Tebow's Defensive Line: 50,000 and Counting

NOW and Company Are on Wrong Side of America, New York Times

Today Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser announced that over 50,000 Americans have submitted comments of support to football star Tim Tebow through the Susan B. Anthony List website, www.blockhardfortebow.com. The comments support the Tebow family's decision to share their story in Focus on the Family's pro-life Super Bowl advertisement. The National Organization for Women (NOW) is leading feminist groups in a campaign demanding CBS pull the ad from its Super Bowl schedule.

"NOW and company are on the wrong side of American public opinion," said Dannenfelser. "In only four days, over fifty thousand Americans have sent messages of support to the Tebow family on www.blockhardfortebow.com. The outcry of national support for Tim Tebow's pro-life leadership illustrates the strength of the growing American pro-life majority."

The Susan B. Anthony List-sponsored website, www.blockhardfortebow.com, was launched late Wednesday, January 27, 2010. Already 50,000 visitors to the site sent personal comments of support to Tebow. Visitors can also view a short ESPN video about Tebow. Over the same period, the abortion-rights group EMILY's List has collected only 16,000 anti-CBS petition signatures.

"NOW's campaign against CBS, the Tebow family and Focus on the Family is going nowhere fast," said Dannenfelser. "Old guard feminists like Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling are struggling to defend their opposition to the ad, and their desperate arguments ring hollow. The 'pro-choice' label has worn out its usefulness – it is an empty platitude for the pain women feel when they've made the abortion choice. Arguments that abortion is somehow as liberating and self-sacrificing as Pam Tebow's decision to choose life in the face of great personal pain just don't stand the straight face test. Such callous attitudes grate on the conscience and defy experience."

On Sunday, January 31, 2010, Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling published a Washington Post commentary arguing, "abortion is as tough and courageous a decision as is the decision to continue a pregnancy."

The New York Times editorialized in favor of CBS' decision to run the Tebow Ad on Sunday, January 31, 2010, arguing that NOW's "protest is puzzling and dismaying." Editors went on to criticize the campaign's "lame attempt to portray the ad as life-threatening," and argued that "CBS was right to change its policy of rejecting paid advocacy commercials from groups other than political candidates."