The above Super Bowl commercial for Doritos which depicts a man and woman viewing a sonogram, as the man is eating the corn chips. The fetus becomes aware of the chips and reacts, the man’s amusement. Eventually in frustration, the mother grabs the chip and throws it to the ground. And the baby forces himself or herself out of the womb.
It’s silly. Not the funniest commercial ever. But it attracted the ire of NARAL, a women’s rights organization who promotes a pro-choice ideology.
Doritos used a pro life “tactic” of humanizing fetuses. That’s the issue.
Now I am pro life. I’m also pro common sense. For a fetus that’s advanced to the gestation stage depicted in the commercial, there is no logical way of arguing that the fetus is not a human.
It’s a human for the same reason that if I go to a cookout, and the host says “dinner will be ready in a few minutes, the burgers are on the grill”
I don’t come back with “you’re burgerizing burgers” as if it’s not really a hamburger until it’s off the grill and on a bun. No, it’s a hamburger even when it’s on the grill.
Now I realize the analogy doesn’t work perfectly. Because one part of the analogy is using convoluted reasoning to make an absurd point and the other part is about hamburgers.
The issue an “anti-choice” tactic about humanizing fetuses. The issue is an anti-life tactic of doing whatever it can to dehumanize and undermine fetuses. Arguing that a fetus shouldn’t be humanized makes our humanity arbitrary and subjective. The more that technology advances, the more we can know about babies before they’re born and the uniqueness that is intrinsic to each of them.
Life News provides a touching piece of back story to this commercial:
Peter Carstairs, a Melbourne, Australia filmmaker who created the life-affirming commercial for the contest, said he was inspired after seeing his second child, Freddy, on an ultrasound screen. Carstairs said the ultrasound image that he used in his commercial actually is his son Freddy, who is now 9-months.
Though Carstairs manipulated his son’s ultrasound image for the commercial, his portrayal of unborn babies isn’t far from the truth. Studies have shown unborn babies reacting to various stimuli in the womb, including music and sound. Researchers also found that unborn babies develop a sense of taste in the womb and learn to recognize flavors and spices of the culture’s cuisine.
jrb
Josh Benner 