Winning the information war means learning all the important aspects of effective communication — which includes recognizing the power of emotion. Here is Anna Nienhuis at Mercatornet asking and answering a good question on the topic:
Why have shocking videos about the sale of fetal body parts not changed public opinion?
Two years have passed since the first video released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). These videos, which feature interviews with various Planned Parenthood employees, were meant to incite public outrage about the goings-on at Planned Parenthood and slow down or stop the abortion machine. A recent article by Joe Carter looks at how those videos, despite the quantity and content of them, failed to significantly shift the abortion debate.
While the videos were filmed, released, and directed at the United States, there are some valuable lessons in there for Canadians too. How did videos showing people talking casually about dismembering babies, dropping eyeballs, and selling fetal body parts for profit fail to convince people to take action?
It’s not that people don’t care. We saw in the recent case of Charlie Gard just how much people can care. And what they care about, in both cases, is choice. The public got up in arms when it appeared the parents did not have control over choices relating to Charlie’s care. Whether they cared about Charlie himself is another question. Similarly, in the abortion debate, the discussion is focused firmly on parental (in this case maternal) rights. The language is one of choice and control, and it seems we’ve sometimes forgotten the subject: a child whose life hangs in the balance.
The resolute grip on personal choice frames many of our cultural debates. When it comes to the Planned Parenthood videos released by CMP, we shouldn’t have expected a public who seems immune to the injustice of abortion to have cared particularly much about what happens to the remains of those unwanted children.
Read more: Mercatornet.com
Image credit: www.mercatornet.com.
