That powerful television network CBS is hosting the Super Bowl this year.
We all know that it's fun to watch the multi-million dollar ads during the super bowl show. And CBS's long held policy is that they won't air ads that take sides on controversial issues like gun control, gay marriage etc. In fact, in the past, CBS has turned down advocacy ads it deemed controversial, including ads from MoveOn.org and the progressive United Church of Christ.
HOWEVER.
Apparently reproductive healthcare is not a controversial issue and the network has accepted several million dollars (CBS charges 2.5-2.8 million for a 30second spot) from Focus on the Family (aptly named because women have never focused on their families) to air an anti-choice ad during this years Super Bowl.
CBS has cleared the way to subject nearly 100 million people to Focus on the Family’s extreme agenda by agreeing to air its new anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl. This ad reportedly promotes the decision of one woman to go against her doctor's advice to terminate an at-risk pregnancy, as the right decision that all women should make.
Focus on the Family has an unmistakable anti-choice, anti-birth-control, anti-sex-education, and anti-gay rights agenda. If that wasn’t bad enough, its views on women are just plain insulting and dangerous. For example, its web site urges women facing an unintended pregnancy to seek "wise advice” (presumably from them) because “the hormones and extreme emotions of pregnancy make reasonable decisions more difficult.”
Apparently you have the right to choose but only if it agrees with their agenda.
Hey you crazy dumb bitches, you're all nutso cuz you're preggers right? You can't make your own decisions! Don't eat that! You should be locked away in your house during your pregnancy! Let an extremist religious organization make the decisions for you!! We kill doctors!
Orphans not abortions!! amiright?!?
Super Bowl ads are already filled with a bunch of sexist commercials that completely ignore 50% of their customers/sports fans, reducing women to naggy girlfriends or T&A Beer holders, and now we have to watch an ad that tells us we're dumb and shouldn't be able to decide what we want for ourselves?
Do we really need anti-choice propaganda (or any politics) pushed in our faces during a football game? What happened to just watching football?
Here's where you can tell CBS to eat it:
Naral Petition to urge CBS to not run the ad or except money from hate groups
The Women's Media Center's Not Under The Bus Petition
NOW has an email form you can send to CBS
FYI:
Women are vastly under-represented in high-level decision making roles at the television networks (and pretty much all media outlets). Despite this disadvantage, NBC managed to make the right decision last year, refusing to run an anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl. Anti-choice forces are on the offensive. They don't want to help women make informed decisions -- they want to, in the words of Focus on the Family, make abortion "both illegal and unthinkable." We must stand up to their campaign to deny women their fundamental rights.
For re-tweeting:
Tweet: RT @womensmediacntr Tell @CBS and @NFL to scrap Focus on the Family's anti-choice #superbowl ad! #underthebus http://bit.ly/7Zs8jq
Please spread the word!
