NARAL Angry at Doritos for Showing Baby Ultrasound, 'Humanizing Fetus,' in Super Bowl Ad
The National Abortion Rights Action League took to Twitter Sunday night to express outrage after a Doritos commercial during Super Bowl 50 gave personality to an unborn baby who simply wanted some of his dad's cheesy tortilla chips.
The 30-second commercial features a pregnant mother getting ultrasound at nine months. As the OB/GYN explains that the baby is due "any day now," the father of the baby is over on the side of the room eating a bag of nacho cheese Doritos.
"Really? You are eating Doritos?" the mom asks the dad.
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"He is eating Doritos at my ultrasound," the mother then tells the doctor. "Do you see what I have to deal with?"
The expectant father then waves a single chip over the mother's belly. While he is doing that, the monitor shows that the baby is moving along with the motion of the Dorito. When the dad causes the baby to move suddenly in a way that causes the mother pain, the mom snatches the chip out of the father's hand and throws it across the room.
After the mom threw the chip, viewers are left to infer that the baby jolted out of the mother's womb to go after the chip, as the the mother, father and doctor all begin to scream.
Although most Super Bowl commercials, including the Doritos ad, are meant to be humorous, the abortion advocates at NARAL did not find the subtle pro-life message in the ad to be funny.
In a tweet following the Doritos commercial, NARAL argued that the advertisement used "antichoice tactics of humanizing fetuses."
#NotBuyingIt - that @Doritos ad using #antichoice tactic of humanizing fetuses & sexist tropes of dads as clueless & moms as uptight. #SB50
— NARAL (@NARAL) February 8, 2016
"#NotBuyingIt," the NARAL tweet states. "that @Doritos ad using #antichoice tactic of humanizing fetuses & sexist tropes of dads as clueless & moms as uptight. #SB50."
Following the tweet, NARAL began to get pummeled on social media by hundreds of Twitter users who found NARAL's tweet to be ridiculous.
Doc Washburn, a radio talk show host in Little Rock, Arkansas, sent out a tweet asking NARAL what they believe a human fetus is.
"Humanizing fetuses"? What is mom preganant [sic] with? A potato? A duck?" Washburn asked. "Nope — a human. Say it with me. She's a baby. @NARAL @Doritos"
A number of other Twitter users posted screengrabs of the Wikipedia definition of a fetus, which states that a fetus is a "prenatal human between its embryonic state and its birth."
Lisa Sargese, a philosophy professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, took offense to NARAL's assertion that the baby in the commercial is merely a fetus even though the doctor said that the baby could be born "any day now."
"@NARAL 's ridiculous allegation that an obvious late term pregnancy is merely a 'fetus' makes me want to buy @Doritos," Sargese wrote.
In an editorial, The Christian Post op-ed contributor Michael Brown argued that NARAL's tweet shows that the organization has "no heart."
"But what NARAL said about the 'antichoice' (= pro-life) 'tactic of humanizing fetuses' reminds us that, even more tragically, NARAL does not have a heart," Brown wrote. "There's a reason that the vast majority of women who see their ultrasound choose not to abort their babies."
The Doritos commercial was not the only Super Bowl 50 commercial that NARAL bashed on Twitter. The organization also tweeted its disapproval of a Hyundai commercial featuring actor and comedian Kevin Hart, who throughout the commercial followed his daughter all over town as she went on a first date with a guy.
Although that commercial was also meant to be humorous, NARAL found that commercial to be sexist.
"Hey, @Hyundai — taking away your daughter's autonomy and stalking her on a date isn't funny. #NotBuyingIt #SB50," a NARAL tweet argued.
NARAL also disliked a Snickers commercial that the organization claimed was "transphobic" and implies that women are OK with "being objectified as long as they have snacks."
