It’s a baby, not a fetus. That’s the simple but poignant message behind a new multi-million dollar ad campaign recently launched by Focus on the Family in an effort to change hearts and minds on the issue of abortion.
The non-profit organization’s “It’s a Baby” marketing campaign, which features a television ad, was released to coincide with the one-year anniversary (June 24) of last year’s historic Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade. Focus on the Family President Jim Daly said that the one year anniversary of It was Dobbs the “perfect moment” to launch the effort.
Watch “It’s a Baby” from Focus on the Family
“Millions will speak about issues surrounding the sanctity of human life in the next two weeks,” he said.
Daly said Fox News that Focus on the Family is “always looking for compelling ways, even unexpected ways, to talk about national life.”
The 60-second “It’s a Baby” ad, which will run on television and digital platforms, featuring different scenarios: A wife looks at the results of a pregnancy test and tells her husband, “We had a fetus!” A couple is watching an ultrasound exam as mom touches the screen and says, “Hi, fetus.” One woman proudly wears a T-shirt that says, “Fetus on Board.”
“Call it what you want, but the truth doesn’t change,” said the commercial’s announcer.
On the Focus on the Family campaign’s webpage, the organization says: “We love the word baby—because baby, it’s personal. It points to the joy of life ahead and all the things that make babies human. And it happens from conception.”
“Words are powerful things,” he explained. “They mean something. They are important. They are the building blocks of our understanding of our world, how we understand our world. In order to have truly informed discussions (on the issue of abortion), we need to make sure we use the right words.”
Daly laments how the culture has become too comfortable using “antiseptic scientific terms” to dehumanize a child in the womb. He hopes the new campaign will change that trend. The president of Focus on the Family also pointed out the way the Mayo Clinic describes a baby.
“Even the Mayo Clinic website, in an article that takes prospective parents through their child’s progress weekly, uses ‘baby’ to describe that child 37 times, from the moment of fertilization, ” Daly said on Fox News. The institution knew it was a baby. We wish more Americans knew that fact, too.
In an article in Everyday Citizen (Focus on Family magazine), STaff writer Zachary Mettler said the campaign serves a major need: counter the abortion lobby’s anti-life messaging and advertising.
“It’s no secret that abortion is big money — Planned Parenthood makes more than $1.9 billion annually,” Mettler wrote. “A year ago, the abortion vendor announced a $16 million paid media campaign leading up to the Dobbs decision… The pro-life movement may not be able to match the abortionist’s advertising dollar for dollar, but it can let’s work hard to counter the pro-abortion programming. ”
