Planned Parenthood, an organization who from its founding has had to rely on euphemism to hide its true origins and mission, hopes that you will all forget something: that last year at this time they were upset that Focus on the Family, their bête noire, had purchased a Super Bowl ad featuring Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother “telling the story of his mother Pam’s refusal of a doctor’s order to have an abortion which ultimately led to his birth.” It was horribly, horribly “anti-choice,” you see.
Planned Parenthood wasn’t alone in their outrage over this story of Choice Gone Wrong. The even more nominally challenged NARAL and other feminist groups were also in hysterics.
A year later, and The One That Got Away is an even bigger celebrity, so much so that his name is a recognizable verb (see the title) and just about everyone seems to be “Tebowing.”
Now apparently even Planned Parenthood wants to use his bigger and far more positive media profile to lift their organization. The organization’s president, Cecile Richards, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times:
In “He’s a Quarterback, He’s a Winner, He’s a TV Draw, He’s a Verb” (This Land column, front page, Jan. 14), Dan Barry writes about a 2010 Super Bowl commercial telling how Tim Tebow’s mother decided not to end a life-threatening pregnancy and he adds, “There was no tebowing that week in the halls of Planned Parenthood.”
That suggests that Planned Parenthood does not celebrate birth or a remarkable story like Mr. Tebow’s. In fact, the Tebow story exemplifies the health care environment that Planned Parenthood promotes — a world in which women and families are supported in the medical decisions they make for themselves and their families without government interference.
Ohhhh, so all those angry noises and gnashing of teeth last year were the sounds of Planned Parenthood celebrating the Tebow ad!