boards, mind you - because it comes from a Christian group and is NOT supportive of abortion. These groups call themselves "pro-choice" but seem to really struggle with individuals who choose life instead of, well, another "choice". Rather than make a fuss over ads that undoubtedly will air during the game which reduce women to nothing but play things for men and exploit them as objects useful to sell product - these groups choose to fuss over (the personal and private decisions they say they defend) of the family told in this story. Rather than fuss over domestic abuse against women, these "pro-women, pro-choice" groups want to vilify one woman, one family, and one man for making a choice. Very telling indeed.

***

In the mid-1980s, Pam and her husband Bob, were Christian missionaries in the Philippines and raising four young children. While abroad, she contracted amoebic dysentery, which is typically transmitted through contaminated food or water. During this time she became pregnant with her fifth child. The treatment for the dysentery would require strong medications that doctors told Pam would cause irreversible damage to the little baby she and her husband had already named “Timmy”; they advised her to have an abortion.

Pam refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians predicted. She and her husband prayed to God and promised that they would raise the boy to be a Christian and a preacher.

Doctors continued to counsel the mother and family to abort the baby, describing the child as “a mass of fetal tissue and not a baby". She spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and, eventually, gave birth to a health baby boy in August 1987.

Little Timmy, now a man, did grow into a preacher with a ministry to prison inmates and orphans. Veteran sports commentators gush, not only about Timmy’s fearlessness on the football field, but also about his off-the-field endeavors. Little Timmy is Tim Tebow the University of Florida quarterback, who became the first sophomore to ever receive the prized college football honor, the Heisman trophy.

In Florida he has become a role model garnering so much affection that the local fans like to joke that "Superman wears Tim Tebow pajamas." In Alabama, there is even a Tim Tebow bill in the legislature which would afford home scholars (Tebow and his siblings were all home-schooled) equal access to public-school sports programs and extracurricular activities.

As prominent researcher Joel Brind writes in a LifeNews.com editorial, doctors are frequently telling women they should consider abortions when confronted with various medical situations affecting their health. Yet, as he notes, physicians can successfully treat both mother and child without suggesting that the baby be killed to spare a mother's life.

Read more about the work of Dr. Brind at http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/

REVISION - AFTER AIRING OF THE AD

Seriously, so what was the fuss about? Now, the same groups that opposed the ad prior to its airing are complaining it was too violent, because through a sight gag the appearance is given that Tim Tebow tackles his mother in a football blocking style. Are the same groups complaining about the ad that aired just before this one, in which, a facsimile of actress Betty White was tackled? The ad was well done with a tag to visit the Focus on the Family website for more of the Tebow family story. The ad can be viewed at numerous sites found through a quick search through many familiar search engines.