Tim Tebow's Anti-Abortion Ad

Tim Tebow is scheduled to appear on a televised ad during the Super Bowl that is sponsored by the ultraconservative, very politically active group Focus on the Family. In it, Tebow will relate how his mother, in the late stages of her pregnancy with Tim, had been advised by her physician in the Philippines that her life was in peril if she tried to bring her pregnancy to term, with an abortion as the recommended option. She chose instead to risk giving birth, and here we are now with Tim Tebow, apparently wanting to advise other women in the same dire circumstances to make the same choice against their doctor's recommendations. I wonder whether the University of Florida star quarterback realizes exactly what he is doing with his ad.

After all, we are not even discussing here the issue that has made the "choice" vs. "life" debate such a divisive controversy in America: the use of abortion as a means of birth control by women who don't want to have a baby or be pregnant, for whatever personal reasons they may have. We are instead talking here about women who want to have children, who want to give birth, who have already formed an emotional bond with that child forming within them, and who, at the time of a physician's painful advice, are torn apart by what may seem to be an impossible no-win choice. Tim Tebow's mother made her choice, and it was properly hers to make. We're all happy that mother and baby both survived in this case. But does Tebow think that his example automatically carries over to other women in similar straits, morally obligating them to make the same choice his mother made and providing them with the same rosy outcome if the "right" choice is made? And speaking of "choice", doesn't Tebow realize that his message's sponsor, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, wants to take away that choice and put it in the hands of the State?

All that having been said, I don't have a problem with CBS airing serious ads that discuss issues during the Super Bowl. I for one am sick of the ridiculous and quite unentertaining commercials that saturate that event. I could stand a few issue-based spots, thank you. And since CBS is catering to James Dobson, how about allowing other advocacy messages as well (such as that United Church's very modest ad they rejected a few years ago that welcomed the LGBT community into its doors)?

But back to Tim Tebow, who seems like a nice enough guy to me. Will it be worth it all to him if women with dangerous complications in the last stages of their pregnancies take his advice, with some them dying for it? Will he feel that he had done "good" overall and, oh well, you can't win 'em all? Will he cry for the women who die like he cried on the sidelines when his football team lost to Alabama? I doubt that "Doctor" Dobson would feel any remorse or regret over the unintended consequences of this message. Is Tim Tebow really that kind of a "Christian"? Say it ain't so, Tim!