e common forms of rhetoric of morality, rationality and entitlement. Best’s model can be applied to child sexual abuse for example, to demonstrate how the logical structure operates. Most claimsmaking activity surrounding child sexual abuse will begin with ground statements. Ground statements provide the definitions and statistical background necessary to help draw a conclusion. For child sexual abuse to become a claim, the activists need a clear definition such as “a sexual act imposed on a child who lacks emotional, maturational, and cognitive development.” [9] This definition is critical as it must set out the boundaries of child sexual abuse, so a behavior can be easily compared to determine guilt. A specific claim always comes from a particular orientation, usually one which reflects the interests and goals of the claimsmaker. The orientation refers to a particular stance, direction or interpretation, whether this be moral, medical or justice. For child sexual abuse, a common orientation is morality, and a group with its values and interests in religion may push this claim, such as the Catholic Church. The next step in Best’s logical model is the choosing of the typifying example. This stage is crucial to the garnering of public attention. The typifying example is what the claimsmakers are describing as the most typical case, which is usually the most dramatic case, not necessarily the most valid or common one. For child sexual abuse, a typifying example could be the sudden discovery that your own husband had been secretly sexually abusing your young daughter for years. Numerical estimates make up the final component of the grounds statement, and Best suggests that big, rounded numbers provided by an official agency hold the most credibility with an audience. For example a numeric estimate such as “data from police departments across Canada show that over 80 perce...
