“Americans broadly and strongly disapprove of federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, with sizable majorities saying Congress is overstepping its bounds for political gain,” writes ABC News’ Gary Langer. “The public, by 63-28 percent, supports the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube, and by a 25-point margin opposes a law mandating federal review of her case. By a lopsided 67-19 percent most think the elected officials trying to keep Schiavo alive are doing so more for political advantage than out of concern for her or for the principles involved.”
So why is this case suddenly dominating the news? And why is the minority viewpoint winning?
Part of the answer rests in the power of a photograph of Schiavo seemingly smiling in response to a visitor, and the power of the frame of “every life is sacred.” Let’s not also forget House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s obvious need to change the subject from his ethics problems.
But the Schiavo storm also demonstrates the power of a networked minority over a diffuse majority.
It’s no surprise that evangelical Christians are the one group that is evenly divided on whether or not it’s OK to remove Schiavo’s feeding tube, compared to the rest of the country. But the right-to-life community is also highly networked AND fired up about this case. Go to ProLifeBlogs.com and click on the aggregator button if you want to see the online face of this. In just a month, the site has built an affiliated blogroll of more than 250 sites. Or check out Terrisfight, the online home of the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation. And the biggest pro-life group, the National Right to Life Committee, is all over the issue.
Go over to the pro-choice side of the web–the National Organization for Women, NARAL, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the ACLU–and there’s no mention of the Schiavo case. Yes, there are bloggers talking up the other side of the issue–like Scott Rosenberg, Mark Kleiman and Matt Conigliaro (a Florida law blogger). But they’re not nearly as passionate or as networked. Research into the differing structures of the pro-life and pro-choice movements has found that the former is far more “ground war” focused while the latter is far more “air war” focused. And right now the ground warriors are winning, bigtime.