Focus on the Family May Run Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad Featuring Tim Tebow’s Mom
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 31, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — When football fans watch the Super Bowl next year, they may see a pro-life ad from Focus on the Family focusing on the mother of potential future NFL star Tim Tebow. Tebow is the Heisman Trophy winner and University of Florida star quarterback whose mother decided not to abort him in a crisis pregnancy.
The Super Bowl ad would be costly — as a spot during the game and three 30-second commercials before it would reportedly run about $4 million — but provides a unique exposure to a large national and international audience.
The ad, according to multiple sources, reportedly features the story of Tebow’s birth.
Pam Tebow and her husband were Christian missionaries in the Philippines in 1985 and they prayed for "Timmy" before she became pregnant.
Unfortunately, Pam entered into a coma after she contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in a contaminated food or drink. The treatment for the medical condition would require strong medications that doctors told Pam had caused irreversible damage to Tim — so they advised her to have an abortion.
Tebow refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians predicted. She ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and, eventually, gave birth to a health baby boy in August 1987.
Tim Tebow would win the Heisman in 2007 and then lead the Florida Gators football team to the national championship a year later and he is likely a top draft pick for 2010.
Focus is not sharing any details about the potential ad.
Contacted by the Colorado Independent newspaper, a liberal rag, Focus media relations director Gary Schneeberger said: "I decline comment. Let’s just say that. I have nothing to say."
He then added, "If there is a Super Bowl commercial from Focus on the Family, I guess you’ll just have to wait and see it during the Super Bowl. I can say Tim Tebow does not appear in any Focus on the Family ad," though he did not mention his mother.
The newspaper also indicated the new head of Focus, Jim Daly, spoke at an evangelical conference months ago and spoke about the ad and sought funding for it.
Whether CBS will allow the potential Focus pro-life ad to air is another question.
This year, NBC rejected a television commercial the pro-life Catholic group Fidelis and its CatholicVote web site hoped to run.
The ad showed a beautiful picture of an unborn child during an ultrasound and asks what would happen if President Barack Obama had been a victim of abortion.
After several days of negotiations, an NBC representative in Chicago told the group that NBC and the NFL are not interested in advertisements involving "political advocacy or issues."
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