Babies, Families, and the Big Game

 

This guest post is from Robin Bland, Regent Law 2L and current Family Law student:

Doritos kicked off Super Bowl night with their ultrasound baby commercial, which I found humorous and a little uncomfortable. Ironically prior to the game, I had just read Gonzales v. Carhart 550 U.S. 124 (2007), which I personally couldn’t even get through due to the graphic nature of the medical description of a partial birth abortion. In typical American fashion, this commercial caused quite the stir. The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) led a Doritos backlash for “humanizing fetuses,” but my reaction to that response is, well what would you call “it” then? Their “Boycott Doritos” plan may help with the obesity epidemic sweeping America, or it just might increases Lay’s sales. Either way I’m skeptical of its actual affect.

A few commercials later in comes NFL’s “Super bowl babies.” My initial reaction was this commercial is so cute; second reaction - how creepy for the NFL to find these children; and third reaction - such an awkward moment for all these kids to figure out just how they came into this world. Not the most pleasant picture in a kid’s head, but hey, football is family right? The political question becomes was the NFL secretly making a pro-life statement (or just attempting to weird out a bunch of people)?

Regardless of your view on these ads, they at least bring up a hot topic in a somewhat realistic fashion and get people thinking. To be honest I have always been in the middle on the life-choice issue, not believing I have a right to judge someone else’s decision. I’m definitely all for women’s rights, but the more I learn and read I wonder if fighting for abortion rights is really helping women? See one of our readings, The Rise and Fall of Women’s Rights: Have Sexuality and Reproductive Freedom Forfeited Victory? 6 Wm & Mary J. Women & Law 381 (Winter 2000). 

At the end of the day these funny spots were just commercials that uniquely sparked genuine conversation (versus the Go Daddy Ads, which to this day I still don’t know what Go Daddy does).  Thank you Doritos and NFL for helping me think through family restoration.