Maybe it’s the graininess of the video, the cheesiness of the lines, the general comparison of a woman’s body to “the game,” or that absurdity of having completely unqualified dudes that are often heralded as the very definition of masculinity in America provide authority in women’s issues, but honestly, this throwback “think of the babies” plug is hilarious. Stupid. Troubling. But hilarious.
It’s certainly outdated, but the original 12-minute video, entitled “Life: The Way of Champions” brought to you by an organization called Pro-Life Athletes (which now goes by Life Athletes) is a succinct overview of the world’s worst and illogical arguments against the choice to have an abortion. Some gems:
“Choices are good, we all like choices. To start a game, I want the right to choose heads or tails when the ref tosses the coin. But some choices are different from others. You never have the right to choose something evil like abortion.”
“Sex is great, but only between people who are married to each other. It’s an awesome thing to create a new life.”
“After all is said and done, the choice is simple as this: to have a dead baby or a live baby.”
All ridiculousness aside, it does highlight the fact that the most irrelevant and incompetent (in women’s health) men hold so much sway when it comes to dead or live babies. Tara Sweeney, the communications directer for NARAL Pro-Choice New York, responded to the video, telling Huffington Post:
“It is absurd and insulting that professional football players would lecture women about what choice to make in the case of an unwanted pregnancy. Sadly, it’s not surprising — not when you have Congress convening all-male panels to talk about birth control and the Supreme Court just last month giving bosses the right to decide whether a woman can access contraception. I hope that the sheer absurdity of this video opens some eyes to the fact that a woman’s reproductive health care decisions should be left to her and her family — not politicians, not bosses, not even 1990s NFL stars.”
Sigh, at least we’ll always have fond memories of Tebow.
[h/t Christian Nightmares]