By Christine M. Williams
Anchor Correspondent
BOSTON — Members of the next generation of Pro-Life advocates often approach the cause in a way that appeals to their youth culture. They start groups on online social networks, wear Pro-Life T-shirts to school and make films to post on the video sharing website YouTube.
Lila Rose, a senior at the University of California-Los Angeles, serves as president of the Pro-Life organization she founded, Live Action. In 2008, she became the youngest recipient of the Life Prize from the Gerard Health Foundation in Natick.
Live Action, which calls itself “a new media movement for life,” has a magazine on two dozen college campuses and a website with Pro-Life resources. But the group is best known for its videos, posted online, that have caught Planned Parenthood employees violating the law. They were filmed with hidden cameras worn by Rose, who posed as a 13-year-old faced with a crisis pregnancy and received advice on how to bypass statutory rape and parental consent laws.
Rose talked about the group’s work at the first Massachusetts Citizens for Life Youth Convention, held at Boston College High School in Boston on March 7.
When Rose addressed the young crowd in Boston, her passion and strong convictions were evident. She spoke eloquently in support of the Pro-Life cause. She called the brutal murder of the unborn the “greatest injustice” of our time, and said she believes abortion will be illegal in the United States in her lifetime.
She started Live Action when she was 14. By her late teens she was directing undercover stings, taking a video camera along to show everyone else what she has found, she said.
“If they don’t see it, many of them will never believe it,” she said.
Rose said Planned Parenthood’s overwhelming response to statutory rape is, “We don’t care. We don’t want to know. We’ll cover it up.”
She told of the irony that at one clinic a sign read “esperanza,” Spanish for hope. “It was the most hopeless place,” she said.
She showed the first video she released, which was filmed in Bloomington, Ind. on June 24, 2008. In the footage, a Planned Parenthood nurse repeatedly told Rose, posing as a 13-year-old girl facing a crisis pregnancy, that she did not want to know the girl’s age or the age of the unborn child’s father.
When the girl volunteered the father’s age, 31, the nurse responded, “I didn’t hear the age. I don’t want to know how old he is.”
The video showed that the nurse clearly understood the law because she explained the requirement to report sexual activity between an adult and a child under the age of 13 to Child Protective Services. Then, the woman coached the girl to lie about the age of the father and said that problem was “solved.”
Next, the nurse showed the girl a piece of paper with the addresses of different clinics. She said, “I cannot tell you this, but I can show you this,” and circled an out-of-state clinic, located in Illinois where there is no parental consent law. She covered her tracks by circling the rest of the clinics on the sheet.
During other investigations, Planned Parenthood employees have also given Rose medically inaccurate information. They have likened an unborn child to a blood clot and said the heart does not beat until 18 weeks when a baby’s heart beats by the fifth week, she said.
So far Live Action has released 10 undercover videos from six states. The latest of the videos, shot in Wisconsin, was released at the end of February. Rose said the organization has more footage but declined to speak further about it. So far, the video evidence has prompted officials to start their own investigations in Indiana and Alabama, where a clinic has been put on probation. Footage from Tennessee helped cause the state legislature to vote down continued taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood to the tune of $1.1 million.
Rose said that Planned Parenthood’s typical reaction to the videos is denial and then nothing at all.
“They’re favorite response is silence,” she said.
Rose, a brunette, dyed her hair platinum blonde after she started getting recognized at abortion clinics. “We want to keep evil on its toes,” she said. Now, she has walked into clinics where two photos of her — one as a brunette, and the other as a blonde — were posted on the wall. She said she was “flattered.”
Rose encouraged the MCFL Youth Convention attendees to fight for the Pro-Life cause, never give up and pray in order to find the path God wants them to follow.
When I was 13, I got on my knees and prayed, ‘God, use me in this cause,’” she said.
Rose, a convert to Catholicism who was confirmed last year, told The Anchor that fighting for life is a spiritual battle. Great evil happens inside abortion clinics where mothers are deceived and their children murdered. Before she enters a clinic, Rose “puts on the full armor of Christ in prayer,” she said.
A 16-year-old from Medfield, Michael Rose, no relation to Lila, attended MCFL’s Youth Convention with his family. He said he believes Rose’s story will continue to inspire others and raise awareness. “My reaction throughout the entire thing was shock at what goes on behind closed doors,” he said.
Bridget Schirripa, an 18-year-old student at Montrose School in Medfield, said Lila’s presentation was “powerful” and her use of media “appeals to the younger generation.”
Priscilla Keough, MCFL board member, called Rose’s work “cutting edge,” adding that Rose displayed “great courage” and “optimism.”
Keough said of Rose, “She said this generation will see the end of abortion. And who knows? Maybe it’s the truth and wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
For more information visit Lila Rose’s website at liveaction.org.