Pints With Aquinas - Abortion Q&A w/ Lila Rose

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

This week’s episode of “Pints with Aquinas” is about abortion. I talk with Lila Rose, a pro-life author, about the Catholic stance on abortion, what we can do about it, and what Christ’s will is for us. We also discuss: - The urgency and scale of the problem of abortion in the world. - The importance of understanding our role in life and the goal of Heaven. - How to overcome the evil within us before the evil outside of us.   Get my NEW book "How To Be Happy: Saint Thomas' Secret To A Good Life," out now!   SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Homeschool Connections: https://homeschoolconnections.com/matt/   GIVING Patreon or Directly: https://pintswithaquinas.com/support/  This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer co-producer of the show.   LINKS Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Gab: https://gab.com/mattfradd Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas   MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

I'd like to announce my new book, How to Be Happy, St. Thomas' Secret to a Good Life. Although just about every marketing firm, self-help guru, and man on the street has an answer, very few, if any, understand true happiness. It doesn't come from power, pleasure, popularity, or possessions. So what is happiness, and how do we find it? In How to Be Happy, I rely on the help of St. Thomas Aquinas to show what will and won't bring us happiness in this life. My hope is that by making the thought of Aquinas accessible for today, my new book will be a helpful guide to a good life. Check the link in the description of this video to get your copy today. G'day, g'day, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd, and today on the show,

we have Lila Rose, who will be taking your questions on really whatever you want. Lila, lovely to have you. It's great to be on. How are you doing, Matt? Very well. Yes, very well. Hey, congratulations on your new book. I can see it behind your shoulder there, Fighting for Life. I have my copy here. Thank you for sending it. This is not what many people would expect, not a traditional pro-life apologetic. So tell us about it. Sure. So I wrote it after about 15 years of thinking about writing it. And I realized that I hadn't felt prepared yet to put into a book what was in my heart because I

needed more experience and wisdom. And not to say I have all the wisdom in the world, but I wanted to just include what does it mean to actually see a problem in the world that you are concerned about, abortion, or some other social, political, spiritual issue, and then say, I wanna go and change that. I wanna go and make a difference. And how do you do that?

How do you get started? What does that mean for our own personal change that is required to rise to the occasion? And so it's basically 27 lessons for how to be an activist, not an activist in the worldly sense, holy, but an activist also in the evangelical spiritual sense, what does it mean to actually change the world and what change is required within? So it's 27 lessons and all my life experience and best and worst stories all together. And there you have it.

That's fighting for life. Well, beautiful. Well, we have a link at the very top of the description. So to all of y'all who are watching, be sure to click that and check out that book. Congratulations on having an amazing publisher. They sent it to me in this gorgeous gift wrap box. I'm like, I got to get a good publisher like you. So is this Thomas Nelson? It's Thomas Nelson, but actually the creative is from my team at Live Action who are really clever and smart. So they get the kudos

for that. The publisher put in the bill but they got to design the cover so very cool well congrats is it doing well do you have any indication as to how it is well it's been i mean it's been number one in the you know abortion category which i don't know how much that is to say on amazon like that um we're trying to get it i mean we're going to be doing this webcast soon to try to get more attention to it. Because interestingly, I mean, I know this would happen, but it's been largely ignored by mainstream pubs. And I knew that would happen because they don't want to report on a pro-life activist's exploration of activism or what their ideas are in personal development, etc. So it's doing well in the kind of pro-life world.

But my hope with it was to reach beyond and so that's what we're working on doing okay well congrats yeah you're right that the word activist has come to take on a kind of negative connotation hasn't it which is a shame yeah well i think in the catholic world i think a lot of catholics are sort of cautious of the world word because we're so you know there's the idea of be contemplatives, don't just be activists. And I think there's a concern about wanting to really represent Christ, of course, as we should. But I do think we are required to certain political, social causes and to stand up and to make a difference. So I really explored what does that look like for somebody whose ultimate goal is to help save souls, right?

That's their ultimate goal as Catholics and to get to heaven ourselves. But we do want to create the kingdom here on earth as far as help make the world more just and loving. So yeah, lots of figuring that out along the way and overcoming a lot of questions, because I think that's a big thing that stops people when they see like abortion or some other problem, like what can I do? They're scared of being controversial, all of that. So tackling all that and providing the pathway. Something just came to my mind. I remember watching a Protestant pastor giving an address, and he talked about, what is your holy discontent? That's how he put it. What's

the thing that you can't stand and that you feel like you must do something about? And for him, it was low church attendance. Or when you go to a church and there's no young people, there's no life there. And so what he would do is feed his holy discontent by going to these dying churches and just sitting through a service. And it would sort of motivate him to action. And in my own life, it's been, you know, my own struggle with pornography. But then lately, you know, over the last 10 or so years, giving talks on it and encountering people's lives that have been ruined. It's just like, I got to do something. I can't stand this anymore.

Is it something like that with you? Yeah, that's a really thoughtful concept. And I think it's absolutely true that that directs you towards what are you called to and so chapter one the 27 lessons the first lesson is let your heart break and so like what is that thing that just breaks you and it maybe makes you angry it concerns you it maybe keeps you up at night or you read some article about it in the news and you're like oh my gosh i can't i can't just not do something. But let yourself be uncomfortable because I think we don't want to be uncomfortable. We don't like discontentedness. It doesn't feel good, that holy discontentedness, but it actually is a homing device to direct us to our calling and God allows

it because there's woundedness in the world and we have a role to play in healing. And, but we have to let ourselves sit with the discomfort. That's beautiful. And that was, that was, that was abortion for me. I mean, as a kid, when I found out about abortion, I was just totally heartbroken and I was heartbroken by a lot of other issues. I mean, there's so many other things to be concerned about, but I realized, you know, there's children being killed by abortion in clinics, legal clinics, just 10 miles from where I am right now, you know, children up until 34 weeks. I mean, there are children in California that are killed up until birth, depending on the

circumstances. And I just thought I can't, I can't not do something to get started to try to help them. See, honestly, this is why I think that pro-life apologetics, like books, like the Trent Horn had written a book on, I forget what it was called, honestly, now, or Stephanie Gray wrote a book recently. Love Unleashes Life. That's right. Now, love that woman and love Trent, but those books, I'm not interested. Like, I'm almost bored by the issue. I wonder if, and given what Trent has said about that book not selling as well as other books, I wonder if that's true of many Catholics. Like, yeah, yeah, we get it. Like, big, strong people shouldn't be killing little weak people. Done. And so it's almost like

there's not this interest in investing time into understanding the arguments and responding. Has that been part of your battle as you speak out about this? understanding the arguments and responding. Has that been part of your battle as you speak out about this? I think it's part of it. I think there's also just people, I think we're busy. We're doing our lives. We have our own problems. And I talk about that a lot in Fighting for Life, like my struggle with depression when I was a teenager, my struggle with disordered eating and even self-harm, experimenting with self-harm. You know, we have our stresses. Now I'm a mom and a wife and I'm running an organization. I'm doing all this work globally. So we all have our different crosses and struggles and stresses.

And the big question I think can be, how do you fit in responding to the needs of the world around you when you have so many needs in your own life? And we're just wrestling maybe to get through the day ourselves. And so I think that's part of the reason why taking the time to step back and say, okay, now I'm going to read an apologetics book and like, you know, do all of this research, it can seem daunting to people because it just takes the time and the energy and they don't see a pathway to engagement beyond that

anyways. So I address that a lot in Fighting for Life because, you know, I end the book with this kind of call to, you know, whether you are a, you a student or a stay-at-home mom, you have a role in the fight for life. And the fight for life is ultimately about souls. And it has to do with our vocation, very much so. if we do not have a channel for it, it becomes, you know, I think the heartbreak we might feel or the frustration about the world, it can become really depressing, honestly. So that's why it's so important to have clarity about our role in the battle, and to have confidence in that role. And I think that goes back to, you know, Trent and Stephanie, I do think, you know, everybody should read their books. Of course, I think they're very, very helpful. But I think sometimes you need sort of inspiration and vision for, okay, what is my role?

And how do I deal with even the stuff going on in my own life when I am concerned about stuff going on outside my home? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know about you, Lila. But for me, when I go and give a presentation on pornography and I hear these stories of people, maybe their husband's addicted to porn, maybe this person's life is falling apart, or they just got fired from their job because of their addiction. There's a lot to kind of take on and take in. And I learned this from Jason Everett. I'll go to the Blessed Sacrament and just sort of lay down and just say, like, Lord, it's yours. You got to take it all because to hear all of those terrible stories can really get to you. Has that been your experience? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's overwhelming. That's why, I mean, at the end of the day, and I have a chapter, a couple chapters about our

relationship with God in all of this, because ultimately what's the answer to all the suffering and the sin? I mean, it is like when you begin to contemplate like the woundedness of someone, whether they're struggling with pornography or or they've been sexually abused, or, you know, just abuse in general, abortion, you know, murder, you start to contemplate these things. And it's just so overwhelming. And that's where the only answer, the answer is you go into mass, and there's the altar, and there's Jesus Christ, literally being tortured to death for our sins on, you know, that's what he did on the cross he did for us. And there's the altar and there's Jesus Christ literally being tortured to death for our sins. You know, that's what he did on the cross.

He did for us. And there's the answer because there's healing afterwards. You know, there's redemption. He takes on all the sin and the ache in the world and he heals it. He can heal us and redeem it. And I think that's the hope in all of it because if you don't have that peace, you're just left with the brokenness. And it is overwhelming. It is like we can't deal with it on our own. Yeah, I kind of, I think this is pretty obvious, at least from my vantage point,

that if somebody has an abortion, it's like you have two options in front of you. You can either come to terms with the fact that you have just done this awful thing, or you can say it's not an awful thing, it's an amazing thing. The one thing it can't be is a neutral thing. And I imagine this is why we see people wanting to celebrate their abortion, because what's the alternative? Either you've got to talk about this like you're some freedom for women issue, right, like health care issue, like that you are a pioneer and that this is something to be celebrated. Or you've got to realize that you've just killed an innocent human being. And if you've got those two options before you, one looks a heck of a lot more attractive than the other. Yeah, I think I talk about that a lot in the book, too, because part of confronting the evil outside of us is confronting the evil inside of us and acknowledging our own wrongdoing.

And like you're saying, in a situation of abortion, and I've talked to hundreds of women over the years, I've been privileged to hear their stories and the crushing realization of what they did for those that acknowledge it. Because I think there's a tendency in the pro-life movement, even to soften the conversation around abortion, because we don't want to hurt or offend other people. But if you don't really see abortion for what it is, if you don't look confront evil for what it is and, and recognize it in all of its evil, then you can never actually be free from it or heal from it. Especially if you've been involved with it, you have to really, that's what true repentance is. And it's like

really being sorrowful over what was done wrong. And if you don't know what was wrong, if you don't confront it, how can you really repent? How can you really, and then how can you really heal and be forgiven? And I think that's, you know, I just got a Twitter message recently. This is an example from a woman, a Catholic woman. And she was so angry with me because she said, how dare you show images of a child who'd been miscarried? She said that that's triggering and you're going to shame women. I mean, all of this stuff.

And I remember just responding and saying, you know, until women and I know this because I've just been in this 15 years now until women have the opportunity to really confront. And for miscarriage, obviously that, that, that humanizes the baby is the baby wasn't killed by abortion. It wasn't a, it wasn't a gory image. It was actually had its beauty in a way. Um, even though this was a life lost, but until you see the humanity of the baby that was killed or that died, then you, it's hard to connect the dots that an abortion was wrong, right? And because the society is saying, it's fine, you're doing okay, abortion's great.

So all that to say, acknowledging the evil, letting it break you. I talked about being heartbroken, letting yourself be heartbroken, whether it's over your sin or the sin of the world around you, and then grieving, like letting yourself grieve the loss and then finding the opportunity for repentance and then healing, forgiveness comes as part of that. It's essential. And it's not comfortable, but it's essential. I love what you're saying because it almost kind of reconciles the activist message with the Jordan Peterson message, right? Because often he's asked, are you saying that people shouldn't go out and try and change the world if they haven't got control over their own lives? Like, yes, that is what I'm bloody saying.

Clean your frigging room up. Deal with your own mess before you try and fix the world, which is a great message. And I'd be really worried about anybody who didn't understand that message. And I love what you're saying because it's almost like the combination of those two. Like you've got to face the darkness inside before you can face the darkness outside. Well, and there's the third piece, because I think the piece that Jordan Peterson constantly misses, and I love a lot of his work, but the piece he constantly misses is we are not enough. Like you're going to die, Jordan. Like even if you straighten up your back and make your bed a million times or a thousand times, you could get a life crippling illness and you could die.

Your son could die. Your daughter could die. Like it's not enough. Someone could come in and torture you to death and kill you. Like it's not, it's not enough on your own. You are not self-sufficient. And until we really accept that and then explore, okay, well, is there someone who is sufficient? You know, is there an answer to my insufficiency? Is there an answer to death? Is there an answer to evil beyond just, I'm going to just make my way and do my best, you know, pull myself up on my bootstraps, the bootstrap mentality only goes so far. And then it leaves you dead, literally dead, you know, you the positive thinking, the making your bed, even the virtue stuff only goes so far and then you're dead, you know?

And you literally die and the people you love die. So then what happens? And I think the whole picture is interior change, external change, working to change your external, the world around you and getting active, and then trust and dependency on the only one who can deliver true change, which is the God who's animating you. That's the whole picture. And each piece is necessary. Preach. It's almost like you've thought about this at great length and have written a book on it or something. This is wonderful. Yeah, Jordan needs to read my book, okay? Well, I'm sure you've tried sending it to him. Let's have a round table.

All right. So we're going to take questions now from those watching. We're going to take a couple from patrons and then here on YouTube. So if you're here, it'll probably help me if you tag at Pints with Aquinas when you write to me. Okay, so Nathan Alex, thanks for being a patron, says, as a fellow Protestant convert, can you ask her if she dealt with an overly sensitive conscience and would go to confession too frequently also asking for prayers for one of my co-workers that she's considering abortion aborting her potential baby

um first of all can we just do you do live prayers on your show let's do it absolutely let's just do it you want to do a hail m Let's do it. Absolutely. Let's just do it. You want to do a Hail Mary? Do you want to lead it? That's lovely. For this little life and his friend? Okay. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Amen. All right. And we're just praying for that little life. And we will say a prayer. I'll remember him or her, your friend, and him or her, the child, in mass later today. And keep loving on her and trying to engage with her and, you know, reaching out, be solicitous of her, you know, try to help her. You know, don't just, you know,

sit and pray. Obviously, pray for her, but try to engage her and say, I'm here to help you with anything you need. Um, be that point of contact up until, you know, hopefully she'll change her heart or mind. But even if she goes through with it, continue to love on her because a woman who's had one abortion is also vulnerable to another. So keep on loving on her and, and trying to help her. We also have resources, um, liveaction.org, the abortion procedure videos, they're not graphic or gory, but they show what happens during an abortion. And so I also

recommend, you know, you know, your relationship best with her, but I also recommend they have saved lives because the woman actually sees this is what an abortion is, is what happens. And it can be life changing and life saving for her to know this is, you know, this is actually how the procedure works. So those are just some tips there. And we'll be praying. Your question about scrupulosity, I think scrupulosity affects typically particular personalities. I do think, you know, Protestants who become Catholic could be susceptible to it, but I've found that it's actually more personality-driven, is my experience. People who are more perfectionist types are prone to it. I certainly have been. I'm a recovering perfectionist. I know, it's funny how these people who get on YouTube shows and talk are secret perfectionists. Because we deserve to be tortured by the negative

comments and criticism. Oh, yes, of course. So I think what helped me because I've been a perfectionist and I'm a recovering one. And what helped me was really good spiritual guidance, like a director I met with regularly who I was totally raw with and told him all my little scrupulosities and he helped set me straight. So that was key. Another key is leisure, meaning really respecting the Sabbath and taking time to rest and enjoy God and enjoy other people. Because sometimes as a perfectionist or as a scrupulous person, you're always trying to do, do, do, be, be, be really good, good, good all the time. And instead, sometimes it's good to just enjoy what

you've been blessed with. And that changes your perspective a bit and takes the emphasis from yourself and your own, you know, constant sanctity that you're like obsessing over. Sometimes pride is obsessing over your sanctity as opposed to just enjoying and focusing on others. So those are a couple of things that have helped me. That is really profound advice. Thank you for that. That was really helpful for me too. Andrew Montpetit says, how do you go about picking your battles? What's the breaking point to engage in the fight versus having the prudence to fight another day? So grateful for this convo and you both.

That's a good question. That is a really good question because I think even daily, I have to discern that. I mean, in the kind of bubble of pro-life, pro-abortion talking points, like in media and public figures and like, who do you respond to? And how do you respond?

And how often do you respond? And in your personal life, I can only imagine it's also with friends or family. Like how many times do you respond? And in your personal life, I can only imagine it's also, you know, with friends or family, like how many, how many times do you fight the fight? And how many times do you, you know, sit back? And I think it is, it is, there's not a perfect formula, because it is dependent on the circumstance. That's what prudence is. Prudence is, you know, developing wisdom so that we know how to navigate these complicated situations. So I think some tools that I would recommend is, first of all, you know, back to the spiritual director. And I have two chapters in my book about mentors and spiritual guides, because I would not be where I am today. I could not lead, you know, we're at $11 million organization with 25 staff and we're global. I would not be where I am today professionally or personally as a Catholic wife, mother, without mentors and guides. So, you know, sometimes taking, you know, whatever your complex situation is like this friend, and what do I say?

And do I fight this battle, taking that and having having a sounding board, another wise person to talk it through can be very illuminating and prepare you best for the next time. So having a good counselor is key. And I don't mean therapist, I mean, like a guide or a mentor could be a counselor, actually, if you're like OCD, and that's part of your, you know, screwing up your prudence or whatever. So it could be a therapist, depending on your situation. So that's helpful. The other thing that's helpful is to not be afraid to make mistakes. I think sometimes we see different battles we could fight and we're so afraid that we're not

going to get it right, that we just don't do anything. And I actually prefer trying and messing up than never trying because we're afraid of messing up and then never really learning and making the difference we're supposed to make so i have a chapter in my book about mistakes and the mistakes i've made and how you actually need to be making some mistakes if you're going to be growing as a human being and if you're going to be changing the world um if you never make a mistake then you're probably sitting in a closet and not interacting with the world and that's a mistake And that's a mistake, right? And that's a mistake. So you screwed either way.

So you may as well just embrace this. Yeah. So just embrace it and be humble. Be willing to say, yeah, I'm going to mess up sometimes. I'm going to say the wrong thing sometimes. I'll do my best. I'm going to pray. I'm going to try.

But you're not trying to be perfect. You're trying to love. I mean, we are trying to be perfect in a sense, perfect like Christ. But we're trying to be perfect, you're trying to love. I mean, we are trying to be perfect in a sense, perfect like Christ, but we're trying to love, and love takes risks, and risks require exposure to your own weakness and mistake. So that's where trying is better than not. Yeah, thank you. All right, we have two quickish questions here. Sergio Felon, thanks for being a patron, patron says best books to read on defending the pro-life position well here's the great plug for our two friends right

matt stephanie gray love unleashes life and trent horn the book we both don't remember it that's right google it right now yeah you should do that trenthorn apologetics abortion book. Sorry, Tread. It's really good. I have read it. Okay. Persuasive Pro-Life. That's right. Great name. And then also Fighting for Life has a few tips in it, mostly not on apologetics. So it's more on like activism and personal approach, but I have to plug my book. Yeah, no, absolutely. And then Kim asks, thanks for being a patron, Kim. Has she personally gotten someone to change their mind? So I'm very blessed to report that I credit live action and the larger team. And over the years, yes, I have been with friends or college, you know, other students at my university or over the years at events where I don't know if it's hundreds of times now, I don't count personally, people have

said this changed my mind and pro-life now. So I'm very blessed to have experienced that dozens and dozens of times over personally. But what I'm most proud of is live action. We survey the people who engage with our content, we run surveys on our content and we've discovered that about 30 to, you know, depending on the survey, 29 to 35 percent of the people who engage with our content end up changing their mind. So they say I was pro-choice before and I'm pro-life now. And that just is so exciting because it shows people can change and they do change, but they need the opportunity to change and they need to be helped along the way with education. So yes, it changes minds. And then we get emails frequently from women who say, I'm not having my abortion now, or this is the baby,

you know, they send us a picture. This is my son, Miles, who I didn't have an abortion on because I saw your video educating me on what abortion was. So that's, of course, there's nothing more exciting or worth celebrating than learning that you, in some small way, contributed to help save a life. Very good. This is a good question from Matthew. He says, what's the preeminent issue that pro-lifers should address next to abortion? Such a good question. The preeminent. I mean, a couple of things come to mind. It's kind of a

package, a package deal, because it ultimately comes down, I think, to worldview or lack of worldview. So how we see each other, God in the world, and, you know, abortion is the consequence of so many other things that have gone wrong because people have false ideas and beliefs and then false behaviors, and it leads to really bad choices, right? Or bad behaviors leads to bad choices. So I think sex and our approach to relationships is fundamentally the kind of core thing that's gone wrong before you get to abortion. And a lot of that has to do with the sexual revolution, which has to do with uprooting traditional, not just traditional, but the natural law around how we are our own bodies, how men and women are to relate to one another marriage family and once we said that sex is no longer about bringing life into the world and sex is no longer in marriage but sex is basically whatever you want it to be um and contraception

kind of fueled that because it was this tool now we had this power that was this artificial tool that could be used and was being popularized to, you know, ensure that you don't have sex with, you know, you can have sex without kids and you're entitled to that. And then all of a sudden, we have all these unwanted babies, right? These unexpected pregnancies, unplanned pregnancies. And it's so sad and ironic because when sex is working and fertility is a sign of health, when that's healthy, children happen. And that's like a beautiful miracle. In centuries past, that's like, woohoo, celebrate.

The human race is continuing. It's a new life. And now it's like you look at the pregnancy test for so many women and they're just filled with fear and shock. And that is a profound cultural shift that's happened. That's terribly tragic and leads is the reason for abortion. And some people say, well, contraception actually is good, Lila, you know, contraception doesn't hurt. It helps. It saves lives because, you know, they use it, people use it and they're being responsible. And so they won't

have abortion, you know, cause they don't get pregnant. And I say, listen, Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion chain, they have a research arm called the Guttmacher Institute. And the Guttmacher Institute reports that 51% of women who have abortions in the month they got pregnant, they conceive that child that they're going to, they choose to kill. They were using contraception. So contraception does not prevent abortion. Contraception fuels the behaviors that are reckless around sex. It's a false sense of security that says, I can have sex, you know, recreationally or with someone, and I'm not going to be a parent. I'm just not going to do that. And then it creates the market for abortion.

Now, obviously, this topic of contraception is one that Catholics agree on, but most Protestants don't. And given that you run a global operation in which you no doubt engage with Protestant Christians, and you kind of want their support, you want them on your side, how do you find that balance between demonizing contraception, as opposed to maybe just sort of holding back on that topic and just talking about the one thing we all agree about? Well, first of all, I'd say most of the Protestants I know, like Life Action has a lot of Protestants that work in our team and evangelicals, and the ones that, you know, take a step back and really spend time thinking about it and look at, you know, even look at the statistics, like the number

I just shared, 51% of women who have abortions are using contraception, the failure rate of it, and they look at hormonal contraception, which is actually an abortive patient. It's designed to kill new, you know, life, tiny human embryos, just as much as it's designed to contracept. When they get informed, they also largely oppose contraception. So I found actually a lot of unifying happening in the pro-life movement on Protestants who are delving into the topic more and Catholics who are also delving into the topic, because a lot of Catholics, unfortunately, also are fine with contraception or even abortion. They're not catechized or they're just kind of not really living their faith. So there's that.

And it's also a time and place. You know, I'm personally feel called to speak out more on these issues and talk more on, you know, worldview. Live action focuses a lot on anti-abortion, educating on that, because that's just a core thing that people need a baseline for. But it depends on your role. You know, what's your role in education? Is your role to talk about the bigger picture of sex and health and faith and family? Or is your role to make sure that people at least know what abortion is? So I think that's part of the answer, too. Thank you.

Nicola asks, Dear Lila, how do we engage on IVF? I run in council elections in the north of Ireland and on a pro-life ballot and was dismayed that my pro-life activists were ignorant of IVF. So what is IVF and what's the problem with it too before we? Yes, it's a very good question. In vitro fertilization, so it's basically creating, taking a woman's egg and usually these egg extraction processes are very painful for the woman and can be damaging, but basically taking the woman's egg, the man's sperm, and typically to get the man's sperm, he needs to masturbate. So there's that, you know, moral complication problem there. But you take these two, you know, gametes, you know, reproductive cells, and you

combine them in a test tube to create a new life, there's a high risk for the child, high mortality rate, because when you're doing, creating new life that way, it's a pretty hostile environment. You're not supposed to create people in test tubes. It technically can be done, but it's not like the womb or the woman's body where it happens naturally. So in vitro fertilization ultimately has led to, and today we have a million frozen embryos in the United States. So these are children just, you know, stuck in time. And some have been frozen for decades even at this point. Some of them have been abandoned.

So then they're donated for medical experimentation, and that means they're killed. They're allowed to grow to be maybe 14 days. They actually just lifted the 14-day rule on embryos. So now, you know, you can actually, it was an ethical guideline. And now you could have Stanford University growing a child to maybe three months old if they have the technology for it. Maybe they can even find the technology to grow that baby to five months old in some sort of artificial womb and experiment on this child and kill this child.

I mean, there's no law protecting that child right now. So in vitro fertilization gives the power for that. It also is a very high risk for the child. Like I said earlier, I mean, many of these children have to be implanted and are miscarried because it's, again, a fragile way to bring him or her into the world and it's not natural. So there's a high death rate for the child. So when people are educated on the different steps of in vitro, how harmful it can be for the couple, how devastatingly harmful it can be for the embryos, and how the high cause of death, how so many of these children, they have no legal status. They're frozen. They're experimented on. Many of them are discarded.

They're frozen. They're experimented on. Many of them are discarded. So they will create maybe eight embryos and then kill seven of them because they're seen as not good enough. And then give the couple, you know, one or a handful. When you consider all of the disrespect and the extra harm to human life that in vitro fertilization creates, I think the pro-life answer is to say, no, this is not a technology that's acceptable. It's not morally acceptable. That's a really hard message for a lot of people I know, especially those who have been infertile and who have used IVF and successfully brought a beautiful child into the world. And so it's important to note, you know, this is not to say that in any way to say that a child conceived through IVF and then brought into the world is a mistake

or a problem because every single life is an incredible blessing and equal in dignity. But it is to say, you know, when we have choices as parents or adults, what we're going to do for our families using this technology, I think it's unethical. So that's, you know, that's what more and more pro-lifers are agreeing to this, but it's a hard battle because it's not talked about very much. So there's a lack of education and there's a profound sensitivity and anger among those who struggle with infertility because it's a message. If they're using the technology, they don't like to hear the message. So that's where navigating that is part of the educational battle that we have to fight.

That's a really great answer. What do you say, sort of, she's talking about this from a political perspective, what's your opinion on an incremental approach? In other words, okay, if I can get them to agree that abortion should be banned, but I can't get them to agree that IVF should, should I just say I'm okay with IVF or we don't need to do anything about that right now? Because, yeah, sometimes it sounds like politicians are sellouts when they say abortion in the cases of rape and incest. But at the same time, I get that you want to try to pass through

at least the legislation that abortion in most instances should be outlawed. Well, I think we should always be articulating what our end game is, which is abortions should be outlawed. All pre-born children should be protected. They deserve basic protections. And that, you know, obviously abortion is not benefiting anyone. So I think that needs to be the conversation politically. Do I oppose incremental laws? No, because anything that saves more lives, I'll support. Do I think the foundation philosophically and ultimately the right legal foundation is incrementalism? No, I think we need to be caught like, for example, Texas, Texas just

passed the heartbeat bill, which means that they're banning abortions after the heartbeat can be detected. I mean, obviously, this will get challenged. And so the big question is, you know, can they do this constitutionally? I think it's very clear constitutionally, you can protect the right to life. It's our Supreme Court that's gotten it totally wrong on abortion for decades now. But do I wish Governor Abbott had just signed a law saying, no, if you're a pre-born human being,

you should be protected. I don't care if your heart's beating or not yet. You know, before 21 days, the child's heart is not beating yet. They're too little. They're just, they're not developed enough. Are they not valuable? You know, before 21 days, the child's heart is not beating it. They're too little. They're just, they're not developed enough. Are they not valuable? You know, are they, are they not, are they not worthy of protection?

Of course they are. So I think, you know, as much as I appreciate these efforts and I'll applaud them because it's better than the status quo, I will always say, you know, let's be consistent. Let's be logically, let's be logical. Let's be, let's be realistic here about what the science shows us. And let's just have a little bit of courage and vision. You know, if I was an abolitionist fighting slavery and I was like, OK, we have to ban slavery for children. OK, if you're if you're an older slave, I'm OK with it.

You know, but we just have to make sure the kids, some of the some of of the slaves are protected. Um, and then, you know, another abolitionist says, why don't we just ban slavery on everybody? And I was like, because the public's not ready for it yet. Here's the, here's the, here's the secret truth. Um, the pro-abortion people are not going to accept your incremental ban. You're not winning converts with your incremental ban, okay? Americans, when you do the polling and many of them say, oh, we want many abortion restrictions, what that really shows is Americans are afraid of extremes. This is a psychological truth about any political issue. People don't want to seem extreme. So if you are just telling, you know, you have a small club of people like we're

the total to protect the preborn, but you like give the thumbs up all the time to the political strategies that says just protect some and you don't demand more, then you'll always be the extreme person, you know, in the room compared to the others. And you're not actually being extreme, you're being correct, and you're being just and loving. So I think we have to, as part of it is just changing the paradigm on this issue because the pro-abortion side is so extreme for abortion through all nine months and they're not going to compromise. So why are we trying to compromise with people that don't want to compromise? You know, what, what, what are we winning by that? And so that's why I say, you know, complete protection should be the goal and should be the focus. That's a really great answer. Yeah. And even though I suppose most people come to believe that abortion is OK based on their emotion and not their intellect.

Still, there's got to be some thoughtful people on the fence. And if you start saying, well, OK, we can kill the ones that are sort of caused in rape. Well, you've just said it's okay to kill innocent people which undermines your entire case um here's a trope that keeps getting keeps getting thrown out like a mantra by pro-choices sadly pro-lifers seldom show any interest after the birth in other words we're very interested in the life prior to birth but after don't care what do you say to that i hear it all the time from uh abortion advocates and from just you know abortion advocates who i don't know that they know many pro-life people personally and i i like to say to them do you know like how many pro-life people do

you know personally because the pro-life movement first of all is thousands of that they and they don't get any publicity they don't get any publicity. They don't get any media stories on them. But there's thousands of resource centers for families that provide not just pregnancy care, prenatal support, material resources for pregnant moms and families, but resources for after the baby is born. So they provide, you know, free material resources for after the baby is born, connecting the woman to job opportunities, financial, pure financial support for the woman and for her young family, parenting classes. I mean, there's a whole ecosystem that's not for profit. It's pro bono to care for young families, born and pre-born. And then the other thing is the pro-life movement is all about foster care and adoption. I know personally dozens of families that adopt and foster children, and that's part of their

pro-life mission. So this idea that pro-lifers only care about the baby before birth, I think is really about, yeah, we don't want the baby to be killed before birth. I mean, would you agree? Typically the person who says that, oh, you just care about babies before birth, actually thinks it's okay to kill babies before birth. And they're just trying to somehow, you know, castigate pro-lifers for wanting babies to be born. Do I want babies to be born in my pro-birth? A thousand percent. I think every child deserves their first birthday in the sense of being born and then their first birthday after that. A hundred percent. I think every child deserves their first birthday in the sense of being born and then their first birthday after that. A hundred percent. Do I think we need to care for the child and the mother from the beginning until natural?

I mean, throughout their whole life? Yes. And that's what the pro-life movement focuses on. Now, it's a great point. You're exactly right. So first of all, it's it's false to say that pro-lifers are only concerned about the life prior to birth. it's it's false to say that pro-lifers are only concerned about the life prior to birth but it's also a non-sequitur if you're trying to prove that abortion is morally licit who can't may even if it were the case that i didn't give a flying crap about people after birth it wouldn't follow from that that therefore it's okay to kill innocent unborn people you're being logical matt stop it yeah you can't do it well it's also like saying, you know, for example, like, you know, sexually, I want to, you know, people who say I want to stop sexually sexual abuse, you know, it's like, I want to make sure the sexual like their focus is the sexual abuser should go to jail. And imagine saying, how dare you want the sexual abuser go to jail because you're not involved in like aftercare programs for sexual survivors, abusive sexual abuse survivors. And it's like, so are you saying

that the sexual abuser shouldn't go to jail? Are you saying you shouldn't hold them accountable for the abuse and just let them continue abusing? Is that your argument? Because yes, we agree on care for survivors, but why don't you come in and help me out? If you're saying not enough is being done for survivors, like help me on both fronts.

You know, let's help penalize abuse and help the survivor of abuse. Zach says, if someone attacks a pregnant woman and her baby dies, that person can be charged with murder. You'll tell us how true that is. If that same pregnant woman goes to an abortionist and gets an abortion no one is charged with murder i just figured out that the question shows up on my screen if i look down so anyways um i was like i'm like trying to look into the camera kind of so uh yes i mean you're right in many states there's double homicide laws where if you kill a pregnant, harm a pregnant woman, and it leads to the death of her child or her unborn child, then you can be charged with their death. And I think that's a

very good thing. I mean, that was the big thing in California. I remember with Scott Peterson, who killed his wife, Lacey Peterson and her eight month old baby, his eight month old son or daughter, I think it was his son. And he was tried for the murder of both. And the question was, was he held accountable enough for the murder of his son? And so there was work to get stronger laws in the books to protect preborn children who are murdered. Why is it that it's a child who's murdered when some aggressor comes in, some assailant comes in and attacks the mother and the child, but it's not a child who's murdered when the mother, whether by force from someone else or

by their own volition, walks into an abortion clinic and subjects that child's body to the tools of an abortionist. Why is one a murder and one exercising the right to choose? No justice to it. There's no logic to that. But that's the state of our legal system today. And that's exactly why we need to change the law and we need to make abortion illegal, make it illegal for an abortionist to murder, to be the hired hitman of a child,

just like we should be penalizing those who are attacking pregnant women and their children or boyfriends who slip drugs into their girlfriend's drink to try to force an abortion. That should be tried as well. Good answer. Okay, Dan Capes is a patron.

Sorry. So encouraging, Matt. Well, actually, I have to be honest. You should start rating my answers. Give me a rating system. I have to be honest. You should start rating my answers. Give me a rating system. I want to be honest. If you think it was a 10, you can say 10. Then you can give me like a 5.

And you're like, he could have done better. I knew you were good at this. But you're like way better than I remember you being. So there you go. I'm exceeding your expectations. There's some honest talk for you. Yes. All right.

Dan Cape says, Matt, I have always, oh, this is for me. I've always appreciated you ask us to steal man, right? The opponent's viewpoint. Would love to get into that. All right. So give us the best argument for abortion that you can possibly articulate. And then, yeah. Okay.

And then I'll do it oh you're gonna do it you do you go first i want to hear your best articulation as to why abortion is morally acceptable and then i'll give you one that i think is could actually be justified and why the way abortion could be okay i'll i'll that to after. And then you can smack me down. So there's two best arguments in my book as far as persuasiveness. One is like I think the logically most strong argument and one is the emotionally strongest argument for many people. Which one would you like, Matt? Oh, let's do the more logical one.

It's very easy to have a sort of rhetorically, emotionally weighty thing. its own how life comes into existence and how it's the child is completely dependent on his or her mother then to connect it to the morality of a child who's born and the treatment of that child you can't make a direct a direct comparison because in this situation if the mother's life is at risk or she is you know totally she was the victim of rape she's a survivor of rape um she should not bear any responsibility for this life. So the natural bonds of responsibility that a human being should have for another, a mother should have for his or her child, morally speaking, should be lifted because that child is either so much of a risk to her that it's not fair to her any longer, or that child, she never planned or chose to have that child. It was imposed upon her against her will

so i think that's the strongest the best shot i don't think it's a good one but that's the best shot on the pro-abortion side i would say and why does it fail am i answering or are you i thought you were answering well no i will but i want to know why you i mean we don't want to just give the best pro-abortion argument not not answer it. So how would you respond to it? I'll respond. I'll respond. So it failed for this reason, because ultimately a child in the womb, a new human life, always has a mother or father, no matter how he or she came into existence, no matter the challenges that mother or father may face. And fundamentally speaking, we all have a right to live so it does go back to this idea of human rights that my right to live does supersede ultimately a discomfort I may place on someone else if that person is the only mother father I have the only mother in the situation particularly

as a pregnant woman who is carrying that child that I have so the right to life ultimately has to come first and the right to not be killed particularly has to come first. Because in an abortion, it's intentionally being done to the child. It's not a matter of an accident or, you know, it happened and you didn't want it to happen. It's an intentional act. It's a moral choice by a moral actor, in this case, the mother, unless it's imposed on her. And I do not, as a mother, even if it's been convenient or it was imposed upon me against my will, the reality is I am still this child's only mother, they're still a human life that's dependent on me.

So I do not have the right to be the moral actor to take or to facilitate the taking of that, my child's life, even though it was not my decision to have the child, even if it's problematic for me. my decision to have the child, even if it's problematic for me, ultimately that human child's life, their need to be alive, their need to live, supersedes my discomfort or my other concerns I may have. Okay, well, here would be my argument for abortion, and that would be, if God does not exist, then the idea of human rights is a comforting myth. There is nothing special about you or me. You are just a kind of collection of atoms and things. And therefore, one of the things we should be most interested in is the flourishing of human societies. and since there are no intrinsically evil things, since there is no moral law giver,

we should be mainly concerned with actions that, as I say, lead to the flourishing of societies. And I could see an argument for why that might be the case, that killing some of them, live or pre-born, you know, post-born or pre-born, could be conducive to that, even if they're innocent. born could be conducive to that, even if they're innocent. And if you say, well, but do you want to live in a world where human life can be so disposable? I'd say, well, maybe. I'm open to the argument. So I think if God doesn't exist, then we need to call it a little bit on the whole abortion topic. What do you think? So it's utilitarianism, ultimately. You know, whatever I choose the utility to be for what's my what is my sort of definition of what's best for society. And I can say we can play that game, you know, get a group of people in the room, can you all agree on what the best utility or what

the best, you know, who should have the rights or who don't deserve the rights. And, you know, anytime in history, that's been done, where instead of universal human rights for all, and we're all equal in dignity, and we all have, there's a moral code that requires us to behave justly towards one another. Anytime that's been broken, that system's been broken, then we see genocides happen. It's like the Holocaust happened, the Rwandan genocide happened, slavery happened. So I would just sit down and talk you through, okay, let's follow your argument to its logical conclusion. You tell me, Mr. Utilitarian,

what your standards for human life should be. What are your invented and ever-changing human rights that you accept? And then I'll explain to you why that's unfair and unjust because it will always end up being unfair and unjust. I think that's a really good answer and I think that would really help the person to sort of reflect upon this, even from a utilitarian point of view, in fact. But I don't think it works. Like, I don't think what you're saying is convincing because if I'm a true relativist,

if I'm a sort of like Raskolnikov in the beginning of Crime and Punishment, then my standards of who gets to live and who doesn't might change and i might even think the holocaust was a decent thing or at least not as bad as that's a will to power i mean your standards will you i mean it's really as long as you're powerful enough to be the one to set the standard what happens when you become too weak to set the standard if someone else sets it for you then they can kill my guess fun like that's it yeah and I think the good news is the good news is most people on a natural survival that if they realize I'm gonna be old at some point in my

life I'm gonna be sick at some point in my life I'm gonna be vulnerable at some point in my life because we all are. So the good news is I think the utilitarian argument when you really have it out and you talk about the details of it, it falls apart because most people are like, I don't want to live in a world where I have to always be the strongest because then I get to set the rules. That's really good. In my life, I know I'm going to not always be strong. And as a woman, I mean, that's also very sexist, you know, the utilitarian, because women naturally are physiologically overall, you know, at large, weaker than men. And we are the ones who carry and bear children, you know, naturally speaking anyways. And that puts us in a weaker, more dependent position. And so, you know, it's also predominantly a sexist position because... Yeah, I don't care. I'll be sexist then. Like, that's the thing. If atheism is true, then I don't give a crap if I offend you or if I subjugate you.

Well, good luck making friends. I'll just tell you. That's a really... No, but I think it's an excellent point. What you're doing is appealing to self-interest. I mean, this is kind of what I do when I go and give talks on pornography to high schools. I'm like, okay, here's why it's immoral. People aren't usually interested. I'm like, okay, here's why your penis might stop working if you get addicted to it. And they're like, all right, now I'm open to the argument. And often that's-

Here's why you might not have the, your dream girl might not want to be with you. Yeah, yes, exactly. But these self-interested reasons often open up to more altruistic reasons. So I think it's a good approach, what you've just shared there. And I don't think self-interest is inherently wrong in the sense that, you know, we're called to, you know, our dignity. We are called to see our own dignity and to want to have our own dignity protected. That's not a bad thing. I think that's a Christian ideal, actually, you know, that we have dignity. That's why

Gianna Beretta Mullet, that's why, you know, St. Agnes and some of the saints, they, you know, didn't want to be raped and they actually would die rather than be raped because they had so much self-interest to not be raped. You know, they had so much self-interest to not be raped. They had so much self-interest for their own dignity and their own virginity in that way. So I think the secular language of self-interest, I mean, yes, it is possible to be selfish. And that's, I think, a little different. But in the context you're speaking of it in, I think the desire to not want to be killed unjustly, to want people to respect you and your body and your sex and your dignity, I don't think these are bad things.

These are Christian things. These are ideals that our faith professes. That's a really good distinction. Thanks for bringing that up, between self-interestedness and selfishness, yeah. Okay, Anthony Grass says, something that I rarely hear brought up in arguments to pro-abortionists is the fact that the majority of biologists, I think about 95%, agree that life begins at conception. Shouldn't they trust science, like many say, enough to defend life? Great, great point, Anthony.

Go ask them, because I've been trying. I mean, that's why people say like oh pro life is a religious belief you know you've probably heard that's like you're just saying that because you're a catholic or you're a christian or something and i say actually i'm this is not a belief this is you know my conviction my my desire to fight for pre-born lives is based on a scientific reality that i've acknowledged, which is that life begins at the moment of fertilization, a unique individual human life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized by a sperm and you have a new human life that comes into existence with his or

her own unique DNA and they just need time and nourishment to grow. That's how we all began life. The vast majority of scientists agree, except for a couple of crazies. how we all began life the vast majority of scientists agree except for a couple crazies um even peter singer the ethicist from princeton who is a uh pro-infanticide you know so-called bioethicist he says it's not an it's no debate that human life begins at fertilization i mean people the pro-abortion people will agree with this so the question is do all human lives deserve protection you know do all human lives deserve protection? You know, do all, and by the way, back to the utilitarian thing, Matt,

that's kind of how we're operating. I mean, when I get down to it with a lot of pro-abortion advocates, the reality is they say, yes, it's a human life. It is true. The science is clear. It's a human life, but I still have the right to kill him or her because I'm stronger. Right. I mean, that's really mean, that's really the abortion argument. I get to do this because they are dependent on me and they can't fight back. It's so bloody incoherent, the whole thing, especially because I would imagine that many people who consider themselves pro-choice, quote unquote, are probably sympathetic with other liberal movements like BLM and critical race theory, right? And this, in their mind, this abhorrence that anybody would lord their power over an inferior, at least strength-wise, or in their opinion, group, you know? So it's like,

why wouldn't this fit into your worldview that we shouldn't subjugate people? We shouldn't enslave them. We shouldn't kill them. It's infuriating. I think this is honestly why I'm not interested in Trent Horn's book on defending, you know, because I just I'm like, it's so obvious to me. Now, he would say to me, OK, but you should be interested in converting other people. And the fact that you're not is a problem. And that's a good answer.

Yeah. I mean, here's the good news though damn it trant he's always winning arguments in my head even against me even when it's just me sorry yikes um there are all these progressives there are progressives and atheists and even you know the pro-lgbt kind of ideology there are people in that space who are very pro life. They're a minority, because it's not popularized yet. But I do think just as progressivism can pick up just causes, but then, you know, also pick up unjust causes, progressive progressivism can, can reevaluate existing unjust causes that they've championed as just and again, not to sound confusing here, what I'm saying is, know progressives saying you know we need racial equality i completely agree of course um treatment under the law and society our cultures our norms

um but then they also say we should be pro-abortion and you're like completely disagree you know like um you're an ageist now children are now not as valuable as adults how can you say this uh so i'm saying there's hope. There's hope for the progressive movement. I see some people becoming pro-life. I think the biggest need, though, beyond anti-abortion education, like I said earlier, is worldview, you know, fundamentals education, stuff you're doing on your podcast, Matt, which I love, you know, the stuff you just wrote your book on, Aquinas and happiness, you know, like, what is right and wrong? What are the absolute truth that, you know, more our entire way we see each other, you know, that are anchor everything, that's really what's needed to form people. Because right now, I feel

like people just get caught up in groupthink. I mean, it's really like, what are most people doing on Instagram, you know, like, what's popular on Instagram? That's the social justice cause. Then I'm in as a young person. And that's really, that can be extremely dangerous and toxic when you're caught up in an unjust cause. You know, we really got to get Dave Rubin following the logic on this one. I know you and I know him. But I suppose his main concern is like,

he's just this sort of the individual guy and against any sort of or most government intervention. And I think that's probably what his objection would be. Maybe you could clarify that or help him out. Help me help him out. And then what would you say to him to help kind of change his mind on this? I mean, I would ask anybody who's sort of saying, well, yes, you're right. It is a human life and abortion is wrong, but the government still shouldn't do anything. You know, it's like only at a certain point should the government intervene and say,

then I'll protect the baby maybe at 20 weeks, you know, or some other arbitrary standard. And I would say, you know, if you took that exact line of thinking and applied it to any other past human rights issue that you are now on the right side of, like slavery, like, let's talk about that again. You know, yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, a little slave child, you know, they shouldn't be killed. They shouldn't be enslaved. They can't even do that much work in the plantation anyways, or a woman, you know, she's weaker. She shouldn't do so much work. But if it's a man, it you know, she's weaker, she shouldn't do so much work. But if it's a man, it's really economically necessary, you're going to crush, you know,

the economy, the government shouldn't get involved. Anyway, some of them, you know, have entered this willingly, in a sense, I mean, they need the jobs, like, you can rationalize yourself into still giving a thumbs up to a part of an injustice while sort of rationalizing yourself out of another part of it. And, you know, you can, you can be that person, you can, you can, you can be illogical and, you know, persist in your illogic and persist in accepting part of an injustice. But, you know, I'm, I'm glad that many people are willing to not think that way and willing to not live in that, you know, false gray area. Because if we stayed in the false gray area on these issues, historically we'd never overcome past injustices.

So, you know, there's, there's only so much you can say with someone who's literally telling you, I know it's not logical, you know, then you just pray, you know, you pray for a change of heart, you know, you know that life experience might shape them. You keep telling telling them the truth but at the end of the day if someone just says i know it doesn't make sense but i'm still gonna believe it you know there's you just you pray you keep talking and and maybe eventually they'll come around uh final question here i think this is a big one thanks for the super chat jonathan he says food for thought is it just

to harm an abortion doctor mid-abortion if other peaceful methods fail one could argue it would be just to harm the doctor if he was harming a three-year-old i would also point out this can extend not just to when he's performing the abortion but maybe while he's sleeping or getting coffee or something, if he's an abortionist, is it just to harm them? What is the CCC 2265? Is that the catechism? Yeah, yeah, catechism probably has to do with just war theory. Well, first of all, you know, I and live action are 100% strictly nonviolent in our recommendations and our approach, meaning, you know, and it's something

that Martin Luther King Jr., and that was his whole approach as an activist, you know, we're never going to use violence, even though, you know, there are slaves being lynched, not slaves, but there's, you know, black men and women in the South being lynched, we're not going to use, we're not going to return violence with violence. And this can be very hard for some people once you acknowledge, oh, my gosh, children are literally being killed in this abortion clinic. And the reason for that is because of the context that we're in right now, we have, we can change the laws. We are, you know, we're not, we are, we are still in a country that's free enough, where if we vote, if we educate enough people, if we reach enough people, we can use peaceful means instead of resorting to war right now. Because, you know, that's always

an option. Do you resort to civil war to solve your injustice? But we can use peaceful means instead of resorting to war right now, because, you know, that's always an option. Do you resort to civil war to solve your injustice? But we can use peaceful means to save lives. We can use peaceful means, I believe, to end abortion. So I would say use those peaceful means. Use those peaceful means. Do not resort to violence. There's so much opportunity to save lives.

There's so much opportunity to change hearts and minds. All right. Well, hey, thanks for being on. And for those who are watching, too, I had Lila on several, well, a few months back now where we talked about your conversion to Catholicism. I'll throw up a link in the top of the description below if y'all are watching this and want to hear more about that, because I think it was really cool for people to kind of get a different view of you. They're usually hearing about you as you speak about abortion and these sorts of things. So, but thanks for coming on today and doing an hour long Q and a. Thank you, Matt. Yeah.

We talked about yoga pants and all kinds of other things. So it was fun. Yes. Hey, give it, give us, do a plug. There's nothing wrong with plugs and being self-interested as we've said, give us a plug for your new book, fighting for life. Why should people go pick it up again? The link is at the top of the description.

I'll pull it up here. So Fighting for Life. Why should people go pick it up? Again, the link is at the top of the description. I'll pull it up here. So Fighting for Life, it's my first book, only book, and just came out a month ago. And it's, yeah, I wrote it to inspire and equip and help anybody who wants to make a difference in the world and sees the crisis around us and says, I have to do something, whether it's abortion or it's, you know around transgender or even if you're concerned about climate change because there's i'm i don't know your audience matt although i imagine many are you're bombing right now social issues i'll i'll save that for my msnc interview but whatever the fight whatever the fight is it's how to get in the fight how to overcome roadblocks and obstacles in our own hearts.

And also, what is a just cause? How to discern because our culture is so confused about causes right now. And so it's also that. And you also get a lot of stories about behind the scenes for investigations we've done. And my biggest mistakes, if you want to read about, it's kind of my tell-all. If you want to read about my biggest mistakes, read for life so there's there's a few uh a few selling points people should buy it too even if they're not immediately gripped by what this book's about which i think most people will be but even if they weren't just to be able to support you and your wonderful organization

which how can they find by the way what's the url thank you matt so it's liveaction.org and we're all over social media if you're on that in that crazy system and then the book is fightingforlifebook.com you can learn more there okay excellent all right thanks for being on lila all right see you uh one second here we go i was trying i just tried to play a cool outro clip but it didn't work so now i just have to end it like a loser. You're just saying yourself.