5 Weird Things About That NARAL “Doritos” Tweet

After the now-infamous “Big Game” commercial in which a baby jumps out of his mother’s womb to eat Doritos, NARAL sent out the following tweet:

#NotBuyingIt – that @Doritos ad using #antichoice tactic of humanizing fetuses & sexist tropes of dads as clueless & moms as uptight.

After reading this tweet, five things struck me as a bit weird. In order, they are:

“Antichoice Tactic”
Showing pictures of babies is an antichoice tactic? Golly! How politically incorrect Lisa and I have been all these years, engaging in antichoice tactics like showing home movies of our children and keeping family scrapbooks. Of course, we also have to sheepishly admit that we have engaged in activities that constituted perhaps the most antichoice tactic of them all: having children.

“Humanizing Fetuses”
A snack food company didn’t “humanize” fetuses. It’s not the corn chips that abortionists find so offensive in the ad; it’s the 4D imaging. And yes, 4D imaging does much to help humanize our concept of prenatal life, as it is a window into the preborn world, providing the overwhelming, conclusive, and irrefutable evidence of prenatal life.

Ilyse Hogue, president, NARAL Pro-Choice America

Of course, it’s fairly easy to humanize that which is already human. And that is—to use a favorite expression of progressives—an “inconvenient truth.”

Here are some questions I’d like to ask everyone in favor of abortion:

-If 4D imaging does not provide you with the evidence you need to conclude that what you are looking at is a baby, what more evidence do you need?

-In other words, what is 4D imaging lacking that you would have to see?

-Do you think that 4D imaging is a hoax, broadly carried out by doctors, nurses, and technicians every day in the Western world?

The real parlor trick has been to dehumanize fetuses, even with the overwhelming evidence of full motion video. This video evidence, the type of which is used in courtrooms across America, is said to be inadmissible in the court of public opinion. More than a parlor trick, the abortionists’ position has been a shell game, in which compassion, empathy, understanding, and humanity lie under the shell that they dare not lift.

“Dads”
Sure that’s the word you want, NARAL? Maybe all this homeschooling has steeped me in the Queen’s English a bit too long, but doesn’t the word “Dad” imply something: namely, fatherhood? If that thing moving around in there is not a baby, may I ask what he is a father of?

You know what would make the Dad REALLY look stupid? How about if he said: “That doesn’t look like a baby to me. It looks more like a blob of tissue.”

Now THAT would be stupid!

Betty Friedan was a keynote speaker at the first NARAL convention in Chicago, 1969.

Also, when did NARAL start being concerned for Dads? NARAL has campaigned against parental notification of abortion; it has campaigned against the rights of the husband as far as the abortion decision goes. Now, all of a sudden, they are upset when Dads are portrayed as clueless? Forgive me if I find that a bit disingenuous.

“Clueless”
That’s an interesting wording considering NARAL’s overall point. What would we call someone who could look at 4D ultrasound video and conclude that the viewer is looking at SOMETHING OTHER THAN A BABY?

Yes. “Clueless” works.

“Moms”
The word “Moms” here has the same problem as the word “Dads.” In fact, the word “Mom” tends to “humanize” the fetus too, right? In fact, perhaps no single word in the English language rhetorically humanizes fetuses like the word “Mom.” Seems like NARAL committed a pretty noteworthy Freudian slip.

I understand their dilemma. It’s hard for progressives to constantly change the meanings of words like “life,” “marriage,” “family,” “baby,” “human.” But that’s the problem with constantly tripping over yourself to redefine words for political expediency: sooner or later, you accidentally say the right thing.