The Usual Suspects
So here I am, early one Monday evening last year, at a Making Life Disciples (Care Net ministry) meeting. We are discussing the effects of the fifty plus years of Roe v. Wade and the creation and embedding of a culture that accepts the killing of infants in the womb as a necessary expediency. We are frustrated. We are not sure what has happened to our country. More importantly, we are not sure about what we can do to bring about change.
We are nearing the end of this most productive session when Tim (one of the attendees) makes a most interesting observation:
“Why do I keep seeing the same people at pro-life training sessions like this, or at right to life benefit dinners, or sidewalk marches or at any of a number of right to life or pro-life activities? Why is it always the same people? Why do we not seem to be adding or drawing in new faces?”
No matter how many dinners we attend or conferences we participate in, we seem to end up with the same group of players. The dinners and speakers are always excellent. But the attendees are generally unchanged. It is almost like the same people move from one meeting or event to another.
Interesting problem. I had not thought about things as succinctly as Tim just had. I do see almost the same people at all of these gatherings. Good people. God-fearing people. Prayerful people. Like Tim, I did begin to wonder more about how we were going to move past “our usual suspects” (the same faces) and add members by changing more “hearts and minds”.
The idea of getting people who have lived in the Roe v. Wade culture of abortion for fifty-plus years to join us in the pro-life movement seemed daunting… if not impossible.
The Methodology
The pro-life movement is essentially a belief or idea that we are attempting to restart in our society. It is good to remember that as late as the 1890’s all but two states had laws against abortion. Roe v. Wade provided a major setback to ground that had been won almost a century earlier. The Diffusion Research Institute gives us some insights on how ideas are spread in their discussion about diffusion theory:
There is a long history of trying to understand the spread of ideas and innovations within a population or society. The basic notion of diffusion theory is that a new idea is adopted very slowly during the early stages of its diffusion process. Then, if the innovation is perceived as relatively advantageous by its initial users, its rate of adoption takes off as early adopters share their favorable experiences with their peers.
The theory of diffusion of innovations originated in the first half of the 20th century and was later popularized by American sociologist Everett M. Rogers in his book Diffusion of Innovations, first published in 1962.
The expansion of the pro-life movement can readily be seen with strong similarities to the above product adoption curve. Each segment represents a particular group of people and their attitude or level of advocacy about the pro-life movement.
The Tipping Point
For the pro-life movement to expand beyond the innovators and early adopters, we must achieve critical mass or the “tipping point”. According to the Diffusion Institute:
The tipping point is the inflection point between the early and late majority in the bell-shaped curve of adoption.
Most researchers place the tipping point between 10-25 percent, depending upon the innovation. This means, on Rogers’ Diffusion Curve, that you need between 7 percent of the early adopters and 9 percent of the early majority to accept an idea before it spreads to the entire population.
NOTE: In his book “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell goes into considerable detail about how a “tipping point” has been achieved at various times in our culture. Much is said about identifying and achieving a “tipping point” when spreading or diffusing an idea across a society.
The Stages – Pro-Life Movement Perspective
The Innovators are the first group. They make up about 2.5% of the total population. These are the leaders of the pro-life movement. We recognize them by name, by their commitments, by their visible presence. They are the speakers at conferences, they write blogs, they lead the various pro-life organizations.
Now, the Early Adopters are the next 13.5%. It would seem that we are the Early Adapters. We are the same people we keep seeing at right-to-life marches, pro-life meetings, fundraising dinners, special events, and otherwise outwardly professing our support of the innovators.
After the Early Adopters, things get interesting. Moving the pro-life idea to the next level – the Early Majority – is our foremost challenge.
The Early Majority of 34% are the members of our churches and communities who are pro-life but are unable – for various reasons – unable to commit to the movement. They sort of understand that life was created at conception. They know that life is a precious gift from God. They know that killing the unborn infant is wrong. They are not engaged. They are tolerant and do not want to offend. They are on the fence about their commitment to the pro-life issue.
The 34% Late Majority do believe in the right of a woman to kill their unborn infant but most likely not all the way up to birth. Their approval of when abortion is acceptable may vary from as soon as a few weeks after conception until right up to birth. They significantly see the “rights” of the woman and not the “rights” of the human being in the womb. Their focus is on their lives and/or their personal plans.
And the remaining 16% is the Laggards. They are as strongly pro-abortion as the Early Adopters are pro-life. Occasionally, members of the Laggard group have an experience (miracle from God?) where they actually see the evil they are doing. We read about the doctor performing abortions who can no longer perform the procedure. We hear about the Planned Parenthood worker or director who suddenly sees the damage they are doing and they “flip” to the pro-life side and become Early Adopters.
The Challenge
On to our challenge of spreading the pro-life movement to the Early Majority. Whatever we have done or not done to get Early Adapters involved will not be sufficient to engage the Early Majority. We will have to be deliberate in getting the involvement of the Early Majority.
It would seem that this is the “ground game” that many pro-life groups describe as one-on-one conversations or educational opportunities. This could be anything that our pro-life organizations consider as outreach activities.
There are many examples of adding to the Early Majority. Five states have required that prenatal education be included in all public school human development courses. There are several groups on college campuses dialoging with students. Presentations at local churches, schools, and civic events (farmers markets, county fairs) all contribute to getting the word out.
It would seem that what we must do is be deliberate in our efforts to engage the Early Majority. Adding people to the pro-life movement will not happen automatically. We must press forward with specific activities and efforts to expand the pro-life movement.
Time for Action
OK … agree that the above is not a perfect roadmap or set of things to do. In fact, one of the things that occurs after we listen to a pro-life Innovator is knowing what to do next. How do we bring about change? Change is messy. Changing a culture of death… is going to be very messy. But we must expand our Early Adopter group. We must make headway into the Early Majority. We need to bring them aboard the pro-life movement.
There are specific activities or events that we can both plan and execute to add the Early Majority people to our Early Adopter group. This is where each pro-life movement determines what they can specifically do in their area (billboards, messaging, presentations, meetings, advertisements) to get the work out to the Early Majority.
Part of our challenge is knowing that we are engaging the Early Majority. It would seem that we might want to find some ways to measure our progress.
Measuring results. Interesting concept. At team meetings, we might discuss the results of our efforts. We might determine ways to measure results and then report the results. Conducting a meeting is not a result. Attending a conference is not a result. Adding 20 new members to our list of email contacts is a result. Finding out that your billboard or other advertisement had 50 new “contacts” last month is a result.
Bottomline: Our work in expanding the size of the pro-life movement will continue to be slow and methodical. We do not have the advantage of mass media being on our side. We must proceed one conversation, one person at a time. What we cannot do is sit back and wait for the Early Majority to find us. We must find them and secure their commitment to the pro-life movement.
>>>>><<<<<
References:
Diffusion Institute. Diffusion Theory: Extensions and Adaptations. https://diffusion-research.org/diffusion-theory-extensions-and-adaptations/
Gladwell, Malcolm (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Little Brown. ISBN 9780316316965.
Product Adoption Curve: How to Improve Adoption Rates at Each Stage. Userpilot Blog. Sophie Granger. https://userpilot.com/blog/product-adoption-curve-saas/
Rogers, E. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations, 5th edn, London, The Free Press.
Using the Technology Adoption Cycle to Overcome Blocks. https://www.business-reporter.co.uk/improving-business-performance/using-the-technology-adoption-lifecycle-to-overcome-blocks