SAN FRANCISCO (CNSNews.com) – NARAL Pro-Choice America chose to live-tweet its response to commercials broadcast during Super Bowl 50 on Sunday night, but touched a raw nerve with many after complaining that an ad featuring a baby during an ultrasound amounted to “humanizing fetuses.”
The ad portrays a lively unborn baby on an ultrasound screen reacting with enthusiasm to the Dorito-munching expectant Dad’s packet of snacks. Each time the husband moves a chip towards his wife’s belly, the baby on the screen makes a lunge for it. When the annoyed Mom throws a chip across the room the baby, to everyone’s consternation, decides to make an early arrival.
NARAL’s response: “#NotBuyingIt – that @Doritos ad using #antichoice tactic of humanizing fetuses & sexist tropes of dads as clueless & moms as uptight.”
The tweet drew a strong response as posters mocked NARAL for lacking both a sense of humor and a knowledge of basic biology:
Among them:
–idiots at NARAL are clueless about both humor and life.
–Humanizing fetuses? Did you all flunk biology?
–‘Humanizing fetuses’? What is Mom pregnant with? A potato? A duck? Nope – a human. Say it with me. She’s a baby.
–@Doritos acknowledges the humanity of an unborn life in an ad and anti-life/pro-abortion radicals come unhinged.
–Haha, the level of eye-twitch knee-jerk venom in this @NARAL post is delicious, just like @Doritos.
–Humanizing fetuses? Yeah. Because if you don’t want them, they’re rhinoceroses, right? God help us … I mean that literally.
–When it comes to giving birth, dads ARE clueless and moms ARE uptight. Clearly you’ve never had a baby.
–This is why no one likes you.
–You must be fun at parties.
The New York Post promptly posted an editorial calling NARAL’s statement “the dumbest denunciation ever.”
According to the tech company Spredfast, the Doritos ad generated about 275,000 mentions on Twitter during the Super Bowl, putting it in third place of all the ads during the game, behind Pepsi and Esurance.
The ultrasound ad was not the only one that got the thumbs-down from NARAL Pro-Choice America. Among others, the abortion rights group also:
–took a Hyundai ad to task for highlighting auto tracking technology with a first date theme (“taking away your daughter’s autonomy and stalking her on a date isn’t funny.”)
–scolded a Buick ad for depicting “women fighting over a wedding bouquet.”
–judged a Snickers ad featuring William Dafoe in a dress “transphobic.”
–complained about an Audi ad featuring a retired (male) astronaut. (“you couldn’t find a single female astronaut to feature in your ad?”)
Among the commercials NARAL did like was a Bud Light ad featuring Amy Schumer and Seth Rogin promoting their “Bud Light Party,” with a stump speech that begins, “They say we’re a nation divided. They say we disagree on everything …” but then goes on to list things Americans agree on, including beer.
NARAL told Twitter it loved the ad, before adding, “Americans do agree on many things – esp the need for #repro[ductive]freedom!”
Image from Doritos Super Bowl ad. 
