The Sean McDowell Show - Heating up! The Current Debate Over Abortion Rights (w_ Lila Rose)

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

How is the pro-life movement faring in our post Roe V Wade era? Lila Rose has been one of the most outspoken (and BOLD) pro-life advocates for the past decade. Today, she talks about how to speak truth lovingly, how the abortion debate has shifted, and how to make a difference for the preborn. READ: Fighting for Life, by Lila Rose (https://amzn.to/4hnjU2I)WATCH: A Former Abortion Doctors Speaks Out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l7lTMzEs8E)*Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf)*USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM)*See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK)FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowellTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=enInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

How is the pro-life movement faring legally in our post-Roe era and in the second term of President Trump? What is the best case that can be made for life? And what are the toughest challenges from pro-choicers? And how might pro-lifers respond? Our guest today, Lila Rose, is one of the leading pro-life advocates and defenders of life today. She's a speaker, writer, activist, and founder of Live Action, a national human rights organization. She recently defended life incredibly well,

articulately and compassionately against 25 pro-choicers in an online video that's got over 2.5 million views. So an abortion is another act of violence in my view, both of that baby and of a survivor. But the reason you have an abortion, no it doesn't. That is a selling beauty position. Lyle you did so well in that debate. It's amazing. We're gonna come back to that. But thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me Sean. I'm a big fan of yours and thanks for everything you're doing. It's awesome. Well, it's a treat to partner.

We've had you on our audio podcast, the Think Biblically podcast, but this conversation is long overdue. And I want to start with your story. A lot of people see your activism and your passion and your apologetics, but don't know how you got to where you are. What made you such a passionate defender of life? Thank you. Well, long story short, I think, and this is a story for a lot of pro-life activists, it's having this moment where you really realize what abortion is that just shocks you to the core. And growing up, I'm from a big family, great parents, raised in a Christian household.

They weren't activists per se, but they were definitely pro-life and just the way they operated, they were very loving, very pro-family. But it was when I read this book as a kid, I found this book called The Handbook on Abortion. I love to read. And it was basically the story of how abortion became legal in America, the history. But it had this insert, Sean,

it had images of fetal development, embryonic development, just incredible to see life developing in the womb. It also had images of babies. There was a baby that was in the first trimester and had been killed by a 10-week suction abortion. And so you see this baby, you see the life. This is hands, feet, this face. And I remember looking up this image of this baby

that had been torn apart. I mean... It's just... It cuts you to the core. And I thought, is this happening? Is this real? What is this? Learn that there's 3000 abortions every day. This is legal. It's literally happening 10 miles from my childhood home at the Planned Parenthood.

They're killing babies up to 24 weeks old. That's six months. And so I just felt very strongly, this is a calling. I have to do something. I can't pretend this isn't happening. Mostly the church has been silent on this. I don't hear people talking about this on Sunday. People don't seem to be doing anything about this.

Again, there's people doing stuff, but I wasn't plugged in yet. I need to take action. And so that was the inspiration for, originally Pro Life Club in my parents' living room at age 14. Amazing. I had a somewhat similar experience.

I think I was about 13, maybe 14 years old. My dad brought home a video, and this would have been early 90s. I don't remember if it was a silent scream or one like it, and he showed it to me. And that shifted the issue from just like academic to personal. And I showed it, took off my friends, thinking they would be as jarred as I was.

One was a Mormon, one was an agnostic, and let's just say their response was different than I expected. And at that point, I thought, okay, this issue matters way more than I thought, and it's going to take more to convince people that this issue matters than I ever thought. And that's really what motivated me, even though I'm a generalist, to speak up on this issue frequently. Now, I'm curious, you've been doing this for a while, probably, I don't know, a couple decades or so, you've been speaking out in different ways, depending on when we start the clock.

How would you say as a whole, kind of the conversation or debate about abortion has shifted in maybe the past two decades? That's a really good question, And also I wanna just say thank you for speaking out about this, Sean, because I know you said, I'm a generalist. Well, I think you're an expert in a lot of things. You know a lot of things very well, but you're willing to continually go to the mat for this.

And this is children's lives. I think this is the really question of who are we as an American people? Do we care about life and human rights or not? Do we care about helping pregnant mothers and human rights or not? Do we care about helping pregnant mothers and young families or not, right? This is a foundational, this is the foundational issue in my view.

Like the right to life comes first, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our Declaration of Independence talks about how we're endowed by our creator with these inalienable rights. Life is the first right, because if you don't have the right to life, you don't have any other rights. Nothing else is possible to enjoy.

So that's why this matters so much. So thank you for doing this. In terms of the last two decades, what I've observed is the movement has grown significantly because people know more. I mean, there's more opportunity to be educated on this issue because of new media. Before new media, so I started right when Zanga MySpace

was coming out in college. It was Facebook YouTube. And so I kind of watched this happen where it went from not people wouldn't really talk about it know about this issue to now. There's an opportunity to be educated like there wasn't before. Before the mainstream media you know the old school media was mostly pro-abortion. They were thinking, oh, abortion is a woman's right. Of course we support this. No, abortion kills. 50% of the people that abortion kills are little baby girls in the womb.

And I also would say abortion's antithetical to women's rights. But I think new media has changed the game and given people the opportunity to get passionate. And then the movement has had some huge wins in the last two decades. rights, but I think new media has changed the game and given people the opportunity to get passionate. And then the movement has had some huge wins in the last two decades. Defunding Planned Parenthood at the state level in multiple states, obviously the overturn of Roe v Wade, making abortion illegal, protecting babies in over a dozen states.

These are huge wins that were not even thought possible two decades ago. One of the things that completely surprised me, Lila, was just recently, the New York Times had an extensive op-ed. Actually, I don't think it was an op-ed. It was an investigative report on Planned Parenthood. And I'm often critical of the New York Times, the stories they cover, the way they do it. But there was a lot in the story that I thought, wow, I can't believe they're covering this. And they pointed out how many lawsuits there are of just women who thought they had an abortion.

Weeks later, they find out they're pregnant. UIDs put in in a way that wasn't correct and there's harm from it. They described the workplace as chaotic and just, I forget the other adjective that they used for it. Dirty. Yeah. And I'm reading this thinking, chaotic and just, I forget the other adjective that they used for it. Yeah.

And I'm reading this thinking, I'm really not that surprised at all. And part of my take was, and this is not to disparage individuals. I know most people who work there are doing what they think is right. And by the way, the end of the New York Times article said there was pressure put on individuals to not speak out because they didn't want it to harm the mission of Planned Parenthood. So kudos for the New York Times for including that.

But when I read this, I'm not that surprised because if the mission is to end the life of the most vulnerable amongst us, then why would I be surprised that there's other human rights violations in the largest organization that promotes this? What was your take on that investigative report? It was incredible to see

because we have been investigating Planned Parenthood. I have personally been investigating Planned Parenthood since I was 18 years old. I first did undercover investigative reporting of Planned Parenthood as literally when I was a college freshman at UCLA, and I went undercover at two Planned Parenthoods in Los Angeles, and it showed, like literally, just one, two, and done.

It was immediate, the results that I found. They were covering up child, what they were told was child sex abuse. So I went in there posing as a 15-year-old girl, 14-year-old girl saying that I found they were covering up child, what they were told was child sex abuse. So I went in there posing as a 15 year old girl, 14 year old girl saying that I was the victim of a sexual abuse ultimately by an older man, statutory rape, and they just told me

they wouldn't report it, they're mandated reporters, and then they told me that they would send me, right, you know, get me an abortion right there, and no problems, no questions asked. That's against state law, by the way. You're a mandated reporter at Planned Parenthood. You got a report suspected statutory rape or child abuse. So just one little tip of the iceberg.

I mean, the fact that 15 years later or so, Planned Parenthood is now finally, or excuse me, the New York Times is finally doing their due diligence on the organization. I call that a cultural win. Because the New York Times has historically been pro-abortion their editorial page. And I don't say that lightly, I'm not saying pro-choice.

They support unfettered access, they call it to abortion. So the New York Times as an editorial board supports complete access to any abortion for any woman at our choosing, they're against every pro-life law. So the fact that they did an investigative piece on the biggest abortion chain in the world and certainly in America, which is Planned Parenthood, they do now almost 40% of all US abortions.

They do over a thousand abortions every day in America. A thousand abortions is what Planned Parenthood does daily. So this was a big win, I think. And, you know, I have lots of opinions about why now and, you know, what is the New York Times doing? But I will say traditional media is losing its power. Trust in the media is at an all time low. So you're gonna see more of these supposedly

less left-wing or pro-abortion media groups do this sort of centrist play to try to look moderate, to try to win back some of their reputation, quite frankly. And I think that's what this was from the New York Times. In the past six months, there was a report on the trans-affirming care in the New York Times. Now, that was an op-ed by Pam LaPaule. There was a report on marijuana and some of the damaging effects of that, a huge investigative report. There's a critique on DEI at the University of Michigan. So I think you're right that there's a larger narrative behind this, which makes me wonder what other reports are going

to be coming out on other issues soon. As a whole... Well, and then the... Sorry to interrupt, but the Washington Post, that was so crazy last week. Jeff Bezos sends editorial directions to the Washington Post editorial board saying, the direction of the Washington Post editorial board will be to promote free markets and freedom of, I think it was speech, which is like, meaning we don't want you to pick your typical,

maybe leftist cause or maybe your more controversial, you know, pro-abortion stance that focused on free markets as an editorial board. And that was a dramatic move because the Washington Post has been caught up in all these pretty, you know, typically left, very left-wing causes. And now they're being told, now we gotta go more centrist.

So it's an interesting, it's an interesting move. That was a fascinating shift. So one last thing on this report, were you reading it going, yep, this didn't surprise me at all. Did anything surprise you in that or were you reading it going, I think it's worse and there's a lot more people that would speak out if their job and their reputation wasn't on the line?

It's a good question. It's definitely far worse than what the New York Times is reporting about Planned Parenthood. I mean, they were talking about how there are these women that go in, they're given basically a botched abortion or they're being told they're not pregnant. They end up delivering a stillborn baby. I mean, really heartbreaking stories. A pregnant mother is given an IUD. I mean, just very shoddy medical care.

So they basically represented how Planned Parenthood is a very shoddy medical provider, but they're far worse because they are the biggest abortion chain. So it's one thing to do medical care poorly, right? But Planned Parenthood is not doing medical care. They're doing the antithesis of medical care. They're literally profiting off of the dismemberment and the poisoning to death of human beings.

And you take it to steps back and you think about that, these brick and mortar buildings that are receiving taxpayer funds, by the way, I can talk more about that in a minute, they are literally in the business of killing human beings and presenting that as planning parenthood. You know, you're not planning parenthood, you're ending parenthood at Planned Parenthood.

And there's no services for parents. I mean, there's no prenatal care, parenting classes, support for mothers with young children. Like they don't do that at Planned Parenthood. By the way, they do that at pregnancy resource centers that are pro-life. There's thousands of those. They're not getting the taxpayer money. But then in all of this, Planned Parenthood is also getting $700 million annually from taxpayers.

Most people do not know this. A third, almost over a third of Planned Parenthood's budget is from taxpayers and it's 700 million bucks a year. It's a huge amount of money. And what people will say, well, they do all these other healthcare stuff. Well, as the New York Times is reporting, it's shoddily done if you wanna call it healthcare.

And they have basically, you know what it is, Sean? It's basically a business strategy because their worldview at Planned Parenthood is that sex is, you know, as long as there's some sort of consent, people should be involved in sexual, they would call it exploration, it's basically promiscuity.

They promote sexual promiscuity. They promote abortion as backup contraception. They know that people who are sexually promiscuous who use contraception, it's going to end up biting them in the back. They might get pregnant. And then they go to Planned Parenthood for that abortion. So they have a system that they've built up for their clientele to encourage activity that's not healthy for them. You know, STIs are a real thing. Obviously there's a lot of other issues with hookup culture and sex outside of marriage. And then when people get pregnant,

which is an inevitable consequence for many people of having sex, then they say, well, just have an abortion. That's what we're here for. We're here for you is their slogan. And I think that is a model they've set up that's been working for them, but it's a model that's built on basically promoting some of the worst behaviors and the most hurtful behaviors

of people that are vulnerable and then exploiting them further by killing their unborn babies. So anyways, I think the New York Times did a great job of reporting on some of it, but there's so much more. Again, tip of the iceberg stuff. One of the stories of like sewage seeping in under the door for two days, and I think it was an operating room, is just harrowing. So I'd encourage all folks read that article New York Times. It's easy to find and make up your own mind about it. This morning also there was an op-ed and the title was

Truths to Remember in a Time of Lies. And this was like political truths and cultural truths, but one of them was this. I want to read you what it is. Give the quick commentary and get your take on it. The idea was, so this is a truth to remember in an apparent time of lies, abortion bans kill. And then the person wrote, medications and operations used in abortion are often the

same medications and operations needed to save the life of a woman undergoing a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. We know that. What we don't know is how many deaths have been the result of incoherent red state anti-abortion laws. That's because Republicans don't want us to know. Even without that information, nearly two thirds of Americans support access

to legal abortion. Now, I'm not asking you this to so much weigh in politically, but just do abortion bans kill in the way it's described here? It's a complete lie. It's a complete fabrication. And I can explain how it's sort of taken this narrative, taken shape, because some people sincerely think, and maybe they even have pro-life sentiments, they want to protect babies, they want to help women, and they think, well, an abortion ban goes too far

because what about miscarriage care, right? What about an ectopic pregnancy? And the reality is there's not a single pro-life law in the books and there hasn't been and there won't be because this is not what a pro-life law is that prohibits miscarriage care or prohibits treating an ectopic pregnancy. And to break that down a little bit more, in miscarriage care, theits treating an ectopic pregnancy. And to break that down a little bit more,

in miscarriage care, the baby has already passed away. When the baby has already passed away, if sometimes the body doesn't naturally pass the baby the rest of the way, the heartbeat has stopped, the baby is dead, but the body hasn't passed the baby, you may need to go in and use a procedure that's similar to an elective abortion procedure to remove the body

of the dead baby. That is not illegal in any state, right? You can use a knife to stab someone in the heart and kill them or a scalpel, a knife to go and open up the chest for an open heart surgery. In one situation, you're trying to help a patient, another situation, you're killing a person, right? In an abortion, an elective abortion procedure,

as it's banned in any pro-life state, you're banning ending the life of a baby. You're not banning a particular procedure that could be used to remove a baby that's already dead. And those procedures are happening every day in pro-life states if there needs to be miscarriage completion because the baby's already dead. The key is you check for the heartbeat, right? Is the baby alive? Can we try to save this baby's life and help the mother or as the baby passed, do we complete the miscarriage? So miscarriage care is legal in every single poor life state and anyone telling you otherwise

is misleading you. Now there has been some people who say, well, the doctors are confused, but you look at every single case and you look at the treatment of women who are miscarrying. They bring up these cases of women miscarrying, say, well, the doctors were confused. Not a single doctor who's cared for a woman

who has a miscarriage has said, I'm confused about the pro-life law and therefore I didn't treat this woman. That is a complete myth that's been perpetuated by unfortunately abortion advocates. And then ectopic pregnancy, Sean, there are exceptions in every pro-life law to explain very specifically removing a baby in an ectopic pregnancy.

The baby is not in the uterus in this situation. The baby is usually in the fallopian tube. Baby can't grow there. Baby is dead or will die soon. Mother could die. Very dangerous, right? Because the baby can't grow in a very tiny fallopian tube. It's not made for that.

Removing that baby is not an abortion. And abortion procedures intent is to kill a baby, to end a pregnancy and end the life of the baby. And in an ectopic pregnancy, you're removing a baby from ultimately a hostile environment. Baby can't grow, baby can't survive. And it's tragic. I wish we had the technology to re-implant that baby,

save that baby's life. We don't have that technology yet, but there's not a single pro-life state that prohibits treating a woman and in a case of an ectopic pregnancy. And this is true in any pro-life state that that's completely permitted. There's no case of a woman being denied care

in an ectopic pregnancy that doesn't exist. Show me the case it doesn't exist because the law is very clear on this. So this is a fabrication. And the reality is the exact opposite is true. You know, if anybody has seen the media do something where they literally tell you the exact opposite of the truth, this is an example.

I mean, I'm sure you can think of some in recent history. In the state of Texas, as an example, they virtually banned abortion in Texas. In the last reported year, they had 40,000 more live births than they did in the years when abortion was legal. It's very clear that abortion bans actually save lives because they're protecting these babies. That's of course where the public

movement needs to kick in with resources for young mothers, young families, which is what we're doing really working really hard. There's thousands of these centers doing this work, but that's the truth. Abortion bans are saving lives. And one last thing I'm gonna say on this, countries that have abortion bans like Malta, historically before Ireland changed their policy, Ireland for decades, you know, even Chile as an example,

very prolific country, have better maternal mortality, you know, lower maternal mortality rates than many countries like the United States that have abortion on demand. So this idea that you need abortion to have better outcomes for pregnant mothers is completely false. You can find some of the best maternal,

some of the best maternal care in the world in very pro-life countries that have lower maternal mortality rates than in the United States. So, and why is this? It's a mindset shift. It's doctors who look at a mother who's pregnant and instead of saying,

well, we're just gonna terminate the pregnancy, kill that baby to somehow solve a healthcare issue. Instead they think holistically, how can we help this mother be healthier? How can we care for this other patient, this baby? How can we love both of them? That's a more holistic, pro-human healthcare model than one that just uses abortion, quite frankly, as a shortcut in medical care. In terminating pregnancies, killing babies, instead of treating both as patients. We work with thousands of medical professionals at Live

Action who are pro-life OBGYNs and they say abortion is not medically necessary. You can care for both patients in extreme scenarios. You may need to do an early delivery, but then you try to save the life of the baby. Don't kill the baby. That's pro-life healthcare. That's what every woman and baby deserves. You know, the supposed lie that was stated in this op-ed is abortion bans kill which just misses the

complete obvious point that abortion kills. It's really the pro-life movement that says we care for the unborn and we care for women. It's both. Now I want you to define exactly what you mean by abortion because I think there's a lot of confusion about this. It seems pretty straightforward to me, but my wife, I think about 13 years ago, she had a miscarriage and it was just, as you know from talking with women or maybe personal experience, just how painful that is.

And it was the same procedure in an abortion. And my wife was like, I can't have an abortion. Of course, she was emotionally frowst. I'm like, you're not. The baby's heartbeat has stopped. It's just to remove it safely. That's very different than going in with the intent to kill. So what do we actually mean by abortion?

It's a good question. And abortion legally, when you're in a pro-life state or you're a state that's protecting abortion, abortion is defined as the intentional and direct killing of a human being, of that baby. So it's direct, you're actually going in there to directly kill, it has the intent to kill, and it kills. It kills the baby.

So that is dramatically different, of course, like you just said about miscarriage care. And one of my good girlfriends out here in California, this is a pro-abortion state, right? But she had a miscarriage, the baby hadn't fully passed, and the doctors said, okay, we're gonna wait and see if we're gonna do this next procedure to remove the baby. Like you said, your wife underwent that procedure because the baby hasn't passed

yet. She ended up passing the baby naturally over a period of weeks. But usually that wait and see advice is pretty typical for a lot of women who've miscarried. And if the baby hasn't passed yet, it's not because, you know, this is not an abortion procedure. It's not it's not an illegal issue. And so in pro-life states, when that's been said to women, wait and see, you know, when maybe it might pass naturally, there have been some fabrications of,

well, they were denied a procedure because it's similar to an abortion procedure, and that's totally false. Standard of care is the wait and see method for a lot of these cases of miscarriage. So abortion, direct and intentional killing of a life, ends the life of the baby. Anything else? Not abortion. That's really helpful. I thought it was interesting that one of the people who pushed back on

you in this debate with the 25 pro-choicers either said, we don't know when life begins or the unborn is not alive and that's just complete nonsense. In fact, what abortion does, you pointed this out, is abortion kills. That's in the definition. You can only kill something that's alive. A tumor is not alive. A cancer is not alive. Abortion by its own definition is killing something which kind of proves,

and it's not the only way to show that it's alive, but proves that it's alive. Now a lot of my conversations I know for you is just saying, all right, what is the heart of the case for life? Because it's amazing how many pro-lifers and pro-choicers miss this. Here's the way I simply put it,

and I don't think this is unique to me, but when people ask me the case for pro-life, I'll say, the right to life is a human right. The unborn are human. Therefore, the unborn have the right to life. That's my simple case. Now, the right to life is human right is incontestable. The unborn are human, scientifically incontestable.

Now, therefore the unborn have the right to life. This is where people start to debate and quibble and qualify that. And we could come back to it, for example, when it's right to life conflicts with the mother's bodily autonomy. So we'll come back to that in a minute. But if somebody said, okay, Lila, what do you mean by pro-life? of the mother's bodily autonomy. So we'll come back to that in a minute.

But if somebody said, okay, Lila, what do you mean by pro-life? What would be your quick kind of Twitter slash X explanation of what it means to be pro-life? I like your, Sean, I think that's very solid. And I would say a similar approach would be, you know, you have two premises and a conclusion and you say, it's always wrong

to kill an innocent human being. You know, it's always wrong to kill an innocent human being. You know, is it always wrong to kill an innocent human? And most people say, yeah, it's always wrong to kill an innocent human. And then you say, well, abortion kills an innocent human. Therefore, abortion is always wrong. Always wrong to kill an innocent human. Abortion kills an innocent human.

Therefore, abortion is always wrong. And kind of like with your, you know, logical syllogism, people might get jammed up with that second one of saying, well, is the unborn, you know, is the unborn a human? Are they an innocent human? Well, they're certainly innocent. They haven't been tried of anything, you know, in a court of law by their peers and you know, for a jury of their peers and they are human. I mean, if the unborn is not a human, what are they? Right, I mean, the law of biogenesis tells us that two human parents will have offspring that is human. Right, so we know it's a human. Well, then some people say, well, is it really alive?

Well, of course it's alive. If it wasn't alive, it wouldn't be growing and you wouldn't need to kill it in an abortion. And then some people will say, well, is the status of the human the same as a born human, right? They kind of get stuck on birth. I think a lot of people think birth is sort of, it's kind of been this, it's honestly, Sean,

I think it's magical thinking. We don't realize how this narrative is baked in, but this idea that, you know, eight inches of birth canal gives you your humanity, right? Completely illogical. We know that it's the same human before birth, minutes before birth, as he or she is after birth. It's the same life.

It's just a different location, right? Inside the womb versus outside the womb. So I would say that's a really boiled down argument. You can get into next stage of the conversation where you talk about why is the newborn human the same moral value as the unborn human and get into that conversation, but it's incontestable, like you said.

This is a living human, abortion's designed to kill them, and all living humans have human rights and the first right is life, like you said earlier. I love that. Now let me push back on one premise that someone might challenge. I think you said it's always wrong to kill an innocent human being. Is that right with the first premise? Yep, or you could just say innocent human. An innocent human, fair enough.

The V-word might trip someone up. Some might say, okay, so if I can come up with a counterexample, then I could challenge this premise. So what about in war, even just war theory says, we don't intend to kill innocents, but we do know that sometimes an innocent may be killed. We've just done everything we can to limit them, but we know there's going to be innocent casualties because of this.

How would you respond to that challenge to the first premise? Yeah, well, I think the first premise handles it well because the first premise is it's always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human. So that kind of deals with the just war theory question because it would be a war crime in war to intentionally kill a civilian. would be a war crime in war to intentionally kill a civilian. That's a war crime. So that makes sense.

So that's why when you said one of your premises was abortion cannot be justified under any circumstances. This is one of the contentions you defended very well again against 25 pro-choicers. And some might say, what about when a woman's life is in jeopardy? And I'm guessing, tell me if I'm wrong, I'm guessing you say, well, the intention of this procedure is actually to save both.

That's the intention in so far as we technologically can. The intention is not to kill the unborn. And so the procedure might result in that, but that intention itself changes everything. Just like you said with the knife earlier, you can use the same knife, plunge it into the same part in somebody's stomach. If one intention is to harm versus to do surgery,

it's the intention that changes the moral act. Do you agree with that or just expand on your thoughts? Yeah, with a little bit of a nuance, a little added nuance there because I think that general direction is absolutely correct. But, you know, there are people that try to justify what is effectively intentionally killing up that baby because they say, oh, the woman, you know, this is a classic justification, by the way, under Roe v. Wade and, you know,

the original Supreme Court cases to legalize abortion in this country, this idea of mental health, saying that, well, women have this need for, you know, obviously health, and so if the baby is encroaching on the woman's health, you know, it could be mental health, or you can, there's a lot of ambiguities there, like what do you mean by health? What do you mean by, you know, protecting her life?

You know, what does that mean? Well, then it's okay to end the pregnancy and kill the baby. You can make any number of justifications for still killing the baby. I think we have to zoom out and say, listen, first of all, the cases where you absolutely need to do an emergency early delivery of a baby because of immediate health risk, you know, life threatening risk to the mother is such a tiny fraction, less than 1% of a, you know, of all abortions in this country. You know, we work with a week, you I am one of them is Dr. Anthony Levatino. He used to do abortions. He also used to work with he's amazing. You've interviewed him. he also used to work with high-risk pregnancies in Upper State New York.

He worked with 40,000 different women at this clinic who came through high-risk pregnancies, but they wanted to care for baby and mom. Never once did they have to do an abortion. Because the reality is, if there's other conflicting health issues, the typical, the best standard of care is you monitor mom, you monitor baby, you give them the best healthcare

and you wait and see. And if the baby is older and there's an immediate emergency situation where you would need to do an early delivery of that baby, that's not an abortion procedure. You're trying to save the life of that baby. You're not going in there and using tools to rip the baby to shreds

or poison the baby with an abortion pill or inject the baby with a lethal injection. So even the procedure that's being used is a different one in the case of life saving health care for a mother that's respectful of the baby's life too. I think that's a very important distinction. That's great. That's really helpful. Now what one question I've been wanting to ask you is when I watched this recent exchange again with 25 pro-choicers, I don't know how you kept your cool during that. I mean, people often say to me,

Sean, you talk to progressive Christians and atheists and skeptics, and like you stay pretty calm and collected. And I have my ways I try to navigate this, but hands down, abortion is the hardest issue for me to talk about in a collected, just kind of calm issue like you did in that exchange. There were, I mean there was one woman in particular, and people can watch it again and make up their mind, who just kept raising her voice, shouting you down, and I sensed a couple things. I thought there are so many people that are challenging you, that it's so obvious there's just hurt,

and there's pain, and there's a backstory here. Even the lady in this exchange who works at a rape crisis center and is really trying to help women. Well, she shifts her views, then what she's been doing arguably for years is encouraging people to do the wrong thing and end innocent life. So there's a lot at stake in you being wrong on this issue, what it would cost somebody

personally to change. That's why in the movie Unplanned, when the character playing Abby Johnson, like I get teary-eyed thinking about it, that morning where she wakes up Like I get teary-eyed thinking about it. That morning where she wakes up and she, like the weight of what she did hits her. She's just in tears. And it's such a powerful moment that captures that. So I guess my question for you is, it's two-part. How do you stay calm when so much life is at stake

and you believe this so deeply? And how do you navigate, answer the objection and realize that there's many times, if not more often than not, a backstory of hurt that's motivating this position? Yeah, you mentioned the woman from the Jubilee, 25 pro-choice versus one pro-lifer debate thing and the woman that worked at the Rape Crisis Center.

And she shared. We actually had a conversation after the first sessions of the Jubilee video, where I got to pick one person to talk to more, and I actually chose her. I said, I'd love to talk to you more. So they filmed this, they included this session. And she shared that she had had an abortion.

And she also shared that she had had a miscarriage, but very interestingly, she said to me she didn't feel any pain after the miscarriage, and she has no regrets after the abortion. And I could see, and you can almost just see from the emotional presentation of her saying those things, you can see this, like, you know, stonewalling, or this cutting off of her heart from the reality of mourning the loss of her baby via miscarriage.

And then also the baby via abortion, killed via abortion. In her mind, she can't let herself go to this idea that these were human beings, that these were children, a son or a daughter. And she even says, she even said, they're not alive. Like she even went as far as saying in the womb, they're not alive. And then I said to her, aren't you dehuman not alive. Like, and then I said, I said to

her, aren't you dehumanizing them a little bit? And she said, I am being dehumanizing. And you could see very clearly to me anyways, it felt very clear that this was a coping mechanism. She had to dehumanize these babies just personally even because dealing like you said with this idea that, you know, how it's incredibly painful. If you've had an abortion to wake up and realize that was my son or daughter that could be alive right now,

maybe five years old, 10 years old. It's incredible, it's devastating, not just for women, for men. You know, there's so many men who have been part of abortion decisions. They paid for abortions, they've encouraged abortions, or maybe they had, there was an abortion that they didn't want the woman to have

and she had it anyways. And for men to wake up and be like, that's my son or my daughter, that's not with me today. It's devastating. So I think you're spot on that like underneath this, you know, there's political arguments and cultural arguments and this conversations, there's a lot of trauma, there's a lot of hurt.

And I think there's a lot of buried regret that people aren't allowing themselves to even think about or approach because it's so painful. And I know we're both Christians. That's a huge part of our life. That is our life. And without God, how can you handle this? Any of us, right?

All of us, we've all done wrong things in our life to varying degrees, but they're all wrong things. And how can we handle the weight of our mistakes by ourselves? We can't do it, we're gonna die. You know, human human beings don't have the power we think we have. And similarly with abortion, I think that's where the message of hope and forgiveness is so essential that there is forgiveness for you around the corner. You got to acknowledge what you did, you got to acknowledge whatever part you had in it. You can't have healing without that acknowledgement, without that grief, without that, you know, I'm sorry,

but there's healing, it is possible. And I, you know, I'm so blessed. I work with so many people, Sean, that have had abortions. I mean, you mentioned Abby Johnson. She's obviously a huge voice in our movement. And she regularly shares about how she wishes someone had stopped her from her abortions. She wishes abortion had been illegal. She wishes society had rejected abortion because she just went along with it. Like

everybody was like, yeah, abortion, you know, it's what you need to do. It's kind of sad, but it's what you're gonna be better afterwards. This is the lies that women are told and men are told, right? So I think, you know, the loving response for us is to say, you know, to not water down the truth about abortion, it's killing a baby, it's horrific. But then to also acknowledge people are hurt

and the way to get them out of that hurt is the acknowledgement first, which is the kind of the tough love. It's a hard pill to swallow. But on the other side of that is an opportunity to receive full forgiveness and healing from the God who loves them, you know, who created them and an opportunity to share the truth to other people

to help save future lives. I mean, I think looking at even Abby Johnson's life, like what she's been able to do after her own history, to help save out their lives, to help be a force for good, it's beautiful to see, right? So I think there is so much hope for anybody who's been affected by abortion. And, and our posture should be don't water down the truth. But obviously, talk about the opportunity for healing and for hope because that exists for everybody. So one of the contentions you also defended in that exchange was abortion leaves women scarred for life. Now I noticed you didn't say... That was a controversial one for a lot of folks, interestingly. Oh, it was. All of it was controversial on some level. Now, you didn't say all women are scarred for life,

which was strategically wise. Talk about what that scarring is and how many women are really scarred and affected by this. Yeah, it's a very good question. And the reason I didn't say all women, and all women, and I think all women are spiritually and morally scarred by abortion. There's a real world harm of,

this is the killing of a baby, right? Any woman who freely chooses at least, obviously, if you're coerced into an abortion, which some women are, you're not morally freely choosing that. So that's not a sin, right? Someone else is choosing it for you. So I think these are important distinctions that often don't get made.

But yes, women are scarred by abortion. And this is not this opinion from Lila. This is the real world experience of millions of women, thousands of whom I've, through my organization and other work have had the opportunity to interview or receive their testimonies. I mean, women who say they're 80 years old and they're finally, they're grappling

with the abortion they had at 21. And it's devastating to them. I mean, this is the thing that they've carried with them all these years. Or the woman at 42 years old, who is now a mother of maybe two, three other kids, and she's just deep down, she's having trouble even in her relationship with her own kids

because of that baby, that other sibling, that maybe that abortion was at age 17, and she hasn't felt healing yet. It's deep down, it's buried in her. I mean, these are just common stories that we hear, right? But you look at the data, Sean, and that's where it gets really interesting. So there's been surveys and studies that have been done on women after abortion.

And on the pro-choice side, they say, well, look, there was a turn-away study that followed a thousand women and they claim five years after the abortion, they've all felt fine. So therefore there's no trauma. This is the big study that the pro-abortion people use. And this, even in the Jubilee debate, someone brought up this study and I was like,

I know what study you're talking about. You're ready. Here's the problem. First of all, that study, it followed women supposed to follow 1000 women. It was a handful of women. It was you know, just a few hundred women by the time they got results after five years. And that's because a lot of women dropped out. They didn't want to participate anymore. So to say well, they were all fine after you know, 90% were

fine after five years, if you're starting to regret your abortion, do you wanna go back and tell, you know, this study that's being run by basically abortion supporters, I regretted it. You don't, some of these women are also struggling with mental health issues, drug addiction issues, relationship issues, so they dropped out. Five years is a very short timeframe, right?

It is, a lot of women who experience abortion regret, it takes them a decade, sometimes two decades because it's buried very deep. They don't wanna think about it. But you look at data, I mentioned there's a study in California of women on Medicaid who, low income women, for the women, they followed two cohorts, women that had an abortion

and women that didn't. Similar low-income women, similar socioeconomic status, similar problems, right? The women that had abortions of these cohort, and this was hundreds of thousands of women that were studied in California, they were 150% more likely to attempt suicide. 150% more likely. You suicide. 150% more likely.

You find other studies that show very similar results in Finland, there were two studies done. Women who have abortions, seven times more likely to attempt suicide. I mean, the data is staring you in the face. There's all kinds of data about other mental health issues, about drug addiction, about alcohol addiction. Abortion kills a baby.

This is not getting your tonsils out. It's not getting your wisdom tooth removed. It's not going to the dentist. This is the ending of a life. And even with society's lies about this, the baked in narrative, it's not a baby, not a big deal. It still hurts deep down. It's painful.

And one last thing I'll say about this, that again, people don't talk about this, but if you're a woman, let's say you're in an abusive relationship, let's say you're in a low economic situation, you're struggling, you know, you're between jobs or you're struggling to keep a job. Let's say you have, you know, some other mental health issues or addiction issues. Let's say you're in a really tough spot, right?

And you get pregnant. And let's say you get an abortion. That abortion hasn't resolved your bad relationship. It hasn't gotten you a job. It hasn't solved your maybe addiction or mental health issues. All that abortion has done is ended the life of this baby. And now you're the same woman with the same situations, right? health issues, all that abortion has done is ended the life of this baby.

And now you're the same woman with the same situations. Right? For women that don't have the abortion, they've got now a baby to care for. That's significant, that's not easy. Let's not pretend that's easy. But now there's another life in the mix. And for many women, that life

becomes a turning point for them. Now I need, and there's also governmental engagement. Like you have responsibilities as a parent, or you might lose your children if you don't point for them. Now I need, and there's also governmental engagement, like you have responsibilities as a parent, or you might lose your children if you don't care for them, feed them, clothe them. I can't tell you the number of stories I have heard of women who say, who went through the worst things, were struggling with the worst things,

who say that baby saved my life. That baby saved my life because I had someone to fight for. And now people around me, there's a network that wanted to help me and this baby. So again, I'm not trying to be Pollyanna about this and pretend it's so easy and whatever it's hard. And these are, you know, life is, this is a big response, this huge responsibility. But you look at these Medicaid patients in California, you look at these different studies and you see destroying the life doesn't help the mother. It makes it harder for the mother because you're adding a new trauma to her life.

And choosing life for that baby actually makes her in a better situation than if she chose to kill that baby. And we're just talking from the mother's point of view, of course, of course the baby is better off because baby's alive. People need to know this because most people, again, the narrative is the exact opposite,

the prevailing narrative. I've shared this a few times publicly. My sister has given me permission, but my adopted sister found her birth mom when she was in college, and it turns out that she was actually conceived in date rape when she was 14, her mom was. And, you know, I've asked people this question.

I've said, does my sister have any less right to life because of how she was conceived does she now or did she then and you already have a tragic circumstance the question is what's the right thing to do morally given that we now have a human being and what actually is going to help the mother and there's so much misinformation about this like you said I appreciate that you're just so often challenging and pushing back on this. Lila in my experience and I suspect it's the same for you that the most common argument now in favor of pro-choice is bodily autonomy. Would you agree that that's the

primary argument that's often made? I think you're right. I think you're right. I mean, there's different ways they present it, but it boils down to for I would say most abortion supporters, yeah, it's a bodily autonomy. So here's one of the ways that I respond and I'm curious, you agree, disagree,

what you would add to this or take away from it. As I'll say, okay, let's define autonomy. Auto means self and on me means rule. So do we think somebody should be able to rule over themselves? Yeah, generally, yes. But we limit that when the life of another human being is at stake. In fact, when it comes to suicide, we still don't allow somebody complete autonomy.

We will stop them from ending their own life, rightly so. And so, if you have an abortion, you're actually not ruling over yourself. You're ruling over another. What about the bodily autonomy of the unborn? That's one thing that I'll point out. The other thing I'll say, and I've got mixed results from saying this,

you can tell what you think, I'll say, you know, it's interesting because in a case when a woman is pregnant, the woman now has the power over life and death. The unborn has no power. And so if you say you still should have this abortion, you're actually favoring the one who's in power and not helping the one who's oppressed.

And I kind of frame it that way for people because in critical theory, you're always supposed to be on the side of the oppressed. And I'm actually saying it's actually the unborn that has no defense whatsoever for its life is the most vulnerable amongst us. Now do you agree with framing it that way in both cases? How would you respond to that? Okay, so what you just said, I think it's a very interesting approach because the framework, like you said, you know, a I think it's a very interesting approach because the framework, like you said,

a critical theory framework and a lot of abortion advocates come from that framework, at least loosely, not all of them, but some of them. And so to say, well, if you really care about the oppressed or the vulnerable or the disenfranchised, the weak, the weakest person is the completely dependent child. And at least the newborn can cry for help. You know, the newborn, like you leave a newborn

to die in the woods, they can scream and hopefully someone might hear them, right? The unborn baby vocal cords aren't even developed. They are 100% dependent on their mother. Now, of course, this is the argument that some abortion advocates would use for abortion. Well, because they're so dependent on this one person, that one person then gets to basically

rule over them and end their life, right? If they choose to, but that does violate the framework of, you know, side with the oppressed, side with the weaker person, you know, make sure that their voice is heard, right? So I think it's a great framework. Again, it's not gonna persuade everyone because the reality is I think a lot of people really do deep down just want to want to, you know, an out if you get pregnant, whether you know it's because of failed contraception or just whatever reason I didn't plan on this, I want an out. So it kind of is this, I think, unfortunately, you know, not our better angel, right? It's our the worst angel saying, saying, hey, you should do what you want to do and not be bothered.

And you have the right to not be bothered. But the reality is in life, we are bothered, right? Like any parent of a two-year-old, even if they are being driven crazy by that two-year-old, they still have a responsibility to care for that two-year-old, even if they didn't plan that two-year-old's life, right? I think this is the other idea that we think, well, unless the child was planned,

then I don't have a responsibility for the child. No, even if the child wasn't planned, right? Even if the child was, you know, this idea of unplanned, an unplanned child, there's a natural responsibility that any parent has for their children, regardless of how that child was conceived. And that's why, you know, a person who has a, let's say a one-year-old, they can be charged with criminal neglect if they fail to feed that one-year-old, clothe that one-year-old, shelter that one-year-old, right? So this idea that you have unlimited autonomy as a parent, whether you wanted to be a parent or not, Unlimited autonomy as a parent whether you wanted to be a parent or not to kind of get rid of your child

Right is not true. It's not true for born children and it's certainly not true for an unborn child So I think they the argument for bodily autonomy definitely falls apart as you said when you talk about the babies Bodily autonomy, but it also falls apart when you talk about the natural responsibilities that parents have. And I had an interesting debate recently at Georgetown with this professor, you know, very, very cordial debate. She was arguing radical autonomy, saying that, well, the difference between the born child and the unborn child is the unborn child is totally dependent on the pregnant mother. The born child you can hand off to somebody else.

And I was arguing that in the handoff process, you have to complete it. And sometimes that isn't an immediate thing. Meaning if I decide I wake up and I have a newborn baby and I decide I'm done, I still have the responsibility to ensure that that baby's gonna get care until I quote unquote hand off the child, right?

Similarly with an unborn baby, you can't just eject baby at any moment, kill baby, I don't care. You have a responsibility to provide that child with care until you can safely transfer responsibility to another adult. And when I brought that up to Hershey, there was no, there's, when I brought that up to her, she, there was no, you know, there was no, there's really no response to that because, yes, of course, a child dependent and weak

deserves the care of a guardian and that first guardian is the natural parent. And you can't just, you know, say I'm done, I'm just going to walk out or I'm just going to have the abortion, I'm done. That baby deserves that care until you can safely transfer the care to another adult who's willing to take the care on. Scott Klusendorf has an illustration I find helpful. If you're out snowmobiling and you find some driver that hit a tree and went out cold and there's a two-year-old there,

and maybe this two-year-old could cry out, like you said earlier, but nobody but you will hear. And it's 100 percent dependent upon you. Do you have the moral right to walk away or the responsibility to care for it? And we all know the answer to that. It's to care for it and there's moral bankruptcy whether it's legal or not to walk away. Last question. Well, and just one other quick thing.

I would say it's even more significant in the case of abortion because you're the parent. Whether you want it to be or not, whether you were bullying on it or not, people have different ambivalence about parenting. There's those infamous cases of mothers drowning their children because they get so overwhelmed, really horrific cases. It's still wrong.

It still should be illegal, right? So your't, so your state of mind, your opinions about your kids, it doesn't change the fact that they're still your children, right? Even if you have a mental health breakdown, no matter what, they're still children. And, you know, who has the responsibility for a child more than the natural, the biological parent, even if, again, there's all kinds of tough situations.

And, you know, we require parents of born children to use their bodies to care for their born children. There's this other thing, well, you can't use my uterus to care for my baby. When you have a newborn baby, you're required by law to use your body to feed that baby, hold that baby, shelter that baby. If you neglect those responsibilities,

by law you could be charged with criminal neglect of your child. You could actually go to prison, right? So this idea that we shouldn't have to use our bodies to care for children is an invention and it actually doesn't logically make sense because that's a requirement of parents every day all over the world and certainly in this country. I've got so many more questions for you, Lila, but we'll just have to do a part two in due time. Thanks for your boldness. Thanks for your clarity. Thanks for carving out time to come and talk about this.

How can people follow you and support Live Action? Thank you so much. Well, I'm excited. Actually, we're going to have you on the show soon. I have a podcast, a YouTube channel. Can't wait for that. It's going to be awesome. And I'm on social media, and'm gonna have you on the show soon. I have a podcast, a YouTube channel. Can't wait for that, it's gonna be awesome. And I'm on social media and then there's liveaction.org. Use it as a resource.

We also are on YouTube at Live Action. It's a resource with how to answer pro-choice questions on abortion. Some of these things we've been discussing in this conversation, Sean, there's resources, Baby Olivia showing the development of the baby in the room scientifically. Abortionprocedures.com actually shows what happens during these elective abortion procedures. Live Action News, keep up to date with what's happening politically, culturally.

So check it out and you can find it all starting at liveaction.org. All right friends, if you follow my ministry, make sure you follow Lila. She is one of the top pro lifers that I follow, keep track on. When I need a good response to something, go to her. People like Stephanie Gray Connors, Scott Klusendorf. Make sure you follow and support live action, really really important ministry. And while you're at it, make sure you hit subscribe because we've got some other shows coming up. We will revisit the life issue for sure. I have a number of topics on apologetics, theology, the supernatural coming up you will definitely not want to miss.

And if you thought about studying apologetics, many leading pro-lifers, people like Scott Klusendorf, have gotten their masters in apologetics at Biola. We would love to train you in bioethics, philosophy, moral and ethical issues like this we cover in depth and I want to equip you to be able to speak out on life. Information is below. Lyle, thanks so much for the time.

This has been a real joy. Thank you, Sean. And a huge shout out to you and Biola because some of our best live action team members went to Biola. All right. And you've got a lot of fans over at live action. So keep it up and thank you for having me on.

It was really fun to talk. You got it. Yeah. Yeah.