Imagining the Potential!
Part One of Two

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note: Please post these TN&Vs on your social networking pages by going to www.nrlc.org/News_and_views/Mar09/nv040109.html and clicking on the "Share" button. Part Two discusses "How Down Syndrome Lifted Me Up." Please send your comments on either or both of these columns to daveandrusko@gmail.com

"Ms. Doan said ultrasound images circulating online have been especially helpful to abortion opponents, because they humanize the fetus. 'I've seen a marked change in how people talk about abortion,' especially young adults, Ms. Doan said. 'It's much more favorable to the pro-life movement.'"
     From "Facing Tough Washington Climate, Abortion Foes Move Debate Online," which appears in today's Wall Street Journal.

If you think about it, each and every pro-lifer is in the persuasion business. In big ways and small, directly and indirectly, in our local communities or in the halls of Congress, our task is to transform vague impressions about "rights" into vivid pictures about what happens (and to whom) when those "rights" are exercised.

In today's Wall Street Journal you can find a superb overview with several illustrations of our Movement's rapidly growing capacity to produce thought-provoking content and then "rely on the power of viral networking to spread it widely." (You will find Stephanie Simon's story at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123854185757175689.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

For our purposes a "viral network" merely refers to the use of existing social networks, such as Facebook and Youtube, to send out or post information. Part Two is a perfect example.

Kurt Kondrich has produced a wonderful Youtube tribute to Chloe, his little girl who has Down syndrome. You can watch it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOYp02iqPl4&feature=channel and then alert your friends, family, and colleagues.

As always, the genius of our Movement is that there are venues for everyone's comfort level and degree of sophistication.

To be sure it's not as if working online is the be-all or end-all of pro-life outreach. It is simply another arrow in the quiver, but one that offers the possibility of hitting a virtually unlimited number of bullseyes at a very minimal cost.

The Journal story revolves around a tremendous example of low-key content taking a huge negative and turning it into a gigantic positive. In this instance that negative is abortion-is-my-other-middle-name President Barack Obama.

During 2008 we wrote and wrote about a man who had left a trail of anti-life votes and statements a mile wide but with limited effect. The national media had no interest in telling the American people about the real man behind the curtain. And Obama was a genius at persuading people he was too nice a guy ever to oppose the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, legislation to provide legal protection for babies who are born alive during abortions--which he had done, of course, as an Illinois state Senator.

Catholicvote.org

But an organization called Catholicvote.org produced a brief but immensely persuasive video which has been seen almost two million times.

The visual backdrop is of an ultrasound showing an unborn child in his mother's womb. With violins playing in the background, the following text appears sequentially on the screen:

"The child's future is a broken home.
"He will be abandoned by his father.
"His single mother will struggle to raise him.
"Despite the hardships he will endure
"This child will become….
"The first African American President."

The tag line is, "Life: Imagine the Potential." Simon writes the video "has turned his life story into an advertisement for the antiabortion movement."

This is political ju-jitsu of the highest order.

Naturally NARAL dismisses the many examples of pro-life ingenuity as much ado about nothing. But the story ends with a quote from Alesha Doan, a political scientist at the University of Kansas who "supports legalized abortion."

Doan acknowledges that obviously some of this is "preaching to the choir" but adds, "They've altered the parameters of the discourse." For sheer impact it is no accident that the example she cites is ultrasound images of unborn babies circulating online. In them pro-abortion abstractions ("blobs of tissue") become concrete pro-life illustrations (ultrasounds as a "baby's first picture"). As Doan correctly points out, they "humanize the fetus."

"I've seen a marked change in how people talk about abortion," especially young adults, Ms. Doan tells Simon. "It's much more favorable to the pro-life movement."

National Right to Life News is running a lengthy and very helpful series of articles about how you can use social networks to spread the pro-life word. If you are not a subscriber, call us today at 202-626-8828.

Part Two -- "How Down Syndrome Lifted Me Up"