Weekend question
Last month NBC rejected the following ad by CatholicVote.org to run during the Super Bowl because of its “political advocacy”:
Now CNN has also rejected the ad, which CatholicVote.org wanted to air on its station during President Obama’s first State of the Union address later this month, stating…
We have decided to pass on this creative. CNN doesn’t accept advocacy ads that portray personal decisions in a manner that suggests a position in favor of the advocacy message, without having permission of the persons involved.
This is false. In 2005 CNN ran an ad by NARAL accusing then-Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of supporting violence against abortion mills, certainly without his permission. The ad was deemed so odorous, NARAL was quickly forced to withdraw it. But CNN defended its running of the ad, stating:
CNN accepts advocacy advertising from responsible groups from across the political spectrum who wish to express their views and their opinions about issues of public importance.
Actually, every anti-candidate political ad ever made would fit CNN’s rejection criteria of the CatholicVote.org ad.
Furthermore, the CatholicVote.org ad doesn’t attach a position to Obama on abortion one way or the other. It simply states irrefutable facts.
Why do you think NBC and CNN actually rejected the CatholicVote.org ad (which has now been viewed over 1.6 million times on YouTube)? I can think of several reasons.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
They rejected it because it is true and not refutable. Also we are visual learners and that combination is too hard to dispute.
The New York Times used to have a slogan:
“All the news that’s fit to print.”
Now it as been modified:
“All the news that fits (our idealogical perspective).”
CNN has never beenconsistently balanced and objective at least when it comes to ‘abortion’. At least give them credit for maintaining a consistently inconsistent standard.
yor bro ken
Probably because it’s foolish. “It might be president” is obviously no reason to force women to carry to term against their will, just as “it might be a child molester” is no reason to force women to abort. It’s just nonsense.
Anyway, if President Obama’s mother hadn’t WANTED him and LOVED him and CARED for him so well, he probably wouldn’t have grown up to be president. His life is a perfect example of why CHOICE is important.
I think it was rejected because the ad uses the same emotion-driven tactics to get the message across just like the PC side does. In reality, it actually isn’t a logical argument against abortion, but it seems that most do not use logic or reason to decide their opinions on these kinds of questions anyway. So this ad that appeals and hits home with the masses, but it pushed NOT killing people, so it had to be rejected. QED.
Actually, I think it makes a valid point. The point is not, don’t abort your child, he might be president.
The point is, many of us have heard people say, “It’s better to abort a child than bring him into a broken home” or “than to have him be abandoned.”
This is merely pointing out that even those people who are from broken homes or have been abandoned by one (or even both) parents, have the potential to do something good with their lives.
The fact that Obama’s birth is, in many ways, the precise type of “punishment” he wants to save his daughters from (his mom was what, 18?) is somewhat ironic.
Reminds me of the old bumper sticker: You only have the “right to choose” because your mother chose life.
Reality 8:56am
Didn’t Obama’s grandparents raise him?
Also, this was an era when a racially mixed child was viewed as better off aborted and white women pregnant by black men were viewed as vermin. Obama’s mother, if anything, would be under tremendous social pressure to abort him.
How do we know she was so thrilled to be pregnant with him? How do we know he was a planned and wanted pregnancy? We can’t assume every loved and wanted child is the result of a planned and wanted pregnancy.
Maybe his life is more an example of the potential abortion can destroy. Maybe its a story of a woman’s courage to continue her pregnancy despite tremendous social pressure and ridicule. Maybe its an example of how “choice” would be used to promote a racist mentality.
“Why do you think NBC and CNN actually rejected the CatholicVote.org ad (which has now been viewed over 1.6 million times on YouTube)? ”
Because this AD threatens the pro-abortion side. And the NBC and CNN newsrooms are filled with liberal pro-aborts.
I agree completely with what Jasper said. Most news channels are very liberal but particularly CNN, MSNBC and NBC. So it’s not surprising they refused to run the ad.
Wow, a MSM outlet acting in a biased, hypocritical way? What a shock! Who woulda thunk it?
CNN’s newsrooms are filled with pro-abortion advocates. What’s the name of that woman who co-hosts American Morning with John Roberts? Oh yeah, Kiran Chetry. Back when she was at Fox News, she pretty much laughed at the fact that the mother of then Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito proclaimed to reporters that her son was pro-life. I never had any respect for her after that. She’s the same anchor who prodded John McCain as to why Rudy Giuliani was the only GOP Presidential candidate who was “willing” to accept Roe V Wade as established law. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this woman query the Dems as to why they are so much in the tank with the infanticide industry.
By the way, the only pro-life female journalist I know of is Lauren Green, who is still with Fox News. She has a blog on religion, and wrote about how her views on abortion had changed since learning of the story of former abortionist Bernard Nathanson. I’ve now got a bunch of respect for this lady. I guess she can forget about working for any other news outlet after her Fox days are over.
These liberal news outlets cannot allow the truth to be seen or spoken of, because if they do, public support for their baby killing agenda goes down dramatically. Money and control is all these people are about. Shallow.
Jill – are you going to take ads from NARAL?
Yo La Tengo: You are comparing apples and oranges. CNN presents themselves as a news organization that is supposed to present an unbiased account of the day’s events. The reality is that they are unabashedly biased. If this site were to exercise the type of content control that CNN does, a great many of the pro-choice posts would be not be accepted.
You’re right, Jerry. CNN is a media outlet that claims to represent both sides of the issues-that is their job and obligation. Of course, they don’t do as they claim, and their rejection of this ad further proves that point. They have accepted advocacy type ads in the past, and they know it. This just doesn’t fit their agenda. People might see it and start having second thoughts about abortion. We can’t have that happening, now can we?
Without reading any of the other comments, I think you’ve nailed it:
“Furthermore, the CatholicVote.org ad doesn’t attach a position to Obama on abortion one way or the other. It simply states irrefutable facts.”
Posted by: Elisabeth at February 21, 2009 9:36 AM
It’s only ironic if you make abortion mandatory for all teen moms. If you dont then there is no irony – only choice. People have the right to make their own reproductive choices regardless of your judgement about them. It goes for the woman with 8 kids – it goes for the Duggars. It goes for the girl I know who had 3 abortions in one semester. Its simply not for you to decide.
Obama didn’t become president because his mom didn’t have an abortion. He became president because he had means to become educated, friends in the right places throughout his life and charisma that inspires people.
Obama didn’t become president because his mom didn’t have an abortion. He became president because he had means to become educated, friends in the right places throughout his life and charisma that inspires people.
Um, I think being dead would have been a huge obstacle in becoming president.
I think most people on Fox news are pro life. I’m certain Sean Hannity is and Bill Oreilly anyway.
Dont know about Greta Van Susteren but she was one of the very few who was decent to Sarah Palin during the election. In fact she was appalled at how she had been treated.
We have Chris Matthews and the tingles Obama gives him, Tom Brokaw blubbering how even the seagulls are in awe of the inaugaration, and columnist Leonard Pitts who’s so inspired by Obama admitting he screwed up.
We have Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw asking each other exactly what is known about Obama.
Hey fellas, that’s YOUR job. You’re supposed to be answering those questions, not sitting there scratching your heads.
I understand Thomas Jefferson intended the free press to be the watchdog of the government. All it is now is the lapdog of Obama.
I don’t know about the decision not to air it, but this ad seems laughably silly. Sure, if Stanley Dunham had had an abortion, Obama wouldn’t exist. But Obama also wouldn’t exist if Stanley Dunham had abstained from sex. Or if she had fallen in love with another man and had a baby with him instead. Of if she and Barack Obama, Sr. had waited a month and conceived a different baby.
If the possible existence of other human beings is a reason to deprive women of choice, then we should have our daughters marry at puberty and conceive at every possible opportunity until every woman has 20 children.
PC,
… or Stanley Dunham could have died in a car accident the month before she conceived. Life is a thousand “ifs” a day. The point is she conceived Obama. Please refer to my 9:37am post of 2/21.
Jill – are you going to take ads from NARAL?
Posted by: Yo La Tengo at February 21, 2009 5:04 PM
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You are asking the wrong question to the wrong person.
The question should be, “CNN, MSNBC and NBC will you now act consistently and no longer accept advertisements from ‘any’ advocacy group?
To my knowledge Jill has never accepted adverstisements from the ‘Dead Babies r Us’ crowd or the ‘Death Lobby’. She has posted their articles and imbedded their videos.
You are entitled to your opinion but you are not entitled to ‘your’ facts.
yor bro ken
Posted by: Mary at February 22, 2009 4:18 AM
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What she said!
yor bro ken
Mary,
Right. Life is a thousand “ifs.” That’s why the ad is silly. You mention that the distinction is that Obama was in fact conceived, but the ad doesn’t really go to this distinction. It just raises the issue of Obama not existing.
But let me mention one thing I actually liked about the ad. It stressed that being raised in a non-traditional family is not some sort of horrible death knell — not an argument I usually see social conservatives making.
As for the issue of coercion: in a truly feminist world, women’s sexual and reproductive choices wouldn’t be coerced. That’s kind of the point of the pro-choice movement.
Prochoicer, I have a couple of questions for you.
Do you believe that life begins at conception?
If you do not believe life begins at conception, then when do you believe it does begin? And lastly, what would be your reasoning as to why we currently allow abortion to remain legal while acts like murder, assault, rape and other violent acts are illegal?
Thanks, and I’ll be checking back to read your answers.
PC 9:34am
The ad points out that a woman in difficult circumstances chose life for her child. As I pointed out Stanley Dunham had to cope with the neanderthal racist mentality of the day, that black men were drooling sexual predators and that white women who had sex with black men were vermin.
Conservatives are making the argument that no matter how difficult, one cannot predict the outcome of a pregnancy under some very trying circumstances.
Who said anything about Stanley Dunham being coerced? Its possible she was willing to face the obstacles head on.
Ken 9am
????????
PC 9:34am
I was also raised in a non-traditional family, as was my mother and grandmother. Non-traditional situations are certainly nothing new. Children grew up in orphanges, roamed the streets in gangs to survive, were shuttled from foster home to foster home, or like my grandmother and her sister, farmed out by their desperately poor widowed mother to what amounted to indentured servitude. They were orphaned by war, famine, and disease, born or sold into slavery, and marched with their parents to war. Children have fought in wars.
To me its long been a fact of life. But I can honestly say that I deeply envied my best friend who lived in a very traditional Jewish family.
But then, a child in foster care might have envied me for having a parent and living in one house with relatives nearby.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about family situations. What about the traditional couple who are drug addicted and abusive and neglectful of their children? What about the gay couple or single person that wants to give these same children a home, security, and love?
Kristin asks the following. Her questions are in italics followed by my answers:
Do you believe that life begins at conception?
My first automatic response was, “Well, yes, of course.” After all, the fertilized egg is obviously alive. But then I realized I’m not exactly sure what your question means. After all, the egg and the sperm are also alive before they meet.
Of course, the meeting of the sperm and the egg IS the first step in the development of a new human being. Is that what you mean? In that case, I would agree that life begins at conception.
If you do not believe life begins at conception, then when do you believe it does begin?
As I said, I assume that a fertilized egg is a living entity. But I wouldn’t characterize it as a person or a baby. I think there is a huge difference between a fertilized egg and a baby.
I also think that characterizing a fertilized egg as a baby devalues the woman’s role in the creation of the baby. It’s as though the man’s momentary role in the process is all that’s needed to confer personhood. In fact, the creation of a baby takes months and requires a great deal of energy and work by the woman’s body to nourish and sustain the development of the zygote into a human being.
I think declaring a fertilized egg to be a full person is ridiculous. Now where the line gets drawn after the first few weeks from conception is a trickier question. I would probably put it at around 20-24 weeks, but I don’t pretend to have a hard-and-fast answer, and I don’t really think my opinion matters for reasons I will explain below.
And lastly, what would be your reasoning as to why we currently allow abortion to remain legal while acts like murder, assault, rape and other violent acts are illegal?
My answer is three-fold:
1)I don’t believe a zygote or embryo is a baby. So that is a distinction that applies to many, but not all, abortions.
2)More importantly, though, I don’t think any human being has a right to live parasitically or use the organs of another human being against that person’s will. Even after I die and have no further use for my organs, the State does not require me to donate them even though I could save someone else’s life by doing so and even though such a donation would have no real affect on me since I am already dead. Yet, anti-choicers would force me to lend my body to another entity while I am still alive.
3) It is quite clear that there is no consensus in our society as to when personhood begins. (In fact, legally and culturally, most indications is that we really believe personhood begins at birth.) But reasonable people can and do disagree on this. That disagreement is why abortion is such a polarizing issue. This is why the moral decisionmaking should be left up to the individual woman involved.
Mary,
I agree with your comments at 10:46 am and 11:33 am.
As a prochoicer, there is nothing startling at all to me about the notion that a woman might choose to have a child under adverse circumstances.
PC, 11:40am
Thank you. Oh, BTW, you only heard about some of the less than traditional aspects of my family. There’s my father and his siblings who wound up in an orphanage because their widowed father shot himself. He was disgraced after his 15y/o stepdaughter falsely, and out of spite, accused him of impregnating her.
My maternal grandmother who was married 4 times, and my mother who just outlived her third husband. My 62y/o brother is in the midst of a divorce and my sister is on her second husband.
What the heck is traditional?? :):)
As you’ve probably noticed, I myself am just a colossol bore.
Prochoicer, Thank you for taking the time to reply and for giving concise answers to my questions. Your answers are pretty much what I expected.
I don’t agree with any of your conclusions on this. So, even though everything the unborn child will need to survive as an adult will already have been formed by the first three months of life in womb, you don’t see that this is a unique and separate human life, apart from the mother? I mean, the remaining six months of life that the baby will reside in the womb, nothing new will develop or begin functioning. What has already developed will just get bigger. So, because their organs and body parts are smaller than the mother’s justifies preying upon them and taking their life? This baby is not a part of the mother’s body…….yes, it is growing inside of her, but all of its organs and body parts are separate. Many times the mother and baby don’t even share the same blood type.
Anyways, just my two cents. We are miles apart on this issue, but at least we can discuss with civility.
Mary,
You are not in the least a colossal bore. Though your family has a lot of drama, it is probably not unusual in the least. With you indulgence, I will bore you a little in return.
Come to think of it, my family is “traditional” in many senses. I am on my 14th year with husband number one (and intend to stay that way) and my parents are still married to each other (for better or for worse, with the emphasis on for worse). The only divorced person in my family is an uncle, and he was not divorced by choice. As far as I know, no one has had an abortion, a child out of wedlock, an alcohol or drug problem, or a gay relationship.
Perhaps because of this, I have no illusions about the “traditional family.” We have had just as much misery, dysfunction, and abuse as everyone else, if not more. For one thing, there is no doubt in my mind that I and everyone else involved would have been better off if my parents had divorced 35 years ago. The same is true for at least one set of my grandparents, if not both. And my uncle, though heartbroken when his first wife left him, settled down with a second wife to whom he was better suited.
Kristina,
Thanks for your response! Yes, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t say anything too surprising to you. These arguments have been hashed out so many times over the last decades that I have a feeling there is not much new to say on the subject.
When I was a teenager and still in my “pro-life” stage, I thought a LOT about what I would do if I ever became pregnant at that point. If anyone asked, I would say that I would carry the baby to term and give it up for adoption. I believed that is what a girl ought to do in such a situation. But deep down I knew that if I were pregnant, I would run immediately to the nearest abortion clinic without hesitation. I resolved this moral contradiction by being extremely diligent in my use of birth control (doubling up on both the pill and condom usage)!
In my later teens, I became more sympathetic to the pro-choicers. This was a gradual process and ironically, I only became really a firm pro-choicer once I was established in my career and married, and thus out of the danger zone for the truly disastrous consequences of an unintended pregnancy in the teen years. As I’ve written on other threads, there were a number of factors that led me to a firm pro-choice position.
But a big one I didn’t mention was the realization that not every young girl has the privileges I did. Despite all my worries, I was so privileged that unwanted pregnancy was really only a hypothetical concern. I had an excellent education about good contraception. I had access to good contraception and the money to pay for it. I strongly understood my right to say “no” to sex and my right to insist on condom usage when I did consent to sex. When I really began to understand that not all young women have these privileges, I became more and more pro-choice.
We act as if we are powerless against the likes of the mass media and Planned Parenthood.
Know this, we are not powerless and these demonically inspired and controlled organizations, like ALL that preceded them, will likewise fall.
PC 2:12PM
Well, thank you. I’m glad to hear of your marital situation and wish you the very best.
Concerning your folks, however you may view their situation they likely feel they have made the best decision for themselves and are in their own way content and secure.
The funny thing is PC that the older I got, the more my mother thought I was able to hear. So I’ve heard some pretty scandalous stuff, not to mention what my grandmother told my mother!
I’ve come to the conclusion there is nothing new under the sun and I entertain no illusions concerning traditional anything.
Human nature has always been and will always remain what it is!
BTW, if you have elderly relatives, try to get family stories and histories. It can be fascinating.
Kristina 1:54PM
You are correct. PC is indeed a pleasure to converse with.
Prochoicer, I don’t think you are aware how speial and unique you are. How God has a led you to this blog, drawn you to the prolifers here for a purpose. You have had a blessed life, not a “privileged” life, although you are not fully aware of it.
I am praying for you, for God to open your eyes and heart to know that your desire to help young women is from the Creator of all life. I have had a blessed life as well, raised by a loving family, have a beautiful marriage and family. My eyes were blinded to how special the gift of life is as a young person. I had a excellent education as well, I at one time thought the answer was in contraception. I had to go through many things in my life to get to the place I am today. But then I held the hands of expectant mothers as they gave birth to babies some wanted some unwanted, cried with them as some of them lost their babies through miscarriages and stillbirth, saw bloody D&C’s, saw babies gasping for breath after they were delivered, I gave birth to my own children, watched as my own family member’s fought for their lives, then I realized that life is a precious gift and a miracle. I found out that sex is about “valuing your heart, your intimacy, your seed, your soul enough to give it completely to one person” and no matter how much you “wrap it up” as the teens say, using contraception no amount of pills, patches, pokes or latex condoms can protect you from a broken heart and busted dreams. I have worked with young people for years and seen their devastation, their suicidal ideation, when they buy the lie that they can have “safe sex”. They are literally dying to have someone tell them they are “valuable”, that their sex is “valuable”. Sex never has been, never will be and never was meant to be “safe”. Though you may laugh at what I am saying, I pray it will one day touch your very spirit.
I want to leave you with Jeremiah 29:11-12 “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, plans not for your destruction or to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call on me, come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart”. There is no greater harm or destruction I believe that you can perpetrate on another human being than to destoy an innocent life in the womb, never giving them a chance to have a life and to breathe their first breath. Lastly my theme scripture is “I set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now “CHOOSE LIFE”, so that you and your seed may live. Deuteronomy 30:19
Mary,
You are absolutely right! My mother and grandmother and I recently had a hearty laugh, because my grandmother just realized that HER mother gave birth only five months after her wedding date. This happened about 100 years ago. Oops! As my mother said, “I guess there was more to Grandma than met theeye!” (My grandmother’s response was, “Well, my father WAS very charming.”)
Choose Life,
Thank you for your kind thoughts!
well said Choose Life, well said. Especially about how there’s nothing that can protect you from a broken heart.
PC 6:47PM
LOL. My mother one day just said “I think I’m the reason your grandmother got married”. I asked her why. “Well, your grandmother was married in October and I was born in June and I KNOW I wasn’t premature”.
Oh, and the stepdaughter’s pregnancy? She delivered my cousin, who I always addressed as “uncle” and he was a fighter pilot in WW2. He’s still alive and writes articles of his war experiences. He and his wife filled me in on the facts of his birth, his real father’s name, and my grandfather’s death.
Also my father’s brother is still alive and has given many original family items and adoption papers.
Oh and PC, your great grandma must have been a pretty hot number herself!
Posted by: Mary at February 22, 2009 10:47 AM
Ken 9am
????????
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Posted by: Mary at February 22, 2009 4:18 AM’
‘I understand Thomas Jefferson intended the free press to be the watchdog of the government. All it is now is the lapdog of Obama.
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Mary I was just agreeing with your observation.
Newspapers, radio networks and television networks (the free press) are expected to provide the american people with fair and balanced ‘news’ coverage.
That is what the ‘fairness doctrine’ is supposed to be about.
But if I understand the ‘fairness doctrine’ correctly even the ‘entertainment’ part of the broadcast electronic media is supposed to be included within the scope of fair and balanced.
The media is supposed to police themselves in this regard, but they have failed.
The coverage of the last election cycle
by the broadcast media is a glaring example, not just of bias, but outright advocacy.
yor bro ken
Mary,
Ha! Thanks for the laugh.
PC,
My pleasure. Like my grandma always said:
“if you didn’t laugh you’d cry”.
Nice to see everyone being so tolerant of each other today. I started at the top of the thread where there’s so rather emotional responses and was getting to reply with something sarcastic and snarky, but then by the time I got to the bottom two people agreed to disagree on abortion and didn’t get nasty.
So…thanks :)
Obama’smotherdidmakeherchoice;nobodyforcedhertocarryhim;sowhyisthisapro-lifecommercial??
Hi Martha. The reason this is a pro-life commercial is that HAD his mother decided to kill Barak in the womb, he’d be dead (How’s that for a tautology?). In particular, he would not be the current President of the US. Thus we should be glad that he isn’t dead
Ken 11:27PM
Thanks for clarifying. I wasn’t sure what you meant.
Bernie Goldberg wrote the book about the media and Obama called “A Slobbering Love Affair”.
Serious journalism flew out the window with this campaign, that’s for certain.