(LifeSiteNews) — Leading pro-life activist Lila Rose is not backing down in the face of intense condemnation for criticizing former president and current Republican White House nominee Donald Trump’s retreat from his former pro-life position, reiterating that her purpose is not to depress pro-life voter turnout but to encourage Trump to change course.
Rose is founder and leader of the pro-life group Live Action, which produces original investigations into the abortion industry, educational resources on prenatal development, daily pro-life news and commentary, and more. Since Trump began opposing further federal action on abortion last year and criticizing state pro-life laws, Rose has been one of his sharpest critics among national pro-life leaders.
In response to Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, confirming last weekend that Trump would actually veto any abortion ban that made it through Congress, Rose warned, “If you don’t stand for pro-life principles, you don’t get pro-life votes.” She later elaborated that the cumulative effect of the Trump-Vance ticket’s multiple moves away from life was “stretching the lesser of two evils voting strategy to an untenable position. Without some indication that they will work to make our nation a safer place for preborn children, they are making it impossible for pro-life voters to support them.”
Rose also argued that the political calculation behind the shift was backward: “Pro-abort voters are already voting Harris/Walz. Trying to sound like a Democrat on abortion isn’t going to help Trump. It hurts him. It’s politically unwise and morally wrong.”
Those comments were met with a deluge of bitter condemnations.
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As previously noted on LifeSiteNews by Jonathon Van Maren, The Queering of the American Child co-author James Lindsay suggested “Pro-Life Inc. is *probably* a Communist front made to force conservative losses and to absorb huge amounts of conservative donor money on a deliberately losing project.” Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter said Rose was “not pro-life” but “pro-ego,” and that “Lila’s narcissism will end up killing more babies.”
Article III Project attorney Will Chamberlain said, “I worked for a guy who ran for President (Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis). He passed a heartbeat bill. He had impeccable pro-life credentials. I must have missed Lila Rose endorsing him. Not interested in hearing any complaints NOW.” Live Action is a 501(c)3 group, which are legally prohibited from endorsing political candidates, but Rose did speak out during the primary about DeSantis’ pro-life position compared with Trump’s.
“New Right” social media personalities Mike Cernovich and Ashley St. Clair went the furthest, accusing Rose of “actively suppressing votes for the ‘pro-life cause’ while continuing to funnel money for her life of luxury,” based on claims that Live Action’s salaries are overly generous and its spending on pregnancy support is insufficient.
Several conservatives leapt to Rose’s defense on that last point, including radio host Shannon Joy and James Wilson Institute scholar Josh Craddock:
You guys are super hypocritical about Lila’s modest salary (that’s middle class if you live in NYC with the living standards) and – I’m guessing it on the low end of the Republican right GRIFTERS scale with people like bongino, bannon & jones bringing in 10’s of millions every…
— Shannon Joy (@ShannonJoyRadio) August 27, 2024
This is disgusting slander. @LiveAction does the best media/education work to change minds on abortion. Their Baby Olivia film is now curriculum for 1m+ public school students. You think creating this is free? You think legislative efforts are free? https://t.co/LKjLq5do90
— Josh Craddock (@joshjcraddock) August 26, 2024
Rose herself responded, “I’m incredibly proud of our team and the work we do at Live Action,” noting “Live Action videos have been viewed over 2 billion times. Over 40% of the thousands of people we survey say our work changed their mind on abortion. We know of hundreds of lives directly saved by our work, and tens of thousands of people have told us that our work equipped them to stand for life and strengthened their pro-life position,” and that its work has “inspired pro-life laws and pro-life content, like Baby Olivia, which has been added to the public-school curriculum standards for over one million students in America. We create the best-in-class resources for the pro-life movement that are used by thousands of activists and hundreds of pregnancy centers workers.”
On Tuesday, Rose posted a podcast segment where she elaborated on the situation. She began by recalling the “electricity” of Trump addressing the March for Life as president, where he spoke clearly about how the preborn “cannot speak for themselves” and even asking Congress to send him a late-term abortion ban to sign.
My personal message to the Trump campaign on abortion: pic.twitter.com/TrjQI2BQqE
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) August 28, 2024
“And I just want to encourage the Trump campaign to go back to that Trump,” she said. “People want a fighter. People want someone who is not going to bow to the establishment and bow to the Beltway pollsters and consultants, someone who is not going to waffle and run and hide, someone who is not going to be controlled by the false media narratives.”
Lamenting “that’s not what Trump is, for whatever reason, delivering right now,” she stressed that her purpose was not “voter suppression” but to influence the candidate away from “trying to sound like a Democrat on abortion.”
“The response from the pro-life community right now is crucial,” Rose said. “I’m encouraging Trump to get out there and fight for life. And I want to encourage the pro-life community right now. We are two months, a little over two months out before the election. Minds are still being made up. Candidates are still shapeshifting in many ways. Positions are being shifted and changed. I urge all pro-lifers to come out right now and say, President Trump, stand for life. President Trump, if you want the pro-life vote, fight for life.”
“Nobody owns the pro-life vote,” she added. “The pro-life vote is earned. And you don’t earn the pro-life vote by throwing it under the bus, by listening to whatever pollsters are lying to you or media narratives are lying and throwing the babies under the bus. You earn the pro-life vote, and I would say the respect even of the middle moderates, and I would even argue the respect of your average Joe by getting up there and saying, I’m gonna fight for what I believe in, for what is good and true, I’m going to fight for the lives of children. I’m going to fight for families, I’m going to fight for you.”
On Thursday, Politico published an interview with Rose, where she said of her own vote, “I’m going to see how the next few weeks unfold. The election is not today,” and corrected that she was not attempting to bring about a victory for Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, but “urging President Trump to change course.”
“People will need to vote their conscience in November. We’re over two months out, so there’s a lot of things that can change,” she said. “I think that it’s the job of the pro-life movement to demand protection for pre-born lives. It is not the job of the pro-life movement to vote for President Trump.”
“It’s our job, if we want to be an effective lobbying group in any way, to demand more,” she stressed. “If you will always be happy to support a candidate provided that they are just a fraction better than the next candidate, you will never achieve your goals for the group that you’re fighting for.”
Those critical of Rose’s approach argue that whatever the defects of Trump’s current abortion stance, he is still far preferable to Harris, who stands for unlimited nationwide abortion-on-demand at taxpayers’ expense, and that Trump is making an understandable compromise with political necessity in light of top pro-life groups’ failure to make a stronger stance more politically popular or prepare for a post-Roe v. Wade landscape.
It is true that public opinion has displayed an alarming trend toward “pro-choice” in recent years, and that pro-lifers have lost a string of battles over abortion-related ballot initiatives over the past two years, prompting discussion among pro-lifers about the need to reevaluate the movement’s strategies.
However, as LifeSiteNews has previously analyzed, abortion’s negative impact on Republican candidates has been significantly exaggerated. No state that enacted a near-total abortion ban before the infamous November 2022 midterm elections flipped the governor or legislature responsible, and to the extent that any consistent bias could be gleaned, it was in favor of incumbency, regardless of party or abortion position, as 94% of existing officeholders kept their seats.
A May 2024 analysis by CNN data guru Harry Enten provides a possible explanation: While voters may break in favor of keeping most abortions legal when asked, that opinion does not override their more immediate concerns about providing for their families and the safety of their communities.
“In our new CNN poll, how does abortion affect your vote for major offices? Candidates must share your views? Only 23%, John,” Enten said. “Only 23% of Americans say that candidates must share your views on abortion. So even if they agree with Joe Biden, it doesn’t necessarily mean they vote for him. And more than that, John, when we look at the top issues, the nation’s most urgent issues, look where abortion is on this list. It’s all the way down at 5%. The issues that are at the top of this list are immigration and the economy, which of course are Donald Trump’s best issues.”
So far, Trump’s efforts to appeal to the middle on abortion have not had the desired effect. Polling aggregations by RealClearPolitics and RaceToTheWH show that Harris continues to maintain the lead that began soon after replacing President Joe Biden as Democrats’ presumptive nominee, both in the national popular vote and the Electoral College.