Recently I’ve been scanning YouTube, comparing the pro-choice videos with pro-life videos. The results have been…interesting.
Well, for starters, I searched simply “pro-choice.” The first result I got was “Interview with a Pro-Choice Student,” with about 118,000 views. It’s been on YouTube for five years, totaling 592 likes and 361 dislikes. That’s about a ratio of 2 likes for every dislike.
Meanwhile, one of the most popular pro-life videos on YouTube is 180 – yes, the famous documentary posted September 2011. It’s snagged 24,248 likes and 5,631 dislikes, giving the film 5 likes for every dislike.
Planned Parenthood has gotten around 3,000,000 views total on YouTube. Their most popular video is a response to Tim Tebow’s “Focus on the Family” Super Bowl commercial. This pro-choice video was posted in February of 2010; it has gotten 279,056 views, 1,158 likes, and 886 dislikes.
Father Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life, is one of the most famous advocates of the pro-life movement. He has about the same number of videos on his YouTube channel as Planned Parenthood does (he has 215, while Planned Parenthood has 203), yet he has a million more views than they do and 3,000 more subscribers (he has 5,206 devoted followers; Planned Parenthood has 2,006). His most popular video exposes the truth behind a suction abortion – at around 2,400,000 views, it has been liked 3,466 times and disliked 2,560 times – a ratio of 14 likes for every 10 dislikes.
I snagged random videos off Planned Parenthood’s channel and took down information about views and total likes versus dislikes. Then I viewed pro-life videos with about the same number of views and took down their statistics. Here is one example:
A Planned Parenthood video posted in January 2011, honoring Roe v. Wade‘s 38th anniversary, has received a total of 2,338 views in its lifetime of about a year and a half. While it has received 32 likes, this is opposed with 85 dislikes. That is a ratio of about 3 dislikes for every dislike.
Meanwhile, its pro-life counterpart of 1,518 views, “I’m Pro-Life Because…,” was posted about two weeks ago. That’s an average of 759 views per week. In that short about of time, it has been liked 22 times and disliked only twice – 11 likes for every dislike.
On the whole, I found pro-life support on YouTube to be the stronger. It was amusing when, searching “Planned Parenthood,” the first few videos were various versions of “Planned Parenthood: Exposed!” by LiveAction. This is great!
It is imperative for pro-lifers to show their support in the media and on the internet, be it through blogging, Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter. As Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Do not let this be the case with unborn children! With modern technology, it is easier than ever to make ourselves heard. So after you’ve finished watching the latest video that sends you tumbling off the seat in laughter, take a minute or two to watch and respond to the pro-life videos out there. You never know what effect you’ll have!
