(Newser)
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As the uproar over Tim Tebow’s anti-abortion Super Bowl ad rages, little attention has been paid to whether his mom Pam’s story—that she refused a recommended abortion while working as a missionary in the Philippines—is true. “One detail has so far been excluded from Tebow's public tellings of the story: Abortion was, and still is, illegal in the Philippines,” writes Tracy Clark-Flory for Salon. The law allows no exceptions, even when the mother's life is in danger.
This makes it highly unlikely that a physician would have recommended Tebow’s mother abort because the antibiotics she was taking for amoebic dysentery might cause fetal damage, Clark-Flory writes, citing a letter from the Center for Reproductive Rights. And although the law might not have been an issue for Pam Tebow, who says she based her decision on her Christian faith, the writer notes, “It is an issue for, oh, the 1,000-plus women who died in 2008 because of the Philippines' abortion ban.”
