For the record: defenders of choice support the choice Tim's mom made and believe that all women should have the same right to choose even if some women are going to make a different choice. Now here's what's so maddening about this ad and this controversy: the obvious response ad could never be produced.
There are women out there who ignored the advice of their doctors and chose not to have abortions and... their children did not grow up to be sports stars. The children they chose to carry—perhaps because they'd been exposed to simplistic "choose life!" propaganda that presented them only with best-case-scenario outcomes (your son could grow up to be a sports star!)— suffered short, miserable, harrowingly painful existences. Or their children survived thanks to medical interventions that didn't exist a generation ago but their needs took enormous financial and emotional tolls on their families, interventions and expenses that hardly seemed worthwhile given the child's low-to-non-existant quality of life.
As it turns out, this ad is based on a bullshit story. Tim Tebow was born in the Philippines where it was, and still is, completely illegal to have an abortion. Mrs. Tebow never made the choice to keep Tim and, as usual, the right-wing memes and stories are made up lies.
Sort of hard to make an ad of a woman who chose not to have an abortion and died. Corpses don't make good commercials. In the end, don't get your medical advice from a commercial.
A reader notes: "From my understanding of the Tim Tebow situation, it was his mother's life that was at risk, and that was the reason why the doctor was advising an abortion (they were expecting the fetus to die in the womb because of an infection). And that, is why I'm so creeped out by this ad. The ad's message is, even if your life is at risk, you should still never have an abortion."
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