“My message to these groups who are inexplicably offended by a pro-woman, pro-child, pro-life message airing during the Super Bowl: please concentrate on empowering women, help with efforts to prevent unexpected pregnancies, stay consistent with your message that for too long women have been made to feel like sex objects in our ‘modern’ culture and that we can expect better in 2010.” – Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin corners NOW in the statement she made above. Stay consistent with your message Sarah preens.
NOW’s president responds:
“The goal of the Focus on the Family ad is not to empower women. It’s to create a climate in which Roe v. Wade can be overturned,” O’Neill said. “There are always going to be women who need abortions. In this country, one in three women will have an abortion. Focus on the Family has cynically set it up so they can say anyone who disagrees with airing this ad is disrespecting one woman and her choice. NOW respects every woman’s right to plan her own family and insists our laws do the same,” said O’Neill. – Politico
Dear NOW, run your own damn ad.
Is that so hard? Or can’t NOW raise the cash to put their own ad on the air? I think this question should be answered, because if not, it reveals what’s shifted in our culture recently that allowed Stupak to happen in the first place. The majority of women feel no threat that Roe will be overturned.
The vast majority of young women completely disinterested in the reproductive fight. When you look at the scientific advances on birth control, including the Morning After pill, women with means have what they need at their fingertips to take care of themselves.
The part of Sarah Palin’s message, however, that is ridiculous is that women can easily manifest having kids and a career without paying a price. Sarah has a lot of help, which isn’t the norm. On her Facebook page (also see Noogan’s diary “In the New”) she goes into great detail about it, joining the Mika Brzezinski in the You Can Have It All crowd that is not realistic at all. Life is about choices, with women paying when they choose “all of the above,” especially when it’s all at once (unless you happen to have Mika’s money).
As for the Super Bowl, any sports fan who thinks advocacy ads should be banned from the biggest day in football certainly have a gripe, though it’s hardly going to be the ruination of sports fun as we know it. Is this country so insane that people can’t ignore commercials anymore?
Also see Noogan’s diary “In the News.”
ManCrunch is trying to get into the action, though CBS hasn’t decided if gay guys making out in football jerseys is something that meets their standards, regardless of the big buck price tag it takes to be seen during the Super Bowl. (–update– CBS has rejected the ad.)
I suddenly can’t see the other comments. We’re socked in here in E. Tennessee with 8 inches and it’s coming down fast, so I’ll respond without seeing anyone else.
“Sarah preens?” Well, if you say so!
I’ve actually spoken my piece on this issue, and don’t feel strongly compelled to say much more except yeah, NOW, “run your own damn ad,” indeed!
I agree that women of “means” have more choices and it is not right.. But the point is that NOW should respect all “Choices” and not limit “women’s rights” to the “choice” of abortion; now I know, being an old-school feminist from the ERA days, that NOW isn’t *advocating* abortion; and I would defend to the death [seriously] the right of women to have control of their own bodies–that means the choice of abortion if it becomes necessary. I don’t believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned; and I don’t believe it will be. But, I also don’t believe that a “liberal litmus test” is helpful in NOW’s mission statement. Supporting women’s rights means supporting all women’s rights. We need to be clear about that.
It’s not about money; it’s about family. It’s about family support, in the event of an unplanned pregnancy, not money. That’s what makes the difference in the life of a young woman. In my own personal experience, a lower-middle class family can make a huge difference in the life of two teenagers who find themselves pregnant. So, kudos to Palin and her husband for supporting their daughter; and we should support all young women who need that kind of support in order to either make a decision to abort, or to make a decision to have the baby.
I’m all about supporting ALL women. Is NOW about supporting all women? I’m not so sure anymore…
Instead of having a hissy fit, pro-choice advocates should co-opt the message (on someone else’s dime) and point out that the ad strongly advocates and celebrates a women’s right to choose.
Unfortunately, they’ve taken the bait and will be accused of really being “pro-abortion” not “pro-choice”.
I think anyone who thinks ‘Mancrunch’ intended for their ad to be accepted is naive. That’s not the way things work these days. I doubt if they even had the money. It was purposely made ‘Hetero Yucky’ so it would be refused. They learned from PETA. By being refused, they will receive million$ in advertizing – absolutely free.
How many of you had even heard of that site? Honestly. When ABC, CBS, NBC, & FOX start talking about it as the bloggers are now – they will get *exactly* what they wanted – thousands of hits.
In the past supposedly “liberal” adds HAVE been refused. But this one is accepted. Hmmmmm. Double standard you say? Is the Pope an ex’Nazi?
“Supporting women’s rights means supporting all women’s rights. We need to be clear about that. ”
What an utter load of horse feces. Supporting rightwingUberchristian women’s right to undermine ALL womens’s reproductive rights? Riiiiiight, THAT’S supporting women’s rights alright!!
No, the Pope is not an ex- Nazi secular – but ya know I love you
Something is wrong here, guys. I can’t *believe* Taylor hasn’t commented on ‘Obama in the Lion’s Den’. This was MUCH bigger than the ‘State of the Union’.
pmichael
Yes it was
and much more heartening.
BTW
Pence on Hardball – repeatedly said that Dems accused Repubs of being the “party of no ideas” – Tweety said nothing. They are accused of being the party of “No” to anything proposed by Dems.
Yes, djjl, and he was KICKING ASS so badly that FOX cut it off !! (to wait for Republican reaction? Say WHAT ??? What the Hell were we looking at if it wasn’t “Republican reaction” ???)
This is a HUGE embarassment for the right wing – and people should be asking themselves, “Why was the Rightwing SO FRIGHTENED of facing ONE MAN that they didn’t want it to be broadcasted?”
I agree! I love him not using a prompter. I said in another thread it makes him much more human and effective.
Taylor might be just off having a life
Well pmichael because he was knocking down all the lies that the Fox boys have been spreading nightly.What do you want to bet they never allow another meeting to be televised?
Yes, it is the best I’ve felt about this President in a long, long time. It makes me think that my hopes for this President’s success can be realized.
Why wouldn’t Tweety knock down lies – was he concerned Pence wouldn’t come back? – was that more important than the truth?
What kind of ad from NOW would you imagine CBS would air during the Super Bowl? How could they do one less “divisive” than the United
church of Christ proposed ad of a few years ago?
Focus on the Family is toxic. Period. Frankly, I wonder how much of the story is true. But that’s me.
I am appalled be Focus on the Family – but I haven’t seen what the ad says – if it is simply “there is more than one choice” – I can’t see a problem.
Perhaps it is a “slipper slope” notion.
scuse me = “slippery slope”
—-if it is simply “there is more than one choice” – I can’t see a problem
I agree completely. The woman from NOW saying that it was hate masquerading as love, well that’s just hyperbole. I happen to believe abortion is killing but I think it should remain legal. Drop the Orwellian language about cell mass and controlling one’s body and admit that it’s ending life — but keep it legal because it’s a necessary option in a complicated, free society.
pmichael says:
29 January 2010 at 8:54 pm
As I told everyone months ago, I’m in the middle of a huge project. It takes precedence over everything, which I said it would come first of the year.
Anyone can post “In the News” anything they want when I’m off working. I encourage it!
i loved what obama did today and felt energized as a dem for the time in many months. i think yall will find this quote from fdr really awesome:
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, Oct. 26, 1939
Hey t4h… I’ll have something on it in a bit…
I agree pro-choice means supporting a women’s right to choose – it doesn’t mean shutting down all other opinions of what the right choice is. It does make these groups look pro-abortion instead of pro-woman’s rights.
In a controversial ad, Pam Tebow reportedly shares the story of her difficult 1987 pregnancy which occurred when she was working as a missionary in the Philippines. In her harrowing tale she says she fell ill with amoebic dysentery while pregnant and was treated with robust antibiotics, which she says doctors told her had caused fetal damage, prompting them to urge her to terminate her pregnancy, but she refused their advice that she have an abortion for her own safety. Going on to give birth to Tebow, the now-famous quarterback who went on to become a Heisman Trophy winner, leading the Gators to two BCS wins.
This story, says Gloria Allred, is totally made up.
One… fact [is] that the act of abortion is totally illegal in the majority Catholic country of the Philippines – under all circumstances including rape and incest, and even without a provision in the circumstance that the mother’s life is in danger. The law has been in effect since 1930.
Allred says she believes it an impossible scenario to believe that Philippino doctors would of ever suggested abortion as a viable option for Tebow in the first place. And when you learn that physicians and midwives who perform abortions in the Philippines face six years in prison, and may have their licenses suspended or revoked, and that women who receive abortions – no matter the reason – may be punished with imprisonment for two to six years, it’s easy to see why.
daubry put an In the News diary up on it:
http://www.taylormarsh.com/2010/01/29/ruh-roh-tim-tebow-super-bowl-ad-may-be-based-on-falsehood/