I'll start just by sharing chunks of what I find quite refreshing, especially coming from a prochoice writer:
I'll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won't endear me to the "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep," otherwise known as DOLL, but I'll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on.
....
Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow .... got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she [didn't take their advice to abort] and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.
Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. ....
Here's what we do need a lot more of: Tebows. Collegians who are selfless enough to choose not to spend summers poolside, but travel to impoverished countries to dispense medical care to children, as Tebow has every summer of his career. Athletes who believe in something other than themselves, and are willing to put their backbone where their mouth is. ....
You know what we really need more of? Famous guys who aren't embarrassed to practice sexual restraint, and to say it out loud. If we had more of those, women might have fewer abortions. See, the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancy is to not get the sperm in the egg and the egg implanted to begin with, and that is an issue for men, too -- and they should step up to that.
....
Trouble is, you can't focus on the game without focusing on the individuals who play it -- and that is the genius of Tebow's ad. The Super Bowl is not some reality-free escape zone. Tebow himself is an inescapable fact: Abortion doesn't just involve serious issues of life, but of potential lives, Heisman trophy winners, scientists, doctors, artists, inventors, Little Leaguers -- who would never come to be if their birth mothers had not wrestled with the stakes and chosen to carry those lives to term. And their stories are every bit as real and valid as the stories preferred by NOW.
Let me be clear again: I couldn't disagree with Tebow more. .... But I don't care that we differ. .... CBS owns its broadcast and can run whatever advertising it wants, and Tebow has a right to express his beliefs publicly. Just as I have the right to reject or accept them after listening -- or think a little more deeply about the issues. If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.
My only real beef is, that like so many other abortion supporters, Ms. Jenkins somehow has it in her head that the availability of legal abortion somehow enabled Pam Tebow to carry her baby to term. Which makes as much sense as saying that the availability of alcohol enables people to drive sober. The prochoice movement did not invent childbirth, as much as they seem to want to claim credit for it.
HT: JJ
Obama's desire to repeal "Don't ask, don't tell" can actually help to fulfill the "days of Lot" (Luke 17, cf. Gen. 19), the fulfillment of which will hurry up the return of the Heavenly Commander-in-Chief who will make all things straight (pun intended)! Interesting Google articles include "Obama Supports Public Depravity," "Separation of Raunch and State" and "David Letterman's Hate Etc."
ReplyDeleteFor some dessert visit Yahoo and type in "Obama Avoids Bible Verses."
PS - You're invited to use these new pro-life slogans: "Unborn babies should have the right to keep and bear arms - and legs and ears and eyes etc.!" and "Unborn babies should have the same right to be born alive that abortionists had!"
Christina could them not wanting to air the advert with the abstinence message be about the fact that abstinence based programs do not work and they have been proven to raise teen pregnancy rates. Their was a daily kos post about it this week.
ReplyDeleteLil, just because abstinence programs don't have 10% success rate doesn't mean they don't work. And they're hampered by the fact that the kids are getting constant messages from Pill pushers saying that they can't possibly exercise self control.
ReplyDeletePill-pushers have a dog in this fight -- they make their money from what? Teen sexual activity! They make their money from STD tests and treatments, from dispensing contraceptives, from abortion. NONE OF WHICH YOU CAN SELL TO A VIRGIN.
Follow the money.
Actually, a recent study (of the highest quality) concluded that abstinence-only interventions may prevent teen sex.
ReplyDeleteKathy seriously, the study is based on teenager say so. If I as a teenager sat thru hours of no sex education I would also say "I didn't do it - nope not me" when asked.
ReplyDeleteIts a bit like bristol palin fronting candies saying "I'm going to keep my celibacy promise this time -
I promise" what will she say next, "oops I did it again".
The point is not to stop teenagers having sex - something they are programmed to do- its to stop them falling pregnant or getting a disease so by all means bring on the birth control pills or injections or coils and condoms and papilloma virus injections and anything money can buy to reduce teenage pregnancy and abortions.
"something they are programmed to do"
ReplyDeleteI was a teenager at one time. I didn't do what I was programmed to do. Was it because I had a virus that destroyed my programming? I wonder...
Lilliput, what do you think the other studies relied on?? Not to say that I've read all the studies, but I have read the abstracts of several and the full text of at least one (perhaps more, but it's been quite some time, so I don't want to mislead), and in all of them -- even the precious ones you'd point to, to "prove" that AOE doesn't work -- have been based on questionnaires filled out by the kids.
ReplyDeleteIf you know of studies that measure whether AOE vs. "comprehensive" sex-education by some means other than by asking the kids, feel free to link to them. I'm not saying they can't exist, just that I know of none. And I also don't know how they're going to test the kids' activities or attitudes without asking them.
Peer pressure is a powerful thing. If we're giving kids the message, "Everybody's doing it. Only retrograde throwback neanderthal fundie homophobe hatemongers are virgins when they get married." then of course they'll rut like weasels.
ReplyDeleteIf we teach them to value themselves and their bodies and to cultivate self respect, even those that DO succumb to the lure of hormones will delay first intercourse and will have sex less often.
The "All kids are naturally sluts; they can't help it" is insulting to teenagers. Not all kids are raging balls of hormones with no morals or brains.
Segamon - I myself managed to navigate adolescence without losing my cherry but I was in a very conservative and religious school where a biy and girl weren't allowed in the same room together - never mind to touch.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I did fool around and I'm just lucky the guys I was with understood the meaning of no. Suffice to say, I was on the pill and have been since I was 16 for my acne.
The acne has cleared and with adulthood I understand that not everybody has as strict parents as I do and for those whose parents themselves had children out of wedlock, they obviously are not going to have the same attitudes to sex that I was brought up with and as such - we have to tell them to do it with a condom if they want to do it. To do otherwise would be negligent.
Lilli, although I was raised as a Catholic, my youth was much different than your own.
ReplyDeleteMy parents were not strict with me. I could have gone out to big parties and had sex secretly but I chose not to.
I went to public school my entire life. As a sixth grader I was ridiculed for not understanding what a virgin was. As a high schooler, I was ridiculed for remaining a virgin and not getting drunk with friends. I experienced peer pressure and I could have certainly caved to it. I had an older brother who was much into drugs, alcohol, and sex. I chose not to be involved. I had self restraint.
Why, oh why would a mindless teenager not do sex, drugs, and alcohol? The reason is because I educated myself regarding the topic from top to bottom. I realized the psychology and biology behind sexual relationships. I knew that even with "protection" that I would not be fully protected. I knew that I wanted to give my entire self to a future wife and to ensure that I could be the best damn father I could be for whatever future children I would have.
I wasn't selfish and dumb. Teenagers do not have to be selfish and dumb. Their bodies do not have to control their every action. They do have brains (believe it or not).
Segamon that is very admirable of you but you have to understand that not everyone is like you. They might see sex differently or they might not find their partner until their thirties or forties in which case waiting is not possible. There are major psychological issues - not to mention pathalogical issues that come about due to repression of sex and this is seen in the Church itself.
ReplyDeleteAnd to add a point about teenage brains - remember that at puberty they go thru a pruning process - the same as what happens at age 2. This is what can get in the way of good choices and stopping impulsive and risk taking behavior