Tebows' Story 'Misleading' Take On Abortion Decisions, Slate Columnist Writes

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 04 Feb 2010 - 5:00 PDT

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While Tim and Pam Tebow's story "certainly is moving, ... as a guide to making abortion decisions, it's misleading," Slate columnist William Saletan writes of Focus on the Family's planned antiabortion-rights Super Bowl advertisement. The ad is expected to feature Tim, a former University of Florida quarterback, and his mother, Pam, discussing her personal story of contracting amoebic dysentery in the Philippines while pregnant with Tim. According to the Tebows, Pam received heavy drugs and was diagnosed with a rare condition known as placental abruption -- a placenta that has prematurely separated from the uterine wall -- but because of her Christian beliefs ignored doctors' recommendations to have an abortion.

Saletan writes, "Doctors are right to worry about continuing pregnancies like hers," noting that "[p]lacental abruption has killed thousands of women and fetuses." He adds, "No doubt some of these women trusted in God and said no to abortion, as she did. But they didn't end up with Heisman-winning sons. They ended up dead." He continues, "Being dead is just the first problem with dying in pregnancy," adding, "Another problem is that the fetus you were trying to save dies with you. A third problem is that your existing kids lose their mother. A fourth problem is that if you had aborted the pregnancy, you might have gotten pregnant again and brought a new baby into the world, but now you can't. And now the Tebows have exposed a fifth problem: You can't make a TV ad."

Saletan writes that "pro-lifers have always struggled with the invisibility of unborn life," noting that it is difficult to advocate against something that cannot be seen. He writes, "In Tim Tebow, they see the invisible made visible: a child who has lived to tell his story because an abortion didn't happen." But notes that "what's true about abortion is also true of pregnancy complications." In the Super Bowl ad, "we won't see all the women who chose life and found death. We'll just see the Tebows, because they're alive and happy to talk about it," Saletan says. "She and her son are with us today not just because of courage but because of luck," he adds.

He cites a 2001 study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology that found that nearly half of abrupted pregnancies in the U.S. resulted in infants with births weights low enough to risk long-term health damage, while about 12% resulted in fetal or infant death. Women with abrupted pregnancies also face potential complications, including "internal bleeding, hemorrhagic shock, kidney damage, embolisms and heart failure," according to Saletan, who adds, "By some estimates, placental abruption causes 6% of all maternal deaths." He writes, "If Pam Tebow's abruption had taken a different turn, her son would be just another perinatal mortality statistic, and she might be just another maternal mortality statistic." Saletan continues, "And you would know nothing of her story, just as you know nothing of the women who have died carrying pregnancies like hers" (Saletan, Slate, 2/1).

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