What a thoughtful editorial on a sensitive issue. Thank you.
There are commercials all the time that take moralistic overtones. What about the anti-smoking commercials that show how smoking threatens the life and health of an unborn child? They are strident and piercing in their depiction of the fetus taking smoke into its lungs and being harmed. They do not care who they offend. They want to get their point made in the most graphic way that they can.
And I can see why it's airing during the Super Bowl. Tim Tebow was one of the, if not THE, most celebrated college football players of the recent season and will no doubt be a first-round draft choice this spring. If someone wants to pay him to be in a commercial, if he wants to be in that commercial, and if that organization has the money to buy a Super Bowl spot, it's a free country -- and a capitalistic one -- and all those things are allowed.
However, the women I feel bad for are those women who also were pregnant, who also were told by their doctors that they should terminate their pregnancies for health reasons, and who followed their doctors' advice. Those women may now be thinking, "if I hadn't done what my doctor said to do, I might have a healthy 22-year-old child who would be a success in life." They now can be made to feel guilty in all number of new ways: Look what you could have had if you just didn't have an abortion! Look what a fool you were to follow your doctor's advice! You made the wrong decision! Look how big a mistake you made!
And to me, that's the most insensitive part of all.
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Hi, Anna,
What a thoughtful editorial on a sensitive issue. Thank you.
There are commercials all the time that take moralistic overtones. What about the anti-smoking commercials that show how smoking threatens the life and health of an unborn child? They are strident and piercing in their depiction of the fetus taking smoke into its lungs and being harmed. They do not care who they offend. They want to get their point made in the most graphic way that they can.
And I can see why it's airing during the Super Bowl. Tim Tebow was one of the, if not THE, most celebrated college football players of the recent season and will no doubt be a first-round draft choice this spring. If someone wants to pay him to be in a commercial, if he wants to be in that commercial, and if that organization has the money to buy a Super Bowl spot, it's a free country -- and a capitalistic one -- and all those things are allowed.
However, the women I feel bad for are those women who also were pregnant, who also were told by their doctors that they should terminate their pregnancies for health reasons, and who followed their doctors' advice. Those women may now be thinking, "if I hadn't done what my doctor said to do, I might have a healthy 22-year-old child who would be a success in life." They now can be made to feel guilty in all number of new ways: Look what you could have had if you just didn't have an abortion! Look what a fool you were to follow your doctor's advice! You made the wrong decision! Look how big a mistake you made!
And to me, that's the most insensitive part of all.
February 4, 2010 - 8:21amThis Comment
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