Anti-choicers can’t seem to leave the Super Bowl alone, and they’ll use women’s uteruses as political footballs to make a point. So the MOMocrats are throwing a Pre-Super Bowl “Tailgate for Choice,” and we’re inviting  men and women who support reproductive rights to shout it  with your dollars this week before Super Bowl Sunday!

Two very bad things are slated to happen as a result of meddlers in women’s health injecting politics into what should be personal medical decisions: one, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer research foundation has withdrawn funding for breast cancer screenings offered at 19 Planned Parenthood clinics. No persuasive “official” reason has been given, but clearly anti-choicers within the organization leaned on the Susan Komen foundation, pointed to a baseless witch-hunt “investigation” of Planned Parenthood in Congress, and made that the pretext for ending funding when we all know it’s because…Planned Parenthood performs aBorTioNS!!!1!1!! [insert hyped-up gasp here, collapse on fainting couch/clutch pearls]. PLANNED PARENTHOOD CLINICS ALSO PERFORM PAP SMEARS, TESTS FOR STDs, AND BREAST CANCER SCREENINGS. So why are women who get low-cost health services from Planned Parenthood being treated as if they deserve no health care at all? It’s no longer a War on Women who seek to control their reproduction — it’s an all-out War on Women’s health. And it’s being led by a woman.

And two, you may have also heard this year that anti-choice religious zealots plan to flash images of fetuses in an ad during the game while people are reaching for the chips, right? Well, that’s totally WRONG.

In 2010, it was all about Tim Tebow. This year, it’s graphic ads flashed in your face whether you want you, your little kids, your retired great-uncle Joe, or Gram to see it, thanks to the attention-seeking insanity of a certain male anti-choice activist. Amanda Marcotte explains how this sad, disturbed individual is exploiting a loophole in federal election law to gain coveted ad time during the Super Bowl:

[Randall] Terry managed to exploit federal election law that requires local TV stations to run ads for any candidate running in a state primary in the 45 days preceding that primary. Since Terry is running a primary challenge to Barack Obama, he was able to exploit this law to run his ads.

…

Running a more suitable stunt campaign for Republicans runs a higher chance of getting an audience for his anti-choice message, but it would have meant having to compete for attention with all the other, more mainstream stunt candidates, such as Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich. With the Democratic contest, Terry gets the desired, if pointless advantage of being the sole crackpot in the field of play, and allows him to exploit the president’s fame to get more attention for himself.

Bill Berkowitz, writing in Talk2Action, highlights just how pathetic Terry is and the depths to which he’ll sink to fundraise off a hot-button issue:

It has been a long time since Randall Terry, the founder of the notorious anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue, has been anything more than a gnat on the political landscape. Where once he commanded an army of anti-abortion activists, a series of financial missteps, and personal indiscretions, including his being censured by his church, the Landmark Church of Binghamton, New York, “for a pattern of sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women,” according to a Washington Post report nearly twelve years ago, had relegated him to the outer Mongolia of the radical right.

These days, however, Terry is planning to change all that by playing an active, and he knows disturbingly provocative, role in this year’s Super Bowl festivities.

…

A recent Terry-issued Press Release pointed out that “The Terry campaign has already purchased ad time in 11 markets,” including Super Bowl ads in Ada, OK, Grand Junction, CO, Joplin, MO, Paducah, KY, and Springfield, MO. Pre-game Super Bowl purchases have been made for Eau Claire, WI, Kansas City, KS/MO, Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, Oklahoma City, OK, St. Louis, MO, and Tulsa, OK. [emphasis mine]

Consider the irony: we cannot see a pierced nipple on live tv, yet in some states, we will be made to see graphic images of medical procedures during extremely expensive Super Bowl air time in certain local markets. That said, if in-your-face mentions of abortion there must be surrounding this huge sporting event, we insist that everyone outraged at the War on Women take the opportunity to skip the commercial and go directly to donating to your favorite women’s health and reproductive justice organization.

Here’s how the MOMocrats Pre-Super Bowl Tailgate for Choice works: ALL THIS WEEK UP TO AND INCLUDING SUPER BOWL SUNDAY, DONATE TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD IN THE STATES TARGETED BY TERRY. Don’t wait for the tv ads to remind you. Donate now.

Guttmacher Institute

NARAL

NNAF

Planned Parenthood OK

Planned Parenthood CO

Planned Parenthood KY

Planned Parenthood MO

Planned Parenthood WI

Planned Parenthood MN

Planned Parenthood*

*help regional/local offices that’ll be blasted by Terry’s ads, such as the ones listed above

If media mentions of Randall Terry increase as the Super Bowl draws nearer, and you are a man or woman who trusts women to make the right choices for themselves, use those mentions to prompt you to donate at least $5 online to your  favorite pro-choice organization.

That way, right-wing  religious fundamentalists interested in making their narrow values everyone  else’s values will instead have spent their time promoting A GIANT PRO-CHOICE REMINDER to donate to Planned Parenthood.

Even if you’re not at a Super Bowl party—or even if the ads get pulled—during the week leading up to and including Sunday, February 3, 2012, make a donation to keep choice safe and  accessible for women. ‘Cuz uteruses aren’t political footballs.

Here’s why we decided there’s a need for a million “Tailgate  for Choice” parties around the country this coming Super Bowl Sunday:

• Anti-choice Randall Terry wants to toss a political stinkbomb into a  cherished and apolitical American institution, at an all-ages family event. TMI: discussions about health care really belong between patient and doctor.

• Most abortions in the U.S. occur well within the first trimester, whereas the fetuses Terry dishonestly features are from stillbirths, miscarriages, or abortions that happened later in the term.

• Election laws regarding candidate access to broadcast airtime were not created to give lunatics with money a giant vuvuzela so they can blare their narrow and unconstitutional views by distorting the electoral process, no matter what party they declare themselves affiliated with. (Otherwise, we’d see less of Donald Trump and more of Fred Karger on tv.)

• If you can’t trust a woman to decide how to care for her body, how can you trust her to raise a child?

Extremists have made it political for women to get good health care. Instead, we believe women need the full range of  options when taking care of their own health. We believe having no children at all is one of many  choices many women have open to them. We trust women to make the  decisions that are right for them.

Every so often some crazy person will decide that women have no need for sovereignty over their bodies, should be kept from making important decisions, and they’ll be the ones to impose their beliefs on the world. Here’s an opportunity to yell your support for choice. Best of all, you can help organizations that keep  women’s reproductive health accessible, private, and safe. We lift a dip-covered chip to the skies in your honor.

Join us at our MOMocrats Pre-Super Bowl Tailgate for Choice! If you’d like an emailed reminder on the day of, or would like to know what the MOMocrats have planned next, fill out the email form and you’ll get our occasional newsletter.

Take the pledge below in the comments and promise to donate at least $5 to one of the following worthy pro-choice groups on Super Bowl Sunday: