The Much Ado About Tebow
There is nothing like a pro-life message in a TV ad during the Super Bowl to ignite the blogosphere and the editorial pages of the nation. For weeks the “pro-choice” community were proclaiming the unfairness of CBS allowing Focus on the Family air a pro-life ad featuring Tim Tebow. Much ink and cyberspace was taken up in polemics even before the ad was made public – but it was the idea of such an ad that caused so much consternation. Ideas have consequences – and to think that a pro-life ad would show up at the Super Bowl potentially affecting public opinion – seemed so – so outrageous by some - especially when other “advocacy” ads were rejected by the same CBS.
While ideas have consequences the narrative has influence. There is nothing more powerful than a story. We relate to stories. We are able to put ourselves into a context with some else’s experience. A story of an event is neither right nor wrong – it just is. Yet they nevertheless convey the lessons that life teaches. It is the story then that makes us who we are. That is why airing the stories of the Tim Tebows of the world are so important. They not only influence but teach. Especially is this so with such sensitive topics as is abortion.
By now we are all aware of the 6’3” quarterback at the University of Florida. In summary, should in the unlikely event a reader may not yet know, while pregnant Tim’s mother suffered a serious pathogenic amoeba infection. Her medical treatment resulted in the unborn Tim experiencing a placental abruption. The doctors recommended an abortion. She refused. Tim was born in Manila, Philippines where his parents were living and working as Christian missionaries. He was homeschooled and is not ashamed of the Gospel even though he is a public figure.
The retelling of Tim’s story in two 30 second ads on Super Bowl Sunday caused a cyber war of words amongst the opposing sides of the abortion issue. One of most cutting, and sarcastic verbiage came from the renowned Richard Dawkins – the evolutionary apologist and polemicist. Tim “…isn’t very good at thinking,” the erudite Dawkins proclaimed, “Perhaps the fact that he was home schooled by missionary parents is to blame.”
With such a condescending attitude Dawkins presented the “fallacy” of the pro-life argument. He quotes Peter Medawar, “the world is no more likely to be deprived of a Beethoven by abortion than by chaste absence from intercourse.” The implication is that the world would not have been deprived of a Tim Tebow if he was aborted. This is because the sperm that conceived Time was one of 40 million and any other would have resulted in somebody else – “Probably not such a good quarterback but - we can but hope - a better logician, who might have survived the home schooling and broken free.”
While Dawkins claims the pro-life argument fallacious one cannot but conclude that Dawkins is dealing with the fictitious. He fails to accept reality. Rather he posits an argument “of Tim’s unborn sister (let us say), who would have been conceived two months later if only Tim had been aborted. Admittedly, she is not in a position to complain of her non-existence. But then nor would Tim have been in a position to complain of his non-existence, if he had been aborted.” The point is however – Tim exists – and he also existed at the time when his mother made her decision to keep him – though he was yet unborn.
Well and good the debate rages on – Dawkins to his credit suggests such “unthought-through nonsense” should not be banned as it would infringe free speech. For Dawkins, “an aborted fetus has exactly the same mental and moral status as any of the countless trillions of unconceived babies.” The fact that he deals in fiction is not reason enough, in my view, to ban his writings. We will agree to disagree and continue to live in our democracy without fear of reprisal for sharing very different views.