Life Links 12/30/09

The Colorado Spring Independent is reporting that Focus on the Family may be planning to have a prolife ad during the Super Bowl. The ad would supposedly feature Pam Tebow, the mother of Florida Gators' quarterback and former Heisman winner Tim Tebow.

The Focus ad supposedly features the story of University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother. Pam Tebow and her husband were Christian missionaries in the Philippines in the '80s, and during her pregnancy with Tim she developed amoebic dysentery. Doctors told her the strong drug they used to kill the infection had likely damaged the fetus, and they suggested an abortion. Pam refused. Tim was born healthy, won the Heisman Trophy in 2007, led Florida to the national championship a year ago and is a likely top draft pick in next spring's NFL draft.....

Focus isn't confirming anything about the ad, though it's not a secret inside the organization. Reached by phone Tuesday, Focus media relations director Gary Schneeberger said: "I decline comment. Let's just say that. I have nothing to say."

But then he added: "If there is a Super Bowl commercial from Focus on the Family, I guess you'll just have to wait and see it during the Super Bowl. I can say Tim Tebow does not appear in any Focus on the Family ad." Schneeberger didn't say anything about Tebow's mother.

Two Chief Rabbis is Israel are speaking out against abortion and claiming that abortions "delay the redemption."

In a letter sent out on Monday, Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger encourage local rabbis to devote their Shabbat sermons to speaking against abortions, distributeanti-abortion literature to couples registering for marriage at religious councils, and work in coordination with the pro-life organization Efrat to encourage grassroots opposition to abortions.....

Reference made in the rabbis' letter to the connection between abortions and the final redemption is based on the Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Niddah which states that each baby that is born bringsthe redemption closer. "The redemption does not take place until all the souls are brought out of their storing place," states the Talmud.

CBS News is covering the controversy over the tripling of Art Torres salary at the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, California's stem cell agency.

Just this month, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine voted to triple the salary of Art Torres. He's not a scientist, but a former State Senator from Los Angeles, who later became California's Democratic Party chairman. He was making $75,000 a year working part time at the stem cell institute, but now he'll be making $225,000 working full time, while state workers are facing furloughs and a resulting 14% pay cut.

The UK's Daily Mail has an article on repeat abortions among teenagers in the UK.

Nearly 1,500 of the 19,000 girls under 18 who had a termination last year had previously undergone one earlier abortion for an unwanted pregnancy – and in at least one case a teenage girl had her eighth abortion.

Department of Health data for 2008 reveals 74 teenagers had their third abortion and a further 15 girls under the age of 18 had previously had between three and six earlier abortions.