People with a sense of grievance will always find something to be aggrieved about. And so it is with the abortion-rights crowd. During the Super Bowl, the chip company Doritos unveiled a commercial starring a hungry unborn baby. The ad depicts a woman being shown an ultrasound of her unborn baby for the first time. Meanwhile, her husband is eating a bag of Doritos and notices that the baby is responding to his hand motions, in an attempt to grab a chip.
The ad is pretty tasteless but nothing to get upset about. Unless it’s your job to get upset about anything that distracts the public from the idea that abortion is only a matter of a woman’s body and has nothing to do with the destruction of unborn human life. The country’s top abortion-rights activist group, NARAL Pro-Choice America, criticized the ad for, among other things, “humanizing fetuses.”
But when it comes to the humanity of unborn life, the horse is already out of the barn, or perhaps I should say the baby’s already out of the womb. For one thing, polls show that a majority of the public thinks life begins at conception and that the fetus is a human being.
For decades now, ultrasound photos have provided many millions of couples with windows to the womb to show us exactly what — who — is being destroyed in an abortion. It’s not a clump of cells; rather, it’s human being who, depending on the gestational age, can feel, think, yawn, kick, breath (in a way), dream and respond to external stimuli. In other words, what was depicted in the Doritos commercial is not that far-fetched, leaving aside the absurdity of a fetus craving something as processed and unorganic as a Dorito.
Of course, the entire abortion rights movement is built upon the idea that abortion should not be seen or talked about for what it is. That’s why state laws mandating that pregnant women considering abortion be given an opportunity to view an ultrasound have been met with such harsh resistance. And that’s why pro-abortion rights politicians strain to avoid using words like “baby,” “fetus,” “child,” “him,” “her,” “mother” and even “abortion” (itself a euphemism) when talking about the subject.
The data on whether and how much an ultrasound can sway an abortion-minded woman are mixed. Most of the research suggests that women who are determined to abort will do so almost no matter what. But studies also show that many women have been persuaded not to abort simply by catching a glimpse of their child on a monitor. And many other people have been affirmed in their pro-life views by doing the same.
Since the Super Bowl ad aired, some abortion advocates have been calling for a boycott of Doritos. But it wouldn’t matter. People will continue to view ultrasounds by the millions — not because they’re interested in corn chips, but because of the joy, mystery and beauty that those first glimpses of their son or daughter bring.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
