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Rumor has it that former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow was born after his mother experienced a life-threatening illness during her pregnancy. Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2012] For those who don't follow American sports, Tim Tebow was a standout quarterback at the University of Florida from 2006-09 (during which time the Gators won two national championships and Tebow was awarded the prestigious Heisman Trophy as the outstanding college football player of the year, the first sophomore to be so honored). He was the starting quarterback for the NFL's Denver Broncos, and played for several other NFL teams before becoming a professional baseball player. He currently plays for the Syracuse Mets. Tim Tebow's displays of religiosity have prompted the creation of a couple of eponyms associated with him. During his college years, Tebow often inscribed references to Bible verses (e.g., John 3:16, Proverbs 3:5-6) in his eyeblack, the grease athletes apply under their eyes to reduce glare from the sun and stadium lights. When the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned the display of eyeblack messages in 2010, the new regulation was quickly dubbed the Tebow rule, as he had been its most notable practitioner. (However, other college stars such as Reggie Bush and Terrelle Pryor also wore eyeblack messages, and the NCAA denied that the new rule had been prompted by Tim Tebow specifically. The NFL already had a rule in place prohibiting such messages.) Tim's practice of taking a knee in prayerful reflection in the midst of an athletic activity has also spawned the creation of the neologism Tebowing to describe such an activity. Tim's entry into the world was not an easy one. His parents, Bob and Pamela Tebow, met when they were both University of Florida students in the late 1960s, went on their first date a year later, and married three years later. In 1985 the Tebows, already the parents of four children, moved to the Philippines to serve as Christian Baptist missionaries, where in late 1986 Pamela became pregnant with the couple's fifth child. However, when Pamela suffered a life-threatening infection due to a pathogenic amoeba, the drugs she was treated with resulted in a severe placental abruption. According to an account Pamela Tebow provided to the Gainesville Sun in 2007, her doctors expected that her child would not survive and recommended an abortion to avoid endangering her own life: In early 2010, rumors that Pamela Tebow and her son Tim would be appearing in a commercial sponsored by Focus on the Family to be aired during the upcoming Super Bowl drew attention to the Tebows' story and prompted protests from groups who believed it would promote an anti-abortion message. However, the commercial proved much tamer than many expected; it merely featured Pam talking about (and being tackled by) her miracle baby who almost didn't make it into this world without including any overtly pro-life message: Nonetheless, the controversy prompted critics to question Pam's story, maintaining (as in the following example) that doctors in the Philippines were unlikely to have counseled her to seek an abortion, as the procedure has long been illegal in the Philippines: The illegality of abortion in the Philippines doesn't in itself mean that Mrs. Tebow couldn't possibly have been advised by doctors to seek one, however (especially since, as noted in a 2005 report, despite the law's severity, abortion appears to be widely practiced in Philippines, including medical procedures performed for better-off women by trained personnel).Certainly several alternative explanations are plausible, such as the possibility that Filipino doctors informed her an abortion might be necessary to preserve her own life without specifically offering to perform the procedure. (As an American, she had the means to return to the United States for the procedure or seek medical care outside the Philippines.) It might also be the case that doctors explained the various risks associated with her condition to her, leaving her to her own judgment and choices, thereby suggesting (but not explicitly counseling) abortion. Ultimately, the issue was a private matter between Pamela Tebow and her doctors which (absent additional information) doesn't lend itself to independent verification, so we can't make any definitive statement about what she might or not not have been advised.
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