The 30-second pro-life ad that FOX Sports rejected for Sunday’s Super Bowl does not even mention the word “abortion.”
Produced by the new Faces of Choice pro-life organization, the ad was created to air during the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. It shows people who have survived abortions asking the question, “Can you look me in the eye and tell me that I shouldn’t be alive?”
The simple, yet profound ad makes people think about the injustice of abortion without mentioning the word. Through the faces and words of abortion survivors, it exposes the undeniable, ugly truth that an abortion kills a unique human life.
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But FOX rejected their stories for the Super Bowl – and chose to run a controversial ad featuring drag queens instead.
Lyric Gillett, the 28-year-old founder of Faces of Choice and producer of the ad, said the network gave them the run-around for months before it finally told them “no.”
This week, a FOX spokesperson told the Washington Times that they sold out of ad space early and could not fit in the Faces of Choice commercial.
But Gillett said they were led to believe that there was still ad space. She said they answered multiple questions from the network and provided various requested documents. At one point, she said the network told them that they would receive an answer by the end of November.
“FOX’s response would have been acceptable in November but we have been working with their legal team since July, so executives claiming ad space was not available is intentionally deceptive,” she said. “Faces of Choice provided every answer and documentation the legal team requested and though the network has every right to decide which advertisers to accept, stringing along an eager advertiser who met every demand is professionally shady.”
Within just a few days, more than 100,000 people sent messages to FOX asking the network to air the ad, Gillett said.
Pro-life advocates have noted that FOX found no problem with running another controversial ad during the big game. A Sabra hummus commercial scheduled to air features two drag queens/LGBTQ activists.
Monica Cole of One Million Moms told One News Now that the network has a double standard.
“They approved of this particular [drag queen] commercial to air when children are watching the Super Bowl and they know that they’re watching,” she said.
But FOX rejected the abortion survivors’ ad.
Gillett and the abortion survivors are not giving up. She said they already have begun talks with CBS about airing a commercial during the 2021 Super Bowl.
They hope that, by sharing their stories with a huge audience, they will break down the myth of “choice.”
“Abortion advocates need to look these survivors in the eye and come to terms with the fact that they are human, that their lives matter, and that choice is more than a word: it’s a person,” Gillett said.
