Kevin Fobbs
CBS scores touchdown for Tim Tebow's Pro Life Message
By Kevin Fobbs
Most supporters of abortion rights will provide a litany of reasons, rationales and explanations for the termination of a life. Yet in the midst of the maelstrom of the Reagan era a decision was made by a mother and a father that would go against the grain of accepted public practice and pro-abortion advocacy.
You see in the early months of 1987 Pam and Bob Tebow — two Christian missionaries working in the Philippines — were confronted with a medical decision that reached inside their heart and weighed heavily upon their soul. Pam was suffering from a life-threatening infection while pregnant with Tim. Unfortunately the treatment administered by the doctors to cure her dysentery and awaken her from her coma caused a placental abruption.
The test of Pam and her husband's faith came in the time between receiving the disheartening news from the doctors and the subsequent recommendation that they abort their child. They were torn between the learned doctors' belief that the baby would be stillborn and their reliance on their own faith in an all powerful and merciful God.
The Tebows made a decision to place the life of Pam and their unborn son Tim in God's hands. They told the doctors that they would forgo the recommendation to end unborn Tim's life and instead believe that God would grant their request that their faith be rewarded with his mercy.
Sure enough, by their faith and God's grace Pam recovered from her illness and Tim Tebow was not stillborn. The future Heisman Trophy winning quarterback for the Florida Gators' life was not extinguished in the Philippines as millions of other unborn lives have been since abortion was legalized throughout the United States in 1973. According to a 1989 study performed for the National Institutes of Health by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "approximately 1.6 million abortions were performed in the United States in 1988 — a number that has remained relatively unchanged since 1980."
The courage of the Tebows' conviction was indeed transformative. How many women, how many potential mothers and fathers have been faced with a similar moral and principled decision and made a different decision instead? But the transformation of a person's spirit to accept the unyielding, uncompromising value for a God-bestowed right to life comes sometimes as a whisper from God's spirit connecting with the spirit of the mother or father or both.
The game changer, if one were to understand what moves a potential mother to decide that she cannot make the moral leap across the chasm which allows for her to let God give her unborn child life, is a difficult one. This was a haunting decision which 1.6 other mothers in the United States in 1987 made when they decided not to let God's breath of life enter their child.
Fast forward to 2010 when on Sunday February 7th the Tebows (with the assistance of $2.8 million from Focus on the Family) will share their pro-life story in a 30-second CBS Super Bowl ad to what will be the largest television audience this year with an expected 100 million viewers.
This message with a decision to choose life that demonstrates the Tebows' moral conviction and courage of their faith was threatened to be tackled at the line of scrimmage by the National Organization of Women (NOW) and their partner in offensive blocking National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). These organizations protested loudly against CBS and hoped to intimidate them into throwing the Tebows' life commercial for a moral loss for them. They threatened that there would be a commercial loss for CBS which would be a free speech loss for Focus on the Family and the viewers.
NARAL insists on their site that this battle is not over despite that the game clock has truly run out on their commercial interference. They say "CBS will air Focus on the Family's new anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl subjecting nearly 100 million people to an ad that doesn't tell the true story of Focus on the Family's extreme agenda."
Well it seems that those who want to block the free speech rights of parents like the Tebows to share their 30-second story during the Super Bowl were the ones with the extreme agenda. To them "free speech" means free for pro-abortion supporters but not for those who disagree with them. NARAL and NOW want so badly to block the pro-life message that they are asking their followers and supporters to boycott the message and "focus on something else" during that 30 seconds as if allowing America to consider choosing life for an unborn child were so despicable that America should turn her eyes away. That is extreme.
Yet common sense and the right to free speech won out over this type of disenfranchisement of the first amendment rights of the Tebows and Focus on the Family.
So hats off to CBS for showing courage and conviction in not giving in to the threats and intimidating tactics of these organizations because 100 million potential viewers will be able to view a touchdown for life.
© Kevin Fobbs
February 6, 2010
Most supporters of abortion rights will provide a litany of reasons, rationales and explanations for the termination of a life. Yet in the midst of the maelstrom of the Reagan era a decision was made by a mother and a father that would go against the grain of accepted public practice and pro-abortion advocacy.
You see in the early months of 1987 Pam and Bob Tebow — two Christian missionaries working in the Philippines — were confronted with a medical decision that reached inside their heart and weighed heavily upon their soul. Pam was suffering from a life-threatening infection while pregnant with Tim. Unfortunately the treatment administered by the doctors to cure her dysentery and awaken her from her coma caused a placental abruption.
The test of Pam and her husband's faith came in the time between receiving the disheartening news from the doctors and the subsequent recommendation that they abort their child. They were torn between the learned doctors' belief that the baby would be stillborn and their reliance on their own faith in an all powerful and merciful God.
The Tebows made a decision to place the life of Pam and their unborn son Tim in God's hands. They told the doctors that they would forgo the recommendation to end unborn Tim's life and instead believe that God would grant their request that their faith be rewarded with his mercy.
Sure enough, by their faith and God's grace Pam recovered from her illness and Tim Tebow was not stillborn. The future Heisman Trophy winning quarterback for the Florida Gators' life was not extinguished in the Philippines as millions of other unborn lives have been since abortion was legalized throughout the United States in 1973. According to a 1989 study performed for the National Institutes of Health by The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "approximately 1.6 million abortions were performed in the United States in 1988 — a number that has remained relatively unchanged since 1980."
The courage of the Tebows' conviction was indeed transformative. How many women, how many potential mothers and fathers have been faced with a similar moral and principled decision and made a different decision instead? But the transformation of a person's spirit to accept the unyielding, uncompromising value for a God-bestowed right to life comes sometimes as a whisper from God's spirit connecting with the spirit of the mother or father or both.
The game changer, if one were to understand what moves a potential mother to decide that she cannot make the moral leap across the chasm which allows for her to let God give her unborn child life, is a difficult one. This was a haunting decision which 1.6 other mothers in the United States in 1987 made when they decided not to let God's breath of life enter their child.
Fast forward to 2010 when on Sunday February 7th the Tebows (with the assistance of $2.8 million from Focus on the Family) will share their pro-life story in a 30-second CBS Super Bowl ad to what will be the largest television audience this year with an expected 100 million viewers.
This message with a decision to choose life that demonstrates the Tebows' moral conviction and courage of their faith was threatened to be tackled at the line of scrimmage by the National Organization of Women (NOW) and their partner in offensive blocking National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). These organizations protested loudly against CBS and hoped to intimidate them into throwing the Tebows' life commercial for a moral loss for them. They threatened that there would be a commercial loss for CBS which would be a free speech loss for Focus on the Family and the viewers.
NARAL insists on their site that this battle is not over despite that the game clock has truly run out on their commercial interference. They say "CBS will air Focus on the Family's new anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl subjecting nearly 100 million people to an ad that doesn't tell the true story of Focus on the Family's extreme agenda."
Well it seems that those who want to block the free speech rights of parents like the Tebows to share their 30-second story during the Super Bowl were the ones with the extreme agenda. To them "free speech" means free for pro-abortion supporters but not for those who disagree with them. NARAL and NOW want so badly to block the pro-life message that they are asking their followers and supporters to boycott the message and "focus on something else" during that 30 seconds as if allowing America to consider choosing life for an unborn child were so despicable that America should turn her eyes away. That is extreme.
Yet common sense and the right to free speech won out over this type of disenfranchisement of the first amendment rights of the Tebows and Focus on the Family.
So hats off to CBS for showing courage and conviction in not giving in to the threats and intimidating tactics of these organizations because 100 million potential viewers will be able to view a touchdown for life.
© Kevin Fobbs
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