On Saturday, October 5, Live Action hosted its 2024 Life Awards Gala, honoring three awardees: Coach Jim Harbaugh, pro-life activist Joan Bell (with Mary Wagner accepting on her behalf), and pro-life speaker Steventhen Holland. During the course of the evening, Live Action founder and president Lila Rose gave a passionate speech about not only the work of Live Action, but the need to be truth tellers in a culture where lies proliferate — and where those lies cost human lives.
Rose said, “The culture of death has mobilized media, politicians and celebrities to wage war against the most vulnerable — those with no voice to defend themselves. These are not just somebody else’s children, these are our children. These are America’s children. And they need defenders…. This is our vision: a world where every human life is protected by both love and by law, from conception to natural death. This vision is a North Star of our movement.”
“Our war is a media war. The media war is a symptom of a greater spiritual war that is raging,” Rose added. “A sickness is afflicting our culture. Right is wrong, up is down, confusion reigns, and lies, deadly lies, proliferate…. What people believe about the value of human life on abortion can mean life or death for millions of people, and these beliefs are profoundly shaped and formed by media.”
Rose noted, “Today people get most of their information from… the media, especially social media. Teenagers spend an average 7 hours and 22 minutes a day in front of their screen.” And that is why, she said, “To change hearts and minds… we must meet people where they are… and that is what we are doing.”
Rose then pointed out that media can be used for good, or it can be used to disseminate propaganda to do evil:
The media can be a powerful good, but the media’s lies are our enemy.
The sale of abortion is built on falsehoods — the claim that a preborn child isn’t human, and the myth that abortion is somehow necessary for women’s progress. The media parrots these lies, amplifying them so loudly that people stop questioning them. As the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels understood and said, “Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth.”
… We are in a crucial post-Roe moment. We must remember that no victory for human rights throughout history has come without a high cost. And every victory for human rights was called impossible until it was made possible.
We work in the tradition of Frederick Douglass, the former slave who escaped to the North and taught the world the power of stories… Through his newspaper, “The North Star,” Douglass exposed the brutal realities of slavery. He fought with unrelenting grit, telling the stories of the victims of slavery.
Douglass fought in a climate not unlike our own today. But there was no internet, yet the media of that day was flooded with dehumanizing propaganda, that dehumanized Black Americans, portraying them in grotesque caricatures and silencing those who objected. Even many Christians at the time said that they were ‘moderate’ on slavery.
And you know what else? People told Frederick Douglass that he could never succeed. Slavery was too ingrained, it had existed almost as long as there was mankind, it was too essential for the economy, it was etched in the human heart. Even some of Douglass’s own allies told him to slow down — that perhaps a compromise must be struck, at least for a little while — “let the states decide.”
Sound familiar? Today they tell us all the same about the killing of our preborn brothers and sisters. ‘”You can’t win. You’re too absolutist. Compromise! Let the states decide.” But we know better.
Rose noted that while abolitionists and victims of civil rights violations could tell their stories, those of us in the pro-life movement must be the voice for those who have been robbed of their lives and never got a chance to speak for themselves:
Like the abolitionists who came before us, we will never back down. A key difference between the fight that Frederick Douglass fought and ours today is this: Douglass could tell his own story. …He could tell his story of his escape out of slavery, and he could tell it eloquently and vividly, like nobody else could. There were eventually thousands of people who could tell their story of what they endured from slavery, and later in the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. could tell his story, even from the Birmingham jail.
Today, the victims of abortion cannot tell their story. Because they were murdered, before they had a chance to take their first breath. Almost a third of my generation—over 60 million lives, sons and daughters—have been killed by abortion in America…
These 60 million children can never tell their stories because their lives were cut short. It is our duty—everyone in this room—to tell their stories. And to fight for the lives of the precious children still in danger. It can be easy to ignore this cause because the victims are largely unseen. And silent…
Each of us were given the blessing of birth. We are alive today and our right to life and speech is protected. It is therefore our responsibility, our sacred duty, to be a voice for the victims of abortion – to be a voice for the voiceless.
The false narratives running rampant in the media are killing people.
“When we show the truth about abortion, when we show the brutal reality of abortion through animations, videos and stories, it cuts through the lies,” Rose added.
Rose noted some of the projects Live Action is working on, one of which has already launched: “Face to Face,” a video series featuring conversations between various people impacted by abortion in different ways. In these panel discussions, former abortionists come face to face with abortion survivors and women who regret their abortions.
These conversations are powerful, and are changing hearts and minds already.
As Rose said, “The truth changes hearts and minds. This is Live Action’s relentless focus, and this work leads directly to lives saved.”
But ultimately, it isn’t enough for people to just see and hear the truth — people’s hearts and minds must be willing to truly receive and accept the truth that they have come to witness. And this is where we must remember that, as St. Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “… [W]e wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
“Remember,” Rose said, “this is a spiritual war. I believe God allowed each of us to be born at this exact time in human history for a reason. You have a specific purpose, a role to play. This is a battle for lives, but it is also a battle for souls. I hear from friends and allies every day how tough this fight can feel, how often it can seem like the whole world is against us. Remember the words of our Lord: ‘In this life you will have many trials, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.'”
She added, “Don’t be surprised when the trials come. Don’t be surprised when you are attacked. Don’t be surprised when you face a mountain of lies. Never give up, never back down. It is In Him that we have the power to fight, and it is through Him that we have the power to win. Together, we will win this fight.”
