By Dave Andrusko
THE TIPPING POINT
Just before I sat down to record these thoughts, I chanced to ask my trusty assistant if she knew how many people had placed orders for the Special January Commemorative Issue. The number she gave me was dramatically higher than what she had reported to me only a week ago.
Coincidentally, moments before I chatted with Regina I had been shuffling some papers around to make room on my too-messy desk. What should I find but a Christmas present from my brother-in-law - - "The Tipping Point," Malcolm Gladwell's immensely popular book of a few years ago, now in paperback. I had re-read the first chapter, and when I talked with Regina, it got me to thinking.
Prior to last week I had tried any number of ways to get the message out about the January issue. But, as so often is the case, pro-lifers had more important matters on their minds for much of December: Christmas. However, when enough people not only purchased (and liked) the edition but also told others who told others, what had been only a trickle of orders turned into a mini-flood almost overnight. Suddenly, after a gradual build up, sales had apparently hit a "tipping point."
As Gladwell points out, the "tipping point" is a concept taken from epidemiology. It refers to "that point in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass," when everything seems to change overnight. His argument is that "ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease," as he explains. "Ideas," Gladwell maintains, "can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is."
What has all this to do with us? For 31 years pro-lifers have been "carriers" of the best idea possible: that we are all in this together, and that everyone, born and unborn, deserves the law's protection.
For three decades we've fought the good fight. For many of those years what we accomplished was confined largely to inoculating the American public from pro-abortion initiatives, such as the radically anti-life "Freedom of Choice Act."
Such defensive actions were and are absolutely critical. But what I contend is that in years to come historians will look back at the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 and view it as the turning point.
Since the Movement has met all three of Gladwell's criteria, we can reasonably believe that the American people are close to "catching" the pro-life vision.
First, our Movement is replete with exceptional people who "incubate the epidemic." These folks fall into three categories. Some are sociable, gregarious people who know lots of other people in various circles, while others know how to present the case for life in an attractive way, while still others convert citizens to our side who might not seem to be likely recruits.
Second, the idea of resisting the barbarism that is abortion has developed "stickiness." By this Gladwell means a quality that allows an idea to endure long enough to catch on - - to become "memorable."
Developing stickiness can be accomplished in a variety of ways.
For us sheer repetition has worked well: repeating our life-affirming vision over and over and over again. In the past seven years, however, we've also added something that enabled us to connect abortion in people's minds to something with which they can readily identify. In place of the verbal gauze of "choice," we revealed the real face of abortion, something that Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once called "too close to infanticide": partial-birth abortion.
Third, for this "word-of-mouth epidemic" to catch up, Gladwell writes, the "context" must be such that it can spread through the population. The context is now perfect for our cause: an entire generation of young people has grown up among the ruins of a culture spawned by Roe v. Wade. (See story, page 29.)
For these reasons, I honestly believe we are near the Tipping Point, that juncture in which a dramatic transformation suddenly takes place. The ingredients are all there: message (love for unborn children and their mothers), medium (you), and milieu (a population awakened to the grisly viciousness that is abortion).
This edition is all about meeting the challenges of 2004. With God's help, I know we will.
Dave Andrusko can be reached at daveandrusko@hotmail.com