Thursday June 17, 2010
Caught in the LifeLight: LSN Interviews Lila Rose
By Peter J. Smith
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Few youth have managed to captivate so completely the pro-life movement as Lila Rose, whose courageous undercover investigative work has helped to blow the lid on a culture of illegality and deception at Planned Parenthood facilities.
Rose is President of Live Action Films, the group that has conducted investigative stings of abortion centers and released videos to the public documenting their devastating findings. The 20-year-old pro-life heroine displayed an eloquent clarity and confidence at Wednesday’s press conference at the Capitol Visitor’s Center in Washington, D.C., which addressed the findings of a GAO report showing that well over a billion taxpayer dollars have funded abortion groups for the past 6 to 7 years.
That Rose should possess these qualities is little wonder – like a Daniel in the lion’s den, she has dared to enter Planned Parenthood facilities disguised as a 13, 14, or 15-year-old girl. Her mission is to expose the “abortion-first mentality” of abortion facility employees, a mentality that continues to put young girls at risk for continued sexual exploitation by predators.
LifeSiteNews.com caught up with Rose after the press conference. She graciously agreed to a short interview, in which she sketched out some of her thoughts on the pro-life movement, her own pro-life background, and what individual states are doing to address the rampant abuse of law that she, Live Action, and other pro-life investigators have uncovered.
LSN: Louisiana just passed a bill that would require all abortion facilities under the same licensed owner to close down, if one of their clinics were found in violation of the law. What is your take on that and do you think that is a good strategy for other states to emulate?
Rose: Anything that tightens up regulation of the abortion industry is a good strategy. Right now there is almost no regulation. There are state laws that have been put in place by hardworking legislatures and the people that want them there, to protect young girls, to make sure that women have informed consent when they are going in for abortion, or whatever it may be. But these laws aren’t enforced.
Our investigations show that again and again Planned Parenthood is violating state laws meant to protect young girls or meant to make sure that women have all the information they need before making a decision about their pregnancy.
So that’s a great idea. Any regulation that will improve the regulation and the enforcement of existing laws we [Live Action] fully support.
LSN: In your experience, why is it a number of these clinics show the same pattern of behavior: when these girls are in trouble [via sexual exploitation] they don’t report the crime? Is there anything that you’ve discovered in their psychology, or why they do that, which makes them so consistent?
Rose: The psychology of Planned Parenthood workers? Well, I’m not a psychologist, but from what I have observed from my own research, and just having been in so many clinics and having trained teams to do the same work, is that in the practice of abortion – being so close to that killing of an innocent human being, which really is a violent, bloody killing – what I’ve seen is that a lot of the workers become almost desensitized. They’ve even said to us in some counseling sessions, “we try to stay away from the operating room.” It kind of wears on them. I think that has a lot to do with unhappiness in the workplace – they are not cheerful doing their jobs to be a part of this abortion business and funneling people to have abortions.
Many of them, I believe, are post-abortive. We’ve had in counseling sessions many women say, “I’ve had an abortion, and I’m glad I did it.” It’s kind of almost living their pain by encouraging other women to abort. So, I think there are a lot of other psychological factors that may add to this. But at the end of the day, it’s illegal activity, it’s abusive activity, and it needs to stop.
LSN: More on a personal note: you got involved in this awhile ago, but how did you get involved in pro-life work, and what keeps you going?
Rose: I come from a pro-life family – I’m one of eight kids – and I first saw an image of an abortion when I was nine years-old in an old book in my home. Being nine years old and looking at this ten-week old child, I remember thinking, “how could anyone do this to a baby?” So by the time I was fourteen or fifteen, I started up a pro-life group in my high school, and since then it’s been a journey of discovering new ways to educate, inspire, and create media packages that will tell more people the truth about abortion.
So it’s kind of an evolution of that work.
LSN: As a side-note, you brought up seeing the image of that [dismembered] unborn baby at such a young age. As you know, there is a controversy within the pro-life movement about what sort of images to use. Do you think those images should be shown?
Rose: Certainly. I think those images are necessary to show the reality of abortion. Most Americans are pro-life, but I think few of them really understand the gravity of this issue, because they think, “it’s a sad thing, it’s a tragedy.” But I don’t think that many of them realize it’s a human rights injustice of the greatest scale. Part of that is because they do not have to see an abortion; they don’t have to see the victim of abortion.
The victim of abortion is totally hidden from the public. These abortions happen literally in utero, so because of that we as pro-lifers in our educational projects need to make sure the victim is seen, otherwise the reality of abortion won’t be understood. It won’t be understood for what it really is.
LSN: Lila, thank you so much for your time.
Rose: Thank you!
Author’s post-script: Live Action plans to reveal a new batch of videos showing their latest investigative exposé of Planned Parenthood’s legal violations within the month. To find out more about Live Action and their mission, visit their website.