I used to be a football fan and spent Sundays cussing out refs and memorizing tight ends. But when I moved to Alaska, I reclaimed my Sundays from the manufactured machismo and mansplaining. I stopped being a spectator. This year, however, I paid attention to the Super Bowl after being alerted to a specific advertisement. And now that the confetti has been swept up, the trophy hoisted and the rest of the world has moved on, I’m still reeling from that 60-second ghost.
I am grateful to announce that the ad didn’t air during the mainstream program. Instead, the spot, titled “The Girl in the Middle,” aired during the Turning Point USA “alternative” halftime show. It depicted a young woman caught between two loud, competing narratives — parenting and abortion — and it framed adoption as the forgotten third option: a courageous act of love.
To me, as a mother who was manipulated into relinquishing her son, this “third option” isn’t a bridge — it’s a trap draped in the language of bravery. It is dangerous, expensive propaganda.
The ad presents adoption as a shiny alternative to abortion, but let’s get the definitions straight: Abortion is a health care decision regarding whether to continue or end a pregnancy; adoption is an alternative to parenting. By conflating the two, the industry isn’t supporting women. It’s fueling a supply-and-demand model that treats infants as commodities and birth mothers as vessels.
