Sherry Chandler

Advocacy

I have been reading in Fooling With Words, a book of interviews Bill Moyers had with poets at the Geraldine R. Dodge Festival over a decade ago.

This moning I was reading his interview with Marge Piercy. Moyers asked her whether her poems about the “grittiness of life” come from her own experiences, her years of working as a clerk, a switchboard operator, a secretary. Piercy answers:

No more so than growing up in the center of Detroit and losing a good friend to heroin when I was fifteen. No more than being in the movement against the Vietnam War and experiencing the violence of the government’s willingness to use force against people who dissent. No more than packing a woman with ice so she wouldn’t bleed to death because a doctor wouldn’t help her when abortions were illegal.

There is more to this passage, and Piercy ends by affirming life, as she does in her poetry, but reading that last sentence reminded me what life used to be like for women and how the radical right wants it to be again.

I have been very discouraged lately about the state of the world and feeling powerless to do anything about it. So I had vowed to stick to my poetry and stay out of the culture wars. That I didn’t need to say anything about this Focus on the Family Tebow ad that’s scheduled for the Super Bowl and that my signing yet another e-mail petition was just another meaningless powerless gesture.

But reading Piercy convinced me that I need to speak out, even though my soapbox is small. Anyway, today is the birthday of Betty Friedan, founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, a good day to speak out in support of a woman’s right to choose.

In case you’ve been living in Lower Slobovia, here’s the deal:

Focus on the Family, that paragon of “righteous” bigotry, has landed a coveted 30-second TV spot during the game that is expected to deliver an anti-abortion message, and the Women’s Media Center, with the support of several reproductive rights organizations, has kicked off a campaign for CBS to ban the ad.

Here’s what we know so far about the ad: It features star college quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, sharing “a personal story centered on the theme of ‘Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life,’” according to a Focus on the Family press release. It’s safe to assume the spot will tell the story of how Tebow’s mom fell ill during her pregnancy but refused doctors’ advice that she have an abortion for her own safety. Luckily enough, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy and future Heisman Trophy-winner. Tebow only confirmed suspicions that the ad takes this tack when the controversy was raised at a recent press conference: “I’ve always been very convicted of it” — presumably his antiabortion view — “because that’s the reason I’m here, because my mom was a very courageous woman.”

Winning the Heisman Trophy, by the way, doesn’t strike me as a guarantee of moral probity. A man who is an amazing football player is not necessarily the same man I’d pick as a spiritual leader. Seems to me like O.J. Simpson won that prize once upon a time. Star athletes in general have a recent record of behaving badly. And if the ad argues as predicted, it strikes me as the worst kind of rhetorical trickery, emotional and manipulative.

I should also disclose here that I have never watched a Super Bowl and don’t intend to start this year. So the Focus on the Family ad is not targeted at me or folk like me.

This campaign is not about saving babies. It’s about controlling women. If it were about saving babies, these same people would be working hard to see that poor women get good sex education* and good prenatal care and that the babies of poor women get good healthcare and a good education. I don’t see that happening.

As for CBS, now that they’ve broken their self-imposed ban on advocacy ads during the Super Bowl, looks like they’ll have to take them from all sides. Like, for example, this one from Planned Parenthood

Women’s Media Center protest letter is here.

Gloria Allred Threatens CBS For Allowing Tim Tebow Anti-Abortion Super Bowl Ad

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*A new study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine that abstinence-only can work with younger adolescents for a short period of time if coupled with intensive sex education.

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Added: From William Saletan via Jeff Hess:

Pam’s story certainly is moving. But as a guide to making abortion decisions, it’s misleading. Doctors are right to worry about continuing pregnancies like hers. Placental abruption has killed thousands of women and fetuses. No doubt some of these women trusted in God and said no to abortion, as she did. But they didn’t end up with Heisman-winning sons. They ended up dead.

Being dead is just the first problem with dying in pregnancy. Another problem is that the fetus you were trying to save dies with you. A third problem is that your existing kids lose their mother. A fourth problem is that if you had aborted the pregnancy, you might have gotten pregnant again and brought a new baby into the world, but now you can’t. And now the Tebows have exposed a fifth problem: You can’t make a TV ad.

On Sunday, we won’t see all the women who chose life and found death. We’ll just see the Tebows, because they’re alive and happy to talk about it. In the business world, this is known as survivor bias:
Failed mutual funds disappear, leaving behind the successful ones, which creates the illusion that mutual funds tend to beat market averages. In the Tebows’ case, the survivor bias is literal. If you’re diagnosed with placental abruption, you have the right to choose life. But don’t be so sure that life is what you’ll get.