Dealing with the new school activist

Protesters and activists are playing dirty these days. They're out in the streets and in your face, flouting the unwritten rules of decency that had for years accompanied public protest.

Back in the good old days, the tactics of special interest groups centered almost solely around discourse as protesters armed themselves with only facts, reason and logic to win public support. But that was old school activism; the truly modern protester has a new weapon: explicit gore.

When Dr. Jack Kevorkian's videotape of the euthanasia of Thomas Youk aired on CBS's "60 Minutes" last week, the pro-assisted suicide movement's vanguard activist enrolled in the new school of activism, using graphic and explicit images to gain public support for his cause. Dr. Death's calculated spectacle achieved part of its purpose: Americans who sat riveted to their television sets that night were consumed by emotion at the sight of the terminally ill patient's death.

But Jack is not alone in his use of graphic media to persuade the public. Almost immediately after the broadcast of the Thomas Youk euthanasia, the Urban Family Council, a pro-family group, demanded that CBS and its Philadelphia affiliate KYW-TV air an 83-second videotape of a doctor performing a partial-birth abortion.

If these activists get their way, Americans watching prime-time television will soon be assaulted with explicit images of the late-term abortion procedure as the group continues its crusade. And let's face it: Just about any kind of medical procedure - abortion or not - is guaranteed to turn America's stomach.

Even during a trip to Boston last week, I was appalled to see protesters on highways and in teeming shopping areas displaying images of the oozing corpse of a furless mink, with nothing other than the word "fur" printed on the sign. Other protesters held posters with crisp pictures of purple aborted fetuses slathered in blood and amniotic fluid.

"Abortion," the signs simply read. Though each of these campaigns may ignite controversy over a different topic, all of them have one common thread: None of them make any effort to appeal to America's intellect. Instead, they bypass America's head and go straight for its stomach with grisly images.

Such gruesome pictures are rarely pleasant and are invariably disturbing, but gory images and shock tactics don't provide a sound basis for decision-making. Activists - including Kevorkian - must be more responsible in their campaigning by presenting balanced, reasonable arguments and leaving the carnage in morgues and hospitals, where it belongs.

No one can deny the power of graphic images in swaying public opinion. Just look at how incensed Americans have become over videotapes of nursing home abuse and police brutality. Though the videotapes in no way change the facts underlying the issues, they can cause the public to simmer with emotion - and to forget to look at issues rationally. Activists know this; that's why they use the tactic.

For example, a proposal - that was eventually killed - floated through the legislature about a year ago that would have required medical professionals to show graphic photographs of abortions to mothers considering the procedure. Much of the reason the bill died is that legislators saw it as a shameless attempt to use a fleeting moment of emotion to influence a decision that would affect the rest of a woman's life. If abortion opponents want women to refuse abortions, they should convince the women - not scare them.

What's at issue here is not the morality or ethics underlying abortion, the fur trade or assisted suicide, but the means many activists use to secure our support. It appears that the various propagandists would much rather have our support than our thorough belief in the causes they champion. And this is dangerous.

If we make laws or change protocols based on temporary torrents of emotion and later realize that our decisions were irrational, we have little means of rectification. Once laws have been enacted, they are next to impossible to repeal.

If activists must come at us with emotive photographs instead of a sound, rational argument, then maybe we should question them instead of allowing ourselves to be openly manipulated. Decisions that aren't made with the head are typically poor ones.

Activists would do better to discard their gruesome posters and use logic to convince Americans of the merit behind their causes. But bypassing our heads and using only our emotions to garner support is an underhanded means of campaigning.

- Scott Hunter can be reached over e-mail at sehunter@umich.edu

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11-30-98