Christine M. Flowers: The Pro-Life Ad Bowl

FOR SOME, including many women (yours truly excepted), one of the only reasons to watch the Super Bowl is the ads. While football fans are salivating at the prospect of a smackdown between Manning and Brees, there actually are folks anxious to see what Mad Ave. has cooked up as the off-field entertainment.

This year, they might just get more than a few chuckles - they might be forced to think.

Tim Tebow, Heisman Trophy winner and devout Christian, will appear in an anti-abortion ad sponsored by the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family.

Tebow's story is inspiring. When his mother was pregnant with him in 1987, she was a missionary in the Philippines. Advised to have an abortion because of life-threatening complications, she decided against it. And the rest is Heisman history.

Of course, some will say she "chose" to have her son, the essence of the pro-choice philosophy. But had she "chosen" differently, the world would have lost an exceptional human being, not to mention a two-time national football champion.

You don't have to agree with Pam Tebow's decision to put her own health on the line to give her baby a fighting chance. But what you shouldn't do is start pulling out your hair in some wave of hormonal rage and try to prevent the spot from airing.

According to the Washington Post, a coalition of women's groups including the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority and the Women's Media Center have demanded that CBS drop the ad.

In a letter to CBS, they wrote, "By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers." (Frankly, a network that's survived "Two and a Half Men" doesn't have to worry about a 30-second spot extolling the virtues of life.)

The reaction of the Chicken Littles amazes me. They talk about fundamental rights, free speech, autonomy and being able to think for yourself, all the things that you check with a "yes" on the Progressive Club application. But when it comes to information about something they disagree with, those virtues become optional.

To its credit, CBS has refused to let itself be bullied by the abortion lobbyists and affirmed that the ad will run. It still may cave in to the threat of boycotts - but right now, it's not. (Although it's now also considering ads for gay-dating Web sites.)

But it's ridiculous that it even has to deal with this type of intimidation from (un-)"civil rights groups" and their supporters in the media. As dyspeptic sportswriter Jay Mariotti writes at Fanhouse.com, "If Tebow and his family want to start an evangelism TV show on Sunday morning, go right ahead. The Super Bowl is not a place for their views."

Oh, but it is a place for Janet Jackson's Technicolor nipple, vapid commercials extolling the virtues of getting wasted, scantily clad cheerleaders who make an overwhelmingly male audience happy that the lovely ladies' mothers were pro-life - and above-average car commercials.

I think the real reason these women are angered by the prospect of Tebow getting such a high-profile soapbox is that it goes against the stereotype they like to push that pro-lifers are mainly elderly white men who like their women barefoot and pregnant, or assassins who target ob-gyns. He's a messenger who can connect with young people, a generation that, amazingly, is significantly more pro-life than its parents and grandparents.

And that's scary to them. Because ever since the high court tried to foreclose debate on abortion, the battle has turned to another, equally powerful court: public opinion. Polls show that young women are much more receptive to abortion restrictions than their mothers were. They are also more willing to let men have a say in whether the child they created together will one day have a shot at the Heisman.

Tebow's ad probably won't change many hearts and minds. In fact, if the women hadn't made such a stink, his message would probably have been lost in the hoopla over New Orleans' miraculous rise from the waters of Hurricane Katrina.

But he has a right to speak his heart, and we have a right to hear what he has to say.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer. Listen to her Thursdays on WPHT/1210 AM, 10-midnight.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.