This Sunday brings us Superbowl XLIV (44), the capstone of another season of American football, complete with a barrage of million dollar commercials, the Lingerie Bowl VII (featuring the top two teams of the Lingerie Football League), and, in a CBS first, a controversial "issues" ad from anti-choice Focus on the Family.

I don't know if I should laugh of cry. Personally, I think I would rather hibernate at home and rent Whip It!.

The Focus on the Family ad is said to feature University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother Pam. According to news reports, the ad will feature Pam Tebow telling the story of how she carried Tim to term despite life-threatening pregnancy complications - and doctors’ recommendations that she have an abortion - when she was serving as a Christian missionary in the Philippines in 1987.

Which is all fine and good - it was her CHOICE to do so.

However, CBS (and the other major networks) have always taken a stand against airing advocacy ads. According to the Boston Globe, "In 2004, CBS and NBC rejected an ad from the United Church of Christ welcoming gay and lesbian people into its congregations."

And according to the Huffington Post, CBS recently rejected a Superbowl commercial for ManCrunch, a men-seeking-men dating site, because "is not within the Network's Broadcast Standards for Super Bowl Sunday."

I don't know if the Focus on the Family ad will be as offensive as the reactions make it seem it will be, because I have yet to see it.

But people are still reacting ... and why not? It's a PR moment. Take it:





The Focus on the Family ad will apparently end with "Celebrate family, celebrate life." But what does that mean exactly? I'm guessing it means something different for every person you ask. If you ask my friend who has had two incredibly difficult pregnancies which jeopardized her health (on the advice of her doctor, her husband got a vasectomy immediately following the birth of her second child), she might feel very differently if she found herself pregnant for the third time than another friend of mine, whose pregnancies have been "easy" in comparison (read: didn't directly threaten the mother's life, repeatedly).

Every family is different, and every pregnancy is different. Nobody WANTS to get an abortion and nobody takes getting one lightly (well, if you do on either count, you have far more problems than I can to go into in this space). But the sad reality is, sometimes, that seems like the only option for certain women/families. You can't celebrate life if you die or end up with serious health issues stemming from complications. Or, if having another child would put your existing family (and children) into poverty. Or, if you don't want children and feel you would not be an adequate parent and do not have a decent situation to bring a child into.

Sometimes it seems like the pro-choice/pro-life argument gets into a pissing contest where each side just really really really wants to "win." But what are we winning at? How is arguing and arguing and arguing ever going to solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies? Because in the end, at least both sides can agree that that is a shared goal - preventing unwanted pregnancies. Surely we can join together to work towards that goal. However that brings up an entirely new issue - how to properly prevent them (abstinence? birth control?) and I feel I've already brought up enough issues for one blog post.