{"id":320074,"date":"2024-10-12T09:37:47","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T14:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=320074"},"modified":"2024-10-12T00:01:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T05:01:56","slug":"lila-rose-2024-gala-truth-changes-hearts-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/lila-rose-2024-gala-truth-changes-hearts-minds\/","title":{"rendered":"Lila Rose at Live Action’s 2024 Life Awards Gala: The truth changes hearts and minds to save lives"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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 \u2014 and where those lies cost human lives.<\/p>\n

Rose said, “The culture of death has mobilized media, politicians and celebrities to wage war against the most vulnerable \u2014 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.”<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Rose then pointed out that media can be used for good, or it can be used to disseminate propaganda to do evil:<\/p>\n

The media can be a powerful good, but the media’s lies are our enemy. <\/em><\/p>\n

The sale of abortion is built on falsehoods \u2014 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.” <\/em><\/p>\n

… 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. <\/em><\/p>\n

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. <\/em><\/p>\n

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. <\/em><\/p>\n

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 \u2014 that perhaps a compromise must be struck, at least for a little while \u2014 “let the states decide.” <\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n