Gosnell Case Shifts Opinion -- Of People Who Hear of It

"Gosnell Case Is Shifting Public Opinion On Abortion," is the headline on the Investors' Business Daily story. But not all of the public. Only the members of the public who have a clue that Kermit Gosnell isn't a green Muppet.

Their latest poll found the following breakdown of how people's abortion views were changed by reading or seeing news coverage of the Kermit Gosnell trial:

• More pro-life: 42%
• More pro-choice: 17%
• No change: 41%

This would look like good news for life advocates except for one teensie weensie little problem:Only 24% of people surveyed said that they had seen or heard anything about Kermit Gosnell and his "house of horrors."

How could it be that only a quarter of adults were aware of a mass murder trial involving drug trafficking and severed body parts kept in jars?

Perhaps overall the awareness was higher than what IBD found. A Gallup poll found that 54% of respondents weren't following the Gosnell case at all, and only 25% were following the trial either "very closely" or "somewhat closely."

We still wind up with only about 25% of the population having any real awareness of the Gosnell trial, "well below the 61 percent average level of attention Americans have paid to the more than 200 news stories Gallup has measured since 1991."

What if the Gosnell case had gotten even an average amount of media attention? What if 61% of Americans had been made aware of what had been going on at the Women's Medical Society?

Well, 42% of 24% is 10% of the American public drifting further prolife, whereas 42% of 61% would be 26% of the American public drifting further prolife.

In short, the abortion rights movement better pray to whatever god or goddess they pray to that the reporters and producers who were dragged kicking and screaming into covering the Gosnell trial aren't typical Americans, likely to actually re-examine their beliefs when confronted with ugly reality.