The Flag of the World

An important conversation is happening in conservative circles regarding what the pro-life movement’s next moves should be. The question started with Hadley Arkes in First Things is regarding what President Bush should do next for the pro-life movement. In his article entitled “Bush’s Second Chance,” Arkes argues that he hasn’t done enough, and outlines some things he could do next. Ramesh Ponnuru responded at NRO, defending Bush’s pro-life record, and criticizing some of Arkes suggestions. Then, Augustine over at Red State responded to Ponnuru, arguing that Bush should be doing more to make the pro-life argument in public. Ponnuru responded, noting the limitations that political realities have placed on the things the President & congress can do about, and also on how they can talk about abortion.

All that led to the most important question, posed by Krempasky over at Red State: where does the pro-life movement, go from here?

Perhaps unknowingly, Krempasky has posed a marketing question. How do we convince people to buy our product, the pro-life agenda, instead of our opponent’s product, the pro-choice agenda? Fortunately, marketing is what I do these days, so I would like to take a look at how the pro-life movement needs to market itself.

More specifically, I would like to take a look at how the pro-life moveemnt needs to position itself in the mind of the consumer (aka voter). This is a concept originally developed by Al Ries and Jack Trout, and through their many books, has become part of the pith and marrow of marketing strategy (not as much as they would like, of course, but it’s had an enormous impact). Using their concept of positioning–that is to say, affecting how a customer thinks about a product–I believe the pro-life cause can be very successful.

Really, there are four “products” that need to be positioned in the mind of the American voter: the pro-life lobby, the pro-choice lobby, abortion itself, and the Roe v. Wade decision.

Positioning the Pro-Life Lobby: This is one of the most important moves that needs to be made–fortunately, it’s in process. For years, the pro-choice trope about pro-lifers has been twofold–they’re extremists, and they’re men wanting to control women. As women such as this one more and more become the face of the movement, more and more people will listen. Operation Rescue is no longer the centerpiece of pro-life work–it’s blogs like After Abortion and organizations like Feminists for Life, whose “Women Deserve Better” slogan is an incredible piece of both truth and marketing. It’s difficult to overstate how important this shift is–but it’s not even close to finished. The signing of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban while surrounded by white men, for example, was a pretty hamfisted move by the Bush team.

As groups like FFL take the lead in the pro-life cause, they must be careful not to expand their focus. Several commenters to the Red State “what do we do?” post at Red State suggested that the pro-life movement should expand its focus, not only to stem cells, cloning, euthanasia and assisted suicide, but even to the death penalty. This is a very, very bad idea. In fact, even the split focus of pro-life groups on beginning of life and end of life issues is a bad idea. One of Ries and Trout’s main tenets, explored most fully in Origin of Brands, is that concepts diverge, they almost never converge. This means that the pro-life movement needs to keep its focus on abortion. The other battles are important, but in order to effectively position itself in the minds of the American populace, the pro-life movement can’t afford to spread itself too thin. Successful brands are those that people identify strongly with only one concept.

Positioning the Pro-Choice Lobby: This may be the easiest piece of the whole system. Those people who devote their entire lives to abortion tend to be remarkably extreme and offputting. We just need to encourage and not inhibit that process. Hillary Clinton’s “move to the middle” on abortion, however disingenuous, can also be useful in this regard. Along with most of the far left, the rule here is just don’t interrupt your opponent while he’s self destructing.

Positioning Abortion: In the past, the strategy of pro-lifers has been to position abortion as murder. While this is clearly true if you believe that life begins at conception, it’s bad marketing. Instead, the movement should, again, use to their advantage the mealy-mouthed condemnations of abortion by Democrats scrambling for the middle–co-opt their language. Abortion should be positioned as an unqualified “terrible thing.” That’s nearly impossible to argue against, and those who do come across as disturbed and/or disturbing. When something has been positioned as “terrible” in the mind of the public, they will be very willing to pass laws against it–even moreso than they are now, which brings us to our final positioning.

Positioning Roe: This is the hard part. Polls on abortion consistently show that a strong majority of Americans want abortion to be more heavily restricted than it is now–in a recent CBS news poll, 62 percent of respondents wanted Abortion to either be entirely illegal or at least under stricter limits than currently. In a recent Gallup poll, only 22 wanted abortion to be “always legal.” But polls also show that Americans reflexively support Roe v. Wade, despite the fact that that’s what’s keeping unrestricted abortion the rule. Of course, the blame for this rests almost entirely on the media, who misrepresent it as only affecting the first trimester.

Now, this may not actually matter. Roe (and its accompanying cases) will only be overturned if two of the six justices backing it up are replaced or change their minds, and neither of those should depend on polls. At the same time, any justice who’s wishy-washy enough to change their mind on this may well be willing to look at the polls. Additionally, pro-abortion politicians and activists can shield themselves behind the slogan of “defending Roe v. Wade,” instead of the less palatable “defending abortion.” Thus, it does need to be positioned.

This is a difficult one, because it’s so firmly ingrained in the public mind, but I do have a suggestion–Roe must be positioned as past tense. That is to say, people should begin to talk clearly about what will happen when–not if–Roe is overturned. Pro-lifers should take that as a given, and adjust their talking points to reflect what the world will look like afterwards. This will do at least three things–first, it will begin to clear up misconceptions about what an overturning would do (send the issue to the states), second, it will greatly weaken the decision in the public’s mind, and third, it will better prepare the movement for reality once Roe really is overturned.

What can I do? A lot of this stuff needs to be done at a high level within the pro-life movement, but it all can be applied to the grassroots level. Here are a few suggestions for people who blog about abortion, discuss it or are otherwise involved in the pro-life movement:

• Support the “new face” of the pro-life movement–give money to groups such as Feminists for Life.
• If you’re a man, take a step back–if you’re a woman, take a step forward. Women need to be out front in this fight. Men can do the grunt work.
• Don’t overextend the pro-life brand–anyone who opposes abortion or wants more restrictions is welcome, regardless of their stand on euthanasia, stem cell research or Terry Schiavo. Those are seperate debates
• Don’t bother demonizing the pro-abortion lobby–they’re doing fine on their own.
• Use the language discussed here–call abortion “a terrible thing” whenever it comes up. Get as many pro-abortion or undecided types as possible to agree with you.
• Talk about “when Roe is overturned” a lot. When challenged, don’t get into a lengthy debate–simply say “Roe v. Wade is bad caselaw–it’s going to be overturned sooner or later.”

Those who win the battle for positioning will win the battle everywhere else. If we lose it, then we’ll lose everywhere else. The pro-life movement must pay very close attention to how it’s marketing itself, and be willing to shift its tactice in order to do so more effectively.

Posted by Timothy Goddard at 6:06 pm 4/29/2005 | Life

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