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Pro-life advocate: End of Planned Parenthood not ‘if,’ but ‘when’

Bridget Ryder
Lila Rose was the featured speaker at Pro-Life Ministries’ Banquet for Life Oct. 5 in Brooklyn Center. Rose is the president of Live Action, a media nonprofit dedicated to ending abortion and building a culture of life. Photo courtesy Live Action
Lila Rose was the featured speaker at Pro-Life Ministries’ Banquet for Life Oct. 5 in Brooklyn Center. Rose is the president of Live Action, a media nonprofit dedicated to ending abortion and building a culture of life. Photo courtesy Live Action

Pro-life activism must continue to propel the momentum gained over the summer by the release of videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s practice of selling fetal tissue from abortions.

That was the message of Lila Rose, a pro-life media activist who has been leading undercover journalism investigations of Planned Parenthood since 2008. She shared her message Oct. 5 with a sold-out banquet room of approximately 400 people at the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center. Rose, the president and founder of Live Action, was the keynote speaker at Pro-Life Action Ministries’ Banquet for Life.

“Now is a crucial moment,” Rose said. “People ask me, ‘Is this the end of Planned Parenthood?’ I say it’s not the end of the end, but it’s the beginning of the end or the middle of the end. It’s not a matter of if Planned Parenthood is defunded, but when.”

Rose compared abortion to an irritating wound beneath the surface of society that the Center for Medical Progress exposed by releasing undercover videos that appeared to show an abortionist from a Planned Parenthood facility negotiating the sale of fetal body parts. These videos were especially effective because they brought the child to the forefront.

“When you dig beneath the surface and expose the humanity of the child, that tension comes to the surface. It is the power of the encounter with the humanity of the child that changes minds,” she said.

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Rose also said the media firestorm from the videos has caused internal dissension in Planned Parenthood, as their spokespeople tout that abortion is only 3 percent of their services.

“[Abortionists] don’t like that talking point,” Rose said. “They don’t want to feel like the bosses upstairs are ashamed of them because abortion is more than 50 percent of Planned Parenthood’s income; it’s the backbone.”

Rose, a Catholic convert, also encouraged activists to continue to foster hope.

“If we don’t dare to imagine it, God respects our freedom. We have to foster in our hearts the vision of a country freed from abortion,” she said.

Brian Gibson, executive director of Pro-Life Action Ministries, said the reaction to the recent videos has brought record numbers of people to their rallies. At the Aug. 22 rally, 4,500 people surrounded the Planned Parenthood in St. Paul. The attendance was double what Gibson expected and the largest one in the country. He said the momentum must continue to be successful.

“We’ve only just started,” Gibson said. “Our presence at Planned Parenthood and the governor’s mansion are for naught if we don’t continue.”

PLAM also rented a billboard in Albertville to advertise online links to the videos so that more people will see them for themselves. They tried to rent the billboard across the street from the St. Paul Planned Parenthood, but the billboard company denied them.

“Every billboard company in the metro refused our message,” he said.

Rose’s pro-life social media platform has more than 1 million Facebook fans and 52,000 Twitter followers. Rose has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, The Sean Hannity Show, The Laura Ingraham Show and major news outlets including CBS and CNN. Rose’s keynote was her second at the annual banquet of the Minnesota-based pro-life organization that coordinates rallies, sidewalk counseling and prayer at abortion facilities.

Underway is Forty Days for Life, the community-based campaign that involves prayer, fasting and outreach to end abortion, and another rally is planned for 3 p.m. Oct. 11 at the Planned Parenthood in St. Paul. For more information, visit plam.org.

 


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