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Tebow to Alienate Pro Football Fans During Super Bowl

Tim Tebow thinks pregnant women should ignore medical advice from doctors and he wants you to know all about it:

The former Florida quarterback and his mother will appear in a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl next month. The Christian group Focus on the Family says the Tebows will share a personal story centering on the theme “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

The group isn’t releasing details, but the commercial is likely to be an anti-abortion message chronicling Pam Tebow’s 1987 pregnancy. After getting sick during a mission trip to the Philippines, she ignored a recommendation by doctors to abort her fifth child and gave birth to Tim.

Tebow conservative politics and evangelical religiosity are well-known, but like Ed Kilgore I can’t help but note that it’s rare for sports figures to take public stands on this kind of controversial issue specifically out of fear of alienating fans who don’t share the athletes political views.

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On the specific issue, obviously Tebow is glad that his mother decided to carry his pregnancy to term. And I’m glad and we’re all glad that the doctors were mistaken and everything turned out to be fine. But the mode of reasoning that’s being employed here — we did something that experts said wasn’t likely to work out well but it did work out well, so everyone should do it — is obviously invalid. If doctors say that an abortion is probably necessary to prevent you from dying and you decide you want to roll the dice with your life, then that’s your right. But the “pro-life” family view that you should be forced to ignore your doctors’ expert medical advice seems deeply unsound. And pointing to a case like Tebow’s where the doctors’ fears proved unfounded is just a way of dodging the issue.