#74: Interview: Lila Rose, Live Action (ProlifePodcast.Net)

Summary and Transcript of Podcast found here:
http://blog.prolifepodcast.net/2009/10/02/74-interview-lila-rose-live-action.aspx

Lila Rose, President of Live Action takes on the Life Report Questionnaire.
1) [0:02:41] What did you get in trouble for as a child?
a) Reading books at the dinner table
b) Fighting matches with my younger siblings and older brothers
2) [0:03:50] What is your favorite movie, and why?
Prince of Egypt
3) [0:04:31] What has been the pro-life movement’s greatest victory (or victories) so far?
Public opinion of abortion based on poll results. More are prolife due to the (a) boldness of prolife activists, (b) boldness of using media, (3) opposition (pro-abortion president)
4) [0:06:18] What has been the pro-life movement’s greatest failing or weakness?
Lack of hope, courage
5) [0:10:01] Graphic Pictures: Should we use them, and if so, how, when, and where?
Graphics pictures are absolutely necessary in winning the war against abortion and should be used whenever we are brave enough to use them at school, freeways, church, political forum, media
6) [0:13:18] Stem Cell Research & Human Cloning: What should pro-lifers be doing about this, and why?
a) Educate people. Focus on “human life begins at conception”; show images of the unborn child; philosophical and scientific arguments
b) Never vote for or support politicians who are not prolife
c) Launch school campaign (embryo’s point of view)
7) [0:18:02] Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia: What should pro-lifers be doing about this, and why?
a) Watch for the legislation, e.g., health care bill
b) Message needs to be told: “no matter the age, no matter the size, no matter the capabilities, no matter any of these qualifications that we might put on human life, human life has intrinsic value and needs to be respected and there cannot be any compromises on that”
8) [0:19:45] How should pro-lifers interact with those who are pro-abortion-choice?
a) By talking and having the searching conversation with them
b) We need to be gracious and we need to never judge these people and where they’re coming from
c) Ask them a lot of questions
i) Why are you pro-choice?
ii) When do you think life begins?
iii) When do you think and why do you think abortion might be justified?
9) [0:24:59] What single thing should pro-lifers be doing that most are NOT doing right now?
a) Be more confident and courageous.
b) Show the image of abortion. Don’t let the victim be hidden.
 
[Beginning of Transcript 0:00:20 ]

JOSH: Anyway, we are here with Lila Rose. We’re going to do another prolife “celebrity” interview but Lila prefers prolife “activist” interviews and so we’ll say prolife activist. How are you doing, Lila?

LILA: Good, how are you, Josh?

JOSH: Oh, I’m doing good. You’re doing very many cool speeches around here lately. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us about you and Live Action in case any prolifers have been living in a cave for the last year. Who are you and what do you do before we get into the questionnaire?

LILA: Of course. Okay, first of all, I’m a 21-year-old college student at UCLA. This is my senior year I’m coming into. I’m a history major. I’m also one of 8 children. We are all homeschooled. I’m in between 5 boys so I grew up pretty tough I’d say.

JOSH: So where are you in the 8?

LILA: I’m the third oldest so 2 older brothers, 3 younger brothers and then my mom had 2 little girls.

JOSH: That’s fantastic.

LILA: It is. It was quite a wonderful childhood. So there’s that and I started up a group called Live Action which we’re now a non-profit prolife new media organization that has a national and even international outreach program at about age 15 and now we do all kinds of work to expose abortion, both in the abortion industry and lobby and to the public using new media and investigative journalism.

JOSH: I have called Lila the... this is like the To Catch a Predator of the prolife movement. You’re the Chris Hansen that goes in and “What are you doing here?” You’re going in with the hidden cameras and you have the best gotcha moments the prolife side has ever had I would say so.

LILA: Well, there’s plenty to be had because there’s so much illicit activity happening in the abortion industry so there’s much more to come.

JOSH: I can’t wait to see. I want to hear more about that but maybe we’ll do that in the second episode. So for those of you that are new to the show, when we do interview shows, we make everyone go through the prolife gauntlet if you will, the 9 questions so we want everybody to ask and the idea is as we get more and more prolifers that have just amazing perspectives and histories to answer these questions, you start seeing interesting patterns. You see some people answering the same question with the same answers and then you get kind of some variety so this is where we get kind of a well-rounded kind of view of things so we’re going to go ahead and start with Question 1. [0:02:41] Lila, what did you get in trouble for as a child?

LILA: That is a good question. Probably two major things that I can think of, the first of which, I would bring books cause I was very much a reader when I was a little girl and I would bring books to the dinner table because I would be so enthralled by whatever I was reading and I would just ignore the family and I’d just be reading at the dinner table which my dad hated so he would take my books and he’d put them on top of the refrigerator because I was so short I couldn’t reach them until after the meal was finished so that was one thing that I was notorious for.
The other thing is I would get in fighting matches with my brothers and I’d beat them of course every single time. Well, not always but always fighting with younger siblings or my older brothers was part of the things I got in trouble for too but there’s always a good reason for the fight let me say.

JOSH: I bet. Well, you know, older brothers, we can’t help it so.

LILA: Exactly, I had to stand up to them.

JOSH: Exactly, and maybe that influenced how you are now with Planned Parenthood and stuff like that.

LILA: The Big Brother.

JOSH: Exactly, exactly.

LILA: I would never compare my brothers to Planned Parenthood. Oh my goodness.

JOSH: Thank you. [0:03:50] What is your favorite movie and why?

LILA: Oh, favorite movie. Okay, I have a few. I actually don’t watch that many movies but I try to watch only the good ones and there are some great ones. One movie I always loved as a little girl, I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite but it’s one of them was the Prince of Egypt? It’s actually not even a live action film, it’s a… Get that live action film?

JOSH: Excellent music though, the best music.

LILA: Exactly, I’ve just loved… I’ve always loved the music. When I first watched it as a little girl, it sent chills up my spine, I was like, “This is lovely” and it still speaks to me so I like that. I like that film among others.

JOSH: Prince of Egypt, that’s the first time we’ve gotten that answer on the show so that’s good. [0:04:31] What has been the prolife movement’s greatest victory or victories so far do you think?

LILA: I think that at the end of the day, our victories are best measured by the public opinion of abortion because at the end of the day, that’s really what we’re going for is changing hearts and minds and the fact that prolifers, according to the latest poll, as far as someone who would consider themselves prolife is in the majority in our nation, that is an enormous victory. We still have a very long way to go and we have a lot of fighting left to do but it’s something that should only encourage us and inspire us to even more action.

JOSH: [0:05:07] What do you think led to those polls?

LILA: I think overall a few things, boldness on the part of prolife activists who have been working for years upon years even before I was born but especially the boldness of willing to use media in a very, very cutting edge way whether it’s graphic images of abortion or its campaigns to educate exactly about the violence of abortion. All the films and media that’s coming out, movies and shorts that have to do with the violence of abortion and stories, compelling stories of women who choose life and then also having opposition I think helps us to reach more people.
Having the Obama administration to be so rabidly pro-abortion and having the partial birth abortion fight out in public, dragging that out in public forums. These sorts of things convince people to come to the prolife side because really, Josh, when people hear the message, it’s just about getting the true message to them and will convert hearts and minds.

JOSH: So prolifers should be making videos and using new media and stuff, what’s this? Facebook?

LILA: Podcasts, I heard those might be really good in reaching people.

JOSH: Some people consider this a tougher question. [0:06:18] What do you think has been the prolife movement’s greatest failing or weakness?

LILA: I think, I mean I can’t speak authoritatively on what might be the greatest because I’ve only been around a short time in the movement but I can say what I’ve seen personally as the greatest failing is the lack of hope and lack of courage because I believe with my whole heart that if we band together and we continue to work with full faith and hope, we will see a day in America without abortion but I have met activists who God bless them have been working so long and have been laboring so hard that they’ve lost the hope and they see this more as, “Okay, maybe it’s a relay race. Maybe we’re never going to get through. We just have to pass the torch on to the next generation and they’ll have to fight and we’ll never really make it” but we conquered slavery in America. We conquered the civil rights battle in America. We conquered child labor in America. I mean we still have to fight these things to an extent but they’re made illegal. The laws stand against them so we can conquer abortion and we must believe that and act like that’s what we need from our country if our country’s going to survive.

JOSH: And those things took a long time to make it happen. I mean we talk about, “Oh my gosh! It’s been 30 years” and those things took much longer sometimes to make happen.

LILA: Right, but by the power of God who works miracles through people with faith, it can take… It could be overnight. Really God can do anything. Anything is possible through God and through the people that believe in Him so I don’t know how long it will take but I don’t think it necessarily needs to take 100 years.

JOSH: Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. You’re the first person that has said “lack of hope” in response to that question. You made me think, I think maybe I told this story in a podcast before but there’s an older gentleman that has been involved in our Right to Life group for I don’t know how many decades but he comes in here sometimes and kind of hangs out and the day after the election, he came in and he just kind of plopped down in this chair and just kind of put his head in his hands, he just looked like he’d lost all hope. It’s just like, “I’m going to die before this thing ends.” And I told him, “Don’t lose hope. It just means we need to get better at what we do.”

LILA: Exactly.

JOSH: And so yeah, I definitely agree with you on that.

LILA: And it’s incredible how the crimes of history and what seems like the times we might despair in history, and as a history student, I’ve been able to study this, actually turn into the great night or the dark night before the brilliant dawn and I believe strongly that the worst things get, the better things will be and we have to believe in that.

JOSH: [0:08:48] Give me a couple of historical examples of that. That’s interesting to me. Tell me a little bit about that.

LILA: Well, I mean, the historical examples I can talk about my own life, things that have happened in my own life I think each person has a testimony of the dark night before the dawn but our nation, I mean the history of our nation, you talk about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and you talk about the way that right before I mean we won the civil war, there were so little hope that our country would ever be united again and we’d ever be able to deal with all the blood that had been shed again and yet we rose out of that even more united and entered into an even more united period of our history where there still are scars but we were closer than before. I mean, that of course is a wonderful example right there and I mean even today, yes, you could say that our president and he is extremely pro-abortion and I completely disapprove of him but people said that there would never be an African American president. There would never be a Black president because the racism was so great in our country, well, look at that I mean there are so many examples in our nation’s history where before the great darkness, there came a brilliant dawn and it will be so with abortion.

JOSH: You brought up graphic pictures before so let me ask you about graphic pictures, [0:10:01] should we use them and if so, how, when, and where?

LILA: Graphic pictures are absolutely necessary in winning the war against abortion because they do what nothing else can do. They lay out the basic fact that abortion is a violent act that kills an innocent, tiny human being, nothing else, not even the most elaborate words can prove it as powerfully as a picture. They say a picture speaks a thousand words. It’s true. So I think that the images are very necessary.

Also, in the history of social reform, images have driven the debate. They’ve actually taken over the debate and even, I mentioned child labor earlier and child labor, Louis Hine, the photographer, would take pictures of children with missing fingers and children who are so tiny and dying because their lungs were never able to develop as they were working in the mills whatever it may be and he would go and show these photos and people were getting angry at him, “Why are you showing these horrible photos?” He said, “I’m showing these photos of child labor because I want us to be so sick of them that we do away with the institution of child labor altogether.”

In the history of social reform with the civil rights movement, images drove the debate, images of Black men being attacked by dogs and Black women being attacked by dogs and police with fire hoses. These sorts of things are necessary. Do they cause controversy? Do they make people angry? Do they make some people “turned off”? Of course! They’re violent images but they’re necessary to win so when? Where? I would say as often as we’re brave enough to use them. Where? To high school, college, and students up, people older than that. On our freeways, they should be used. At our churches, they should be used if people refuse to repent of the sin of abortion and pastors refuse to take a stand against abortion from the pulpit. I think they should be used definitely in the political forum. They should be used in the media. Basically, as Louis Hines, the photographer of child labor photos said, “We need to use them until we’re so sick of seeing the violence of abortion that we want to do away with the institution altogether.”

JOSH: We’ll be back with Lila Rose after the break.

[Break 0:12:13 - 0:13:08]

JOSH: All right, we are back. I don’t really know another way to say that. It is getting so old after 70 episodes of saying we are back, that just feels so trite. [0:13:18] Anyway, stem cell research and human cloning, what should prolifers be doing about this and why?

LILA: Well, anytime that a human being’s life is in danger, we should be concerned so with human cloning and stem cell research, when you’re talking about taking a tiny human being, en embryo or the right after human life has been conceived, you’re talking about murder. You’re talking about a violence against the human person, an affront on basic human life so it’s wrong and we need to fight it just as much as we would fight the abortion of a 7-month-old baby. We have to look at human life holistically and not say that one baby is more valuable than another because it’s a little bigger and more developed just like we don’t say that you, Josh, cause you’re a tall adult man, you’re more valuable than a toddler whose head is almost as big as his little body. We don’t judge people and we don’t value people based on their size or their development or where they live, their environment so it is with stem cell research and human cloning. We need to look at the babies that are being killed through those methods just as eagerly to save their lives as we are to save the children who are being aborted surgically and medically.

JOSH: [0:14:36] And then what should we do?

LILA: “And then what should we do” meaning, how…?

JOSH: In response, as far as activism goes, we call them activists, it’s all about activism, I don’t necessarily even have the answer to this but I get asked, I was telling John this morning, I did like a two-hour stem cell seminar in Atlanta recently and someone asked afterwards, “Well, what do you want us to do besides listen to you talk?”

LILA: Right.

JOSH: And my response is just kind of well, “Now that you’re educated, be watching the legislation and cause that’s one of the main ways [..] to be involved but are there other ways, maybe even brainstorming campus activism that there’s some campuses that do embryonic stem cell research, what can people that have become educated about stem cell research then what can they do besides just knowing about it?

LILA: Well, I think there are a few things. First of all, in understanding and wholly reaching out to people to educate them about how human value does not start at a certain time but it starts at the beginning of the human life, at conception, that should be definitely as we educate, we should focus on that, giving as we show images of the unborn child developing and all of that, we should also focus on talking philosophically, scientifically about how life begins at conception so that people can apply those arguments to human cloning and embryonic stem cell research and understand that these things are wrong just as much as abortion.

Along with that, and again, this is all educational work that needs to be done and along with that, people need to understand that when they vote for a politician that in any way would increase money or increase the liberties of taking human life, whether it’s in a Petri dish or whether they’re cloning it or whatever it may be, they need to stand strong and never vote for those politicians and never support them and part of that is being willing to do the research to find out track records on politicians and on proposed legislation and part of that also is having that commitment, be strong enough where they see life as the number one issue, life is the most basic right that we have, therefore, when we go to the voting booth or when we consider legislation or consider propositions that needs to be our fundamental guideline that we use when making those decisions.

JOSH: [0:16:47] Can you think of any kind of campus activism for example here at Fresno State, they’re doing embryonic stem cell research, we haven’t done anything cause I haven’t really known what to do. Can you think as someone who has done a lot of work on campuses and I’m asking this to other people that kind of specialize in that field, is there something that like the prolife students could or should be thinking about doing in response to that besides talking to people about it?

LILA: Well, of course, I mean you could make a campaign about, “Is it right to take my life for science?” or “Don’t I have a choice that I might give my life for science someday instead of it being taken?” and you can just talk about it from the individual’s point of view that would be killed for supposed science although as you probably talked about already on this podcast, what results have we seen from this science? From this research? Hardly anything. But that’s beside the point because even if there were results, it’s wrong because the end does not justify the means here. So I think that just an educational campaign talking about it from basically from the point of view of that child that maybe we don’t recognize as a child because physically it doesn’t look like, oh, a two-year-old kid. When we’re doing it from that individual’s point of view and doing a campaign, that might help people think and better come closer to the prolife point of view on this.

JOSH: [0:18:02] Okay, assisted suicide and euthanasia, what should prolifers be doing about that and why?

LILA: Assisted suicide and euthanasia are another two hugely important right to life issues because you’re dealing with not necessarily the embryo or the fetus but you’re dealing with the human being at a much later stage of life so I think that the threats and the number of people being killed by assisted suicide and euthanasia thankfully are very small right now. Not to say that they do not need our concern and our work but I’m just saying that my focus as an activist has been on the preborn child because more than any other life age of human being, they are being threatened and killed. However, we must be very vigilant as we watch for the legislation and the moves of politicians especially in today’s administration with the health care bill, et cetera which views the elderly somehow as less important and their health needs as less important as the younger person or the person that could work harder or be stronger. That way of thinking is not American and it’s not just either and it’s not the way that our nation should ever think or our culture. So I think that again it’s part of the prolife issue that’s very important. Again, what it comes down to ultimately is educating that no matter the age, no matter the size, no matter the capabilities, no matter any of these qualifications that we might put on human life, human life has intrinsic value and needs to be respected and there cannot be any compromises on that so that’s ultimately, the public message, the public educational message that needs to be told.

JOSH: We finally get to my favorite questions. This is something that we probably talk about more than anything else on this podcast, talking about dialogue, [0:19:45] how should prolifers interact with those who are pro-abortion-choice?

LILA: Pro-abortion-choice? Is that a new one, Josh?

JOSH: That… I keep getting that. No one. I can’t believe no one has heard this. This is like a lot of the top-level pro-choice people and then also pro-lifers.

LILA: Let me tell you something. I have been in dozens of Planned Parenthood clinics across the country under cover and I’ve trained teams to do the same work, they are not pro-abortion-choice, they are pro-abortion in these clinics. That is the number one option they offer women, that’s the way that their counseling is manipulative in order to direct women to that choice. It’s not a choice between two things, it’s abortion. So there might be a few people out there who are pro-abortion-choice but when we’re talking about those in the industry and lobby, it’s pro-abortion.

JOSH: Yeah, and I’m not talking about those in the industry. I’m talking about those people that are not going undercover in a Planned Parenthood with a hidden camera.

LILA: Okay.

JOSH: Or those of us that just talk…

LILA: Don’t get me fired up.

JOSH: I… obviously! Well, for those of us just talking with friends…

LILA: Oh, friends, okay.

JOSH: …those that are in our sphere of influence, those that are… or whoever. Maybe we’re doing a GAP or a justice for all project on campus and we’re talking to people that are more in the middle, have not really thought about it.

LILA: I see what you’re saying.

JOSH: Maybe in my mind, they don’t like abortion but at this point, they feel that at least a choice ought to be available.

LILA: Right.

JOSH: How should we interact with those types of people?

LILA: I hear what you’re saying. I have friends, very close friends, who consider themselves “pro-choice” and they’re very good and loving people and I think there’s a disconnect here and what I’ve learned and I’ve actually seen some of these friends become pro-life just by talking and having the searching conversation with them. Because at the end of the day, when you ask questions and a lot of these people that call themselves pro-choice, they just haven’t heard the pro-life message. They haven’t seen the photos of what abortion actually is and does to a human being and they just don’t have the information that maybe we have and we’ve been given whether it’s through our childhood or some other person we met when we were younger whatever it is. They just haven’t had the opportunity to better understand so I think we need to be gracious and we need to never judge these people and where they’re coming from because we don’t know what kind of education they had or did not have, what experiences they had or did not have. So when talking with our friends who may be pro-choice, I think we need to ask them a lot of questions and ask them, “Why are you pro-choice? When do you think life begins? When do you think and why do you think abortion might be justified?” And what you’ll find in asking these questions and you go on a journey of thought with this person, your friend, is often you will both meet at the pro-life answer which is that no matter what, life is valuable and there’s no reason ever to kill an innocent human being.”

JOSH: Now practically speaking, I got the feeling that a lot of the people that are now our regular listeners of this show, once they got into that dialogue could do really well but the hard part is making that dialog happen. How do you practically speaking get to the point where you can get a pro-choice friends of yours to meet at Starbucks or do whatever where you’re going to talk about cause sometimes no one even wants to talk about, “Why would I want to talk about this with you?” kind of a thing. Well, obviously, we want to talk about it with them. How do you get that going in the first place?

LILA: Right. Well, first of all, don’t be so afraid of what people think of you. I mean, I remember as a college freshman…

JOSH: You don’t have a problem with that.

LILA: I don’t know about you. Everyone has their own struggles but I remember as a college freshman or maybe I was a sophomore at that time, the head of the Bruin Republicans group, he was introducing me to some other friends and I’m not necessarily Republican but I would come there to say the prolife message. The Democrats wouldn’t let me do it but he would say, “Oh, this is Lila. She’s the abortion girl. ‘Hi, my name is Lila Rose. I’m prolife. I’m against abortion.’” That’s how he would jokingly, mockingly almost introduce me and you know what? It’s okay because, Josh, this is the greatest human rights abuse of our day. You and I are a part of the greatest, I believe the greatest struggle our country has ever seen for the most basic human right, for the right to life for all people so we should be proud of being part of this incredible movement and when we’re talking with our friends, they should already know that about us first of all, we need to wear our positions on this most important cultural, social, political issue very openly and strongly and they should already know that about us. We must always be gracious, always be open to hearing their point of view. Open to answering their questions. Open to asking them questions. But I think that if we haven’t already made it, we need to make environment or the situation where we can have those conversations if the person is willing. So yeah, can I take you out to lunch? Talk to you more about this. I know you already think I’m crazy but let’s talk a little more about it, right? And you’d be surprised how willing people, some people maybe not but how willing most people are to have that dialog to better understand the prolife position because at the heart of it, Josh, people want to be prolife. We’re born to want to value our fellow man. We’re born to look at children, preborn children, tiny first-conceived children as a gift and not a threat. That’s what we’re meant to see and to view them as so it’s just natural for people ultimately to want to talk about it and want to accept the prolife position.

JOSH: [0:24:59] Final question, what single thing should prolife, in fact Dave Schmidt is the first person I ever asked this question so I…

LILA: Okay, so I wonder what… What did he say?

JOSH: He said, what did he say? I know he was talking about…

LILA: I’m going to fire him if he didn’t… I’m totally just kidding.

JOSH: I know he talked about not using prolife but talking about life rights.

LILA: Oh.

JOSH: I don’t remember if this is so … you guys. This is like nine months ago.

LILA: Okay.

JOSH: [0:25:15] But anyway what single thing should prolifers be doing that most are not doing right now?

LILA: I think there’s two things. First of all, we need to be more confident and courageous. Sometimes I feel like we’re apologetic or we’re afraid or we’re confused even. I think we are on the side of again, the winning side of the greatest movement for human rights that our nation has ever seen, the most fundamental right, and that’s something we need to do with a smile, with grace, with boldness because it’s a blessing, it’s a privilege, it’s the greatest of opportunity to be involved in this movement.

So that’s one thing and then the other thing is related. Show the image of abortion. Don’t let the victim be hidden. The other side has been hiding the victim for ever since before, even before Roe v Wade. Don’t let them succeed. Don’t let them win with that. Don’t let our fears or our insecurities prevent us from showing the victim to the American public, the victim that is the aborted child and that is I think the number one thing that prolifers should do more is be unafraid as much as possible to show the victim because we are not the victim. We’re the activists for the victim, the victim is what needs to be seen.

JOSH: Lila Rose is the president and founder of Live Action Films. Their website is LiveAction.org. Thank you for coming and putting up with us…

LILA: Thank you. Oh, thanks, Josh.

JOSH: …and check back in with us again next week.

[End of Transcript 0:26:50]