Earlier today, I jotted a tweet, which I’d like to publish here — which I’d like to retweet, so to speak: “I’ve done a fair amount of writing about organ-harvesting in China. In light of Planned Parenthood, maybe I should look homeward?”

If these videos don’t shock the conscience of the nation, nothing will. On this subject, anyway (abortion). If these videos don’t stir the sleep of this nation, nothing will.

In the early 1850s, Harriet Beecher Stowe shocked the conscience with a novel. Of course, a lot of people read it — millions. And many who did not read it, heard about it.

Will Americans see these videos? I have learned not to assume that what is familiar to us in RightWorld is familiar to Americans at large. If people do see these videos and yawn — we’re goners.

P.S. A lot of us saw The Silent Scream back in the 1980s — and were shocked. But the impulse to look away, or to turn off thought, is strong.

P.P.S. I’m reminded that a sitting president, also in the 1980s, published a book: Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation. Good title, and good question.