Super Bowl Surrealism: Urge CBS to Cancel Anti-Choice Ad

Really?

Last week, CBS approved an explicitly anti-choice ad by Focus on the Family for Super Bowl Sunday, February 7.

The ad, according to the Women's Media Center, which is leading a campaign to pressure CBS to pull it, "is surrealistic in its argument that a woman who chooses not to have a child may be depriving the Super Bowl of a football player."

[Read this AP article about the ad and the Women's Media Center campaign.]

Surrealistic indeed. And dangerous as well -- particularly as health care reform hangs in the balance and abortion opponents in Congress continue to wield threats.

A letter sent to CBS by the Women's Media Center and supported by the Ms. Foundation and other women's organizations, which urges the immediate cancellation of the ad, reads:

Focus on the Family has waged war on non-traditional families, tried its hand at race baiting during the 2008 election, and is now attempting to use the Super Bowl to further ramp up the vitriolic rhetoric surrounding reproductive rights. 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 alienate viewers and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers. The decision to air this ad would be ethically, economically and politically disastrous for CBS. The content of this ad endangers women’s health, uses sports to divide rather than to unite, and promotes an organization that opposes the equality of Americans based on gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and reproductive freedom.

Add your name to the petition.