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CBS Urged to Scrap Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad Featuring Tebow and His Mom
NEW YORK -- A coalition of women's groups called on the CBS network on Monday to scrap its plan to broadcast an ad during the Super Bowl featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, which critics say is likely to convey an anti-abortion message. The ad -- paid for by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family -- is expected to recount the story of Pam Tebow's pregnancy in 1987 with a theme of "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." After getting sick during a mission trip to the Philippines, she ignored a recommendation by doctors to abort her fifth child and gave birth to Tim, who went on to win the 2007 Heisman Trophy while helping his Florida team to two college football championships.
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Indiana Rewards Planned Parenthood Negligence
Last time we took a look at Planned Parenthood of Indiana, we saw a "health" provider train-wreck: two different PP abortion locations, on the same day, with almost the exact same language, agreed to cover up clear cases of child sexual abuse. To a girl purportedly 13 years old and impregnated by her 31-year-old "boyfriend," the nurse in Bloomington said, "I don't want to hear the age, I don't want to know the age" and the one in Indianapolis insisted, "I don't care how old he is." Live Action's undercover videos of Planned Parenthood's blatant violations of Indiana mandatory reporting law sparked state investigations–and yet somehow now, the Indiana State Department of Health has awarded PP IN $150,000 in government grant money for 2010.
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Pro-Life Movement Had Successes In 2009, National Review Opinion Piece Argues
With the 2008 election of a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, many analysts -- including conservatives -- advised Republicans to moderate their views on abortion, Michael New, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama and a fellow at the Witherspoon Institute, writes in a National Review opinion piece. "However, the events of 2009 have clearly demonstrated the movement's resiliency and heft" and shown that "the right-to-life movement is an indispensible part of the center-right coalition," New writes. He argues that antiabortion-rights advocates have made gains in public opinion polls and led opposition to President Obama's health reform plans.
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Anit-Lifers Advocates Fear Roe Challenges Given Supreme Court's Willingness To Overturn Precedent
Anti-Life advocates say that the Supreme Court's 5-4 campaign finance decision last week shows the willingness of conservative justices to overturn longstanding precedents and signals that they might be open to upending the 37-year-old Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, Politico reports. Thursday's ruling declared unconstitutional a law barring corporations from involvement in federal elections. The ban was challenged by the conservative group Citizens United. Just six years ago, the court said that the ban was "firmly embedded in our law."
Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights said that the court "exhibited a stunning disregard for settled law of decades' standing" and that the decision is "terrifying to those of us who care deeply about the constitutional protections the court put in place for women's access to abortion." She added, "We are deeply concerned.
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Neb. Bill To Ban Abortion After 20 Weeks Could Start Legal Battle
A Nebraska bill (LB 1103) that would ban abortion after 20 weeks' gestation in nearly all cases could prompt a legal battle regarding its constitutionality, the Omaha World-Herald reports. The bill, introduced by Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood (R), would allow abortion past 20 weeks only to save the woman's life or to "avert serious risk or substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function." Current Nebraska law bans abortion after viability except to preserve the life or health of the woman.
Flood's bill claims there is "substantial evidence" that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks and proposes to use the fetus' ability to feel pain, rather than viability, as the dividing line between legal and illegal abortion.
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President Affirms Support for Abortion
President Obama issued a statement in support of abortion on Friday, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand.
The president said he "affirms every woman's fundamental constitutional right to choose whether to have an abortion."
David O'Steen, executive director of National Right to Life, said he's not surprised.
"His whole history," he said, "both as a state legislator, as a senator and as president has been one of unequivocal support for abortion."
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