In an exclusive interview, Live Action president and founder Lila Rose spoke with Jason Evert, the founder of the Chastity Project about the meaning and function of chastity and its effect on abortion.
Evert created the Chastity Project after spending a few years participating in sidewalk counseling outside of abortion businesses in college. But he began to feel that he was focusing on the “supply of abortion” instead of the “demand” for abortion, which he realized was coming from “unchastity.”
“And after three years of [sidewalk counseling], I really just felt late,” he explained. “… I felt like, why am I meeting this woman 45 minutes before abortion? Why couldn’t I have met her when she was 15 years old? Because maybe if she learned about chastity and real love, then she never would have dated this guy to begin with and be in this difficult situation today. So it almost felt like I was endlessly throwing sandbags on the banks of a flooded river when there was a dam broken upstream a quarter mile. And I could sit here for the rest of my natural life and throw sandbags, but it’s not going to change the flow of the traffic.”
Evert found his calling in talking with teenagers about authentic human love. In the 25 years since he formed the organization, he has spoken to over two million teens, listening to them, encouraging them, and teaching them about their value as human beings. His wife of 20 years, Kristalina, works with him.
“And so for the past 25 years, been kind of traveling around the world, speaking on chastity at high schools and universities. We talked to about a hundred thousand kids a year in their schools,” he said. “And then after the talks, I’ll just tell the kids, ‘Hey, if you guys need to hang out afterwards and talk, I’ll be here to listen.’ And then I just wait. And we gave that invitation to a high school in New York and the kids formed a line seven hours long …”
Evert said today’s culture is a “starving culture that was made for truth and love” and that chastity “frees you to love. And then it frees you to know if you’re being loved.”
READ: Ruth Institute’s Dr Jennifer Morse on how children pay the price for the sexual revolution
By educating young people on what human love is supposed to look like, Evert hopes the demand for abortion is diminished. Currently, 86% of women who have abortions are unmarried, but Evert noted that the “vast majority of college guys and girls said they would much rather have a traditional romantic relationship than a hookup.” Yet, they were twice as likely to hook up than they were to go on a first date. They know what they want, said Evert, but they don’t know how to get it. That’s where the Chastity Project comes in.
Evert and Rose also discussed sex ed, Planned Parenthood, and the false idea that contraception prevents abortion. Watch the full interview here.
