“Relatable” podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey spoke with Live Action founder and president Lila Rose for the latest in Live Action’s Exclusives series. After discussing Stuckey’s career beginnings, which includes over six years, nearly 1,000 episodes, and three children, she said, “I just feel more passionate than ever in talking about the things that we do, because as you know better than anyone, these issues are a matter of life and death.”
They noted that hearts and minds are still changing through pro-life work, and Rose said that Stuckey stands out as someone who unapologetically opposes abortion, no matter the circumstance, as well as IVF and surrogacy, despite the latter two being embraced by the conservative movement. “There’s kind of moral confusion, I would say, in the pro-life space at this time,” Rose said, and then asked. “What forms your moral vision?”
Stuckey said that while she has always been against abortion, her views have strengthened in recent years; previously, she believed in exceptions for things like rape.
“I thought that was totally a pro-life, conservative position,” she said. But a Facebook comment from a stranger caused her to revisit her position.
“She said, ‘Well, what is the difference between a baby who was conceived in rape, and a baby who wasn’t conceived in rape? If there’s no difference, then why is your stance on abortion different for the circumstances surrounding someone’s conception?'” she recalled.
“I hadn’t thought about it like that. Even as a pro-lifer, someone who would have said that I am adamantly anti-abortion, and I still, in those instances, was not thinking about from the perspective of the baby… which is, of course, what we find with a lot of pro-choice people, is that they haven’t even really considered what an abortion is, or what’s happening during an abortion, or why they believe abortion is okay, because they’re not considering the life that is being killed. And I wasn’t, either, even as someone who would have called myself pro-life.”
Despite having called herself pro-life, she concluded, that doesn’t mean she was always perfect, and she encouraged viewers to be open to changing their minds for the better, and to have the courage to speak the truth to others in love.
She also said that the idea of IVF and surrogacy being out-of-line with pro-life ideals wasn’t something she had considered previously, either.
“Like a lot of people, especially evangelicals, I just thought, ‘Well, you know, if it’s a way for people to have a baby, we love babies, we love life, isn’t it such a noble desire to want to have kids? And gosh, it would be so crushing to struggle with infertility. Sure, what’s wrong with IVF?'” she said. “I had no idea that it involves the creation of so many embryos. I had no idea that we have millions of embryos on ice. I had no idea that it involves eugenics, and you’re testing the different embryos, not just for their gender, but for their disabilities, and discarding those embryos that you don’t want. The embryos are abandoned, they’re in the middle of custody cases.”
She added, “I had no idea that all these little, tiny, defenseless image-bearers of God are being abandoned on ice indefinitely, are being discarded, are being thawed, are being killed. I had no idea. But you actually cannot have the industry of in-vitro fertilization without destruction of embryos. I didn’t know that.”
Like abortion, Stuckey said people too often don’t consider things like IVF, surrogacy, and reproductive technologies from the perspective of the baby being created, but added that being consistent about upholding the dignity of life from conception means opposing IVF as well.
Rose remarked that in today’s world, a mindset has been adopted where becoming a parent is now something that people are entitled to, so long as they have the money — making parenthood about the parents, and not about the child. Meanwhile, our culture has abandoned the importance of motherhood, whether it is biological or spiritual.
“We’re replacing children with your job, we’re replacing children with pets, replacing them with plants, replacing them with your boyfriend, or whatever it is,” Stuckey said. “We all have this natural biological urge as women to nurture, and to nourish, and to mother, and to raise up. And we are — in some ways, I think feminism has really done this — we are trying to suppress that urge, and channel it into something else.”
