Precisely because it has put free speech and reproductive rights in conflict, CBS's airing of the Focus on the Family ad should not be forgotten. If it is, both speech and women shall suffer.
At this point, many of us want to throw up our hands and wish the ad would just go away. It won't, of course. It will live on and on, posted by advocates and adversaries. That's what happens to ads these days.
So let's admit right up front that this is a free-speech nightmare: just because one football player's mother got lucky does not mean that every woman will. There's an unlucky woman out there who is going to see this ad, continue a medically dangerous pregnancy, and die.
And if we really believe in free speech, we have to allow that to happen, horrendous as it will be. The only remedy is our own advocacy, reminding women and men that there are many times -- whether it is saving a life or an education -- when abortion is the right choice.
And that is the reason why we can't let CBS off the hook.
Groups like Focus on the Family have made certain that there is no longer an abortion debate, at least not on network television or even in our film theatres. By threatening boycotts, they have all but silenced reproductive rights advocacy. "I'm having the baby" will fly through any network's standards and practices division. The simple word "abortion" was banished from Knocked Up.
It is not an accident that support for reproductive rights has declined in the current generation. Sure, some of this is due to the fading memory of back-alley abortions. My students today know no one seeking an abortion who has to hide in the back of a car with a blanket over her head, become sterile, or died.
But they also haven't been seeing fictional characters who come to the decision that an abortion today will result in a family tomorrow. They haven't seen women go through a simple medical procedure with no guilt or ill effect. They certainly haven't seen ads urging them not to risk their lives by continuing dangerous pregnancies.
CBS's sin -- and it is a very great sin -- is that they accepted an advocacy ad from an organization that has pushed them to censor on this very issue.
And that is why we can't just shake our heads and allow CBS to walk away.
Free speech is meaningless if only one position has access to the public square. By its actions, it is now incumbent upon CBS to revise its standards and practices so that those of us who have stories to tell about the benefits of abortion can do so in both programming and advertising.
CBS deserves our censure not for what it has run but for what it continues to suppress.