Roger Marsh: The following program is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Hello, and welcome back to Family Talk, the listener-supported broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks so much for joining us today. Dr. Dobson often tells the story of when he felt God's call to be an advocate for the pre-born. Since the passage of Roe vs. Wade on the 22nd of January 1973, Dr. Dobson has fought for the lives of innocent babies in the womb. He has used the platforms God has given him to declare the plight of the pre-born and to advance the pro-life movement.
Today's guest here on Family Talk also felt God's call to fight for the lives of the pre-born. At the age of 15, Lila Rose founded Live Action. Today, this nonprofit has the largest and most engaged following in all of the pro-life movement. Live Action seeks to educate the public about pro-life issues, investigate and expose the lies of the abortion industry, and to mobilize pro-life advocates all over the world. In addition to being the President of Live Action, Lila Rose is also a writer, a speaker, and a human rights activist. She has appeared on numerous media outlets, including the Fox News channel, CNN, CBS, BBC, and ABC Nightline. She has addressed members of the European Parliament and has spoken at the United Nations Commission on the status of women.
Today on Family Talk, you're going to hear the conclusion of our own Dr. Tim Clinton's recent conversation with Lila Rose. They'll continue discussing her new book, Fighting for Life: Becoming a Force for Change in a Wounded World. Let's listen in now.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Lila, thank you for joining us again here on Family Talk. And what a fascinating discussion about fighting for life, really your personal journey, what's behind the eyes, if you will, and the heart of a young girl who God called to a mission, and it's amazing what He's doing in and through it. When I began to think about what God's doing in and through Live Action, the passion that drives you, Lila, and why millions of Americans, and people around the globe, around the world are following and they're standing up for life, and you see this stirring that's going in modern day culture. I'm going back and saying, I want to see that narrative. I want to see that story. I love this in here. You wrote, "Inevitably we will emulate those we admire." And it's so true.
Is that part of the challenge of the heart of fighting for life that you're trying to get through, that we need mentors, we need people to look up to, people to hold on to?
Lila Rose: Yes, you're exactly right. I talk later in the book about specifically the importance of mentors and coaches and guides, because we're not meant to fight for life by ourselves. We're not meant to follow our calling, fight for causes on our own. I mean, sometimes we might feel alone, but there are people who want to help, and there are people who have gone before us, and people God wants to give us, but we have to ask for it. The hero that we have, and we all have heroes, whether we realize it or not. There's someone that is influencing us. Maybe our romantic relationship. If you're listening, you're a younger person or you're even married, that's like your everything, the focus of all your heart's admiration.
Maybe it's some celebrity icon or it's some sort of career ambition you have, that sort of your focus in life and your biggest goal. Who we look to is often who we emulate. So who's your ultimate hero? And I talk in the book, of course, I share a lot about my faith in the book, it's not just for faith-based people. But it's my life and I share how the ultimate hero is the perfect God who came to save us and who loves us, and the more we direct our worship and admiration there, and of course, to the people that are trying to also love and serve Him, then we can become more who we're meant to be.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Lila, I don't know if you sense it, but I sense there is a real stirring going on among people. I think people are tired. They're exhausted yet they're yearning. They're crying out for something more. They're concerned about culture. They're concerned about our Christian values and more slipping away. And a lot of people say life is basically the issue. It's the one thing we've got to hold on tenaciously to. Do you believe that?
Lila Rose: Absolutely. It's like Mother Teresa said, "The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion." The first human right is life. And if we deprive life for the most vulnerable, what are we as a nation? Where's our justice? The greatest death toll globally and in the United States is the bloodshed of the pre-born. And until we reckon with that, we're not going to have a culture that is loving or moral or just, period. And it's not to say other causes don't matter, racial justice and serving the poor. I mean, these things ultimately are all connected, but if we don't have moral clarity about the prioritization here and the urgency here for the pro-life cause, then we're not going to change our culture. But I am very hopeful like you, I mean, I love what you said that I think there's a quiet renewal happening. It's not getting headlines necessarily, but more people I think, than ever are waking up.
I think they are seeing that there is a division of what kind of country are we going to be? And that's a good thing, call evil, evil and right, right. What side are you going to stand on? There's no time to be on the sidelines anymore. And this doesn't mean we treat our neighbors poorly or that we are angry or bitter. This means we step out boldly in love. And we fight for what's right. And we help educate others with the truth instead of keeping it to ourselves.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Lila, I know in the book, it's really an inspiration for people to take responsibility, to have a voice, to become a part of light in the midst of darkness. One of the chapters in your book, and this is encouraging everyone, you get very personal. You mentioned it earlier and it's called, "Know Your Worth." You talked about some mental health related themes, issues, depression, cutting, even thoughts of taking your life and more. Can you share a little bit about why you wanted people to see that part of you?
Lila Rose: Of course. And I got very personally, I shared about mental health struggles and body image disorder, and self-harm that I experienced as a teen and then ongoing issues even throughout my work of just working through anxiety and working through loneliness and some of these things that come with the mistakes I've made in my work. And the reason for that is because I don't want anyone to think that the work I've done or even the lessons I'm sharing were done with this invincibility, as if I've got it all figured out and I don't have struggles and you should just try to be like me. I'm trying to say, listen, we all have struggles. We all have wounds. We all have stuff in our childhoods and stuff in our personal lives that we're working through. But my message is this, there is healing that is possible, and there is freedom that is possible.
There are people that want to help you, and we cannot let our wounds, our struggles, our mistakes, hold us back from our calling. We have the choice to say, yes, I'm a wounded person, we all are by original sin. That's the state of mankind. But first of all, in Christ, there's freedom. And that is a powerful reality that we are called to, despite our struggles, step forward and grow. And in order to grow, we must love and love is service to others. Love is seeing the truth for what it is and being willing to stand for it. And so that's my hope, that no matter what you've been through or are going through, you're qualified already because you are called. You are called to speak what you know to be true. You are called to go and serve and love others. And by doing so, you will become more the person you were created to be.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I know a lot of people struggle with meaning in life, Lila. They wonder whether or not they can be used by God and even maybe listening today. No one knows me. No one knows my name, but God does. And God has a calling. And in this chapter, I love how you reference Victor Frankel's work on the psychology of meaning and what it meant to you. You close this way, and I thought this was so powerful, "Seeing the need in the world around me helped me take the pain off my own life and then be motivated by love or inspiration." Which drives you, which I think drives Live Action.
Lila Rose: Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of the wound even. God even uses our pain. God does not waste our pain. There's nothing wasted with God. And our worst moments, our difficult moments, our ongoing struggles can be used for good. They can teach us empathy and understanding, they can teach us forgiveness. They can teach us trust in God. They can teach us courage to get up again, even though we don't feel qualified or we're still struggling to get up again and try the next day. So what a gift in a way, even the struggles are.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Lila, let's go back to letting God find you in this moment, because you want everyone to step up and into this moment because we all can make a difference and we're better together.
Lila Rose: We are. And it doesn't matter your faith background because everybody is on their own journey of faith to discover themselves in God. But I think I came to the realization in my own life and calling at a young age and thank God for this. In college, I actually had this real deepening of my faith, where I realized that God ultimately was the answer to the deepest yearnings of my heart. And I talk a lot about causes and callings and equipping yourself for your cause or your calling and that the pro-life fight being so important and other causes, but at the end of the day, the greatest cause is to be forever with God in heaven and to be united in love forever with Him and to glorify Him forever. And that's really what we're made for.
I also talk a lot about family because as important as these cultural battles are and getting involved in them, at the end of the day, the way we rebuild culture is by loving our families and by putting them first. And so when I became a wife and a mother, thanks be to God, just a few years ago, after years of my twenties traveling internationally, investigating the abortion industry, building Live Action. I was stepping into a new cause that was ultimately the cause around my cause. I still fight the pro-life fight. I'm still following that calling, but my ultimate calling is now to be that wife and that mother, as a way to serve and glorify God and ultimately get closer to Him.
Dr. Tim Clinton: How has becoming a mom changed you?
Lila Rose: It's just been awesome. It's definitely made me even more passionate. I didn't realize, you don't realize how much your heart can love. It's crazy, the heart can just continue to expand. And I've heard this before people say, "Oh, I didn't know I could love so much. And then I had my second child, I'm like, I love you even more." And so I just feel like my heart's even growing because of my son and my husband. And I'm just so grateful for the gift of my family.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What's scary at times, Lila is how evil works and how we often turn a blind eye to it. In that chapter on finding your cause, you talked about it being subtle or boring, really referencing back to a definition around evil. But your thoughts there, and as you look at the life cause, and how that what's amazing in our culture, abortion is almost not even regarded as evil anymore.
Lila Rose: When you're trying to find your cause, right, you're heartbroken about something. You start to research it, you learn about other things. It's important to see the distinction between a false cause and a just cause. And I talk about this in the "Find Your Cause" chapter in Fighting for Life, because if you don't have that discernment, you might get caught up in a false cause. You might actually find yourself fighting for the wrong side, that does happen. And you might even be well-intentioned along the way. And so one of the big indicators of a false cause versus a just cause is, what is the view of the human person. Are all human seen as with dignity, as children of God with human rights? Or are human beings seen as disposable, some humans are less than human? Some do not deserve forgiveness or dignity? It all depends on what's the view of God and what's the view of the human person.
So, for example, with abortion, some people fight for abortion thinking it's just because they're helping women, but abortion dehumanizes. Dehumanization is a key to an unjust cause, a false cause. Abortion says that the child in the womb is less than human, even though they're fully human, just as human as you and me. And that is a clear indicator throughout human history, dehumanization would proceed injustice and violence against the vulnerable. Whether it's dehumanizing the slave in 19th century America and 18th century America saying that blacks are less than human and so we can enslave them and that injustice. Or it's dehumanizing the disabled and the poor in America, 20th century America, with the eugenics movement, or you can look to the Holocaust and the horrific dehumanization of the Jewish people. Dehumanization proceeds violence. So if your cause is dehumanizing any human, then that is an unjust cause and you should join the other side to fight to rehumanize and protect those that are being treated unjustly.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And it's all about the narrative. It's how we frame everything. Like you referenced Margaret Sanger, a so-called champion of progress and women's rights and the whole Planned Parenthood movement.
Lila Rose: Yeah. And I think that is the special power of evil to present itself as good. You mentioned earlier evil can be boring or the banality of evil is this phrase that was coined by the Jewish philosopher, Hannah Arendt who basically looked at the Holocaust. How did this happen? How did everyday Germans get up and wake up and go to work and slaughter Jews? I mean, that was like their job. What did they? And for them, it just became this normal thing. They separated from the ... they disengaged psychologically from the violence against the person and they just, like going to work. So you can be a normal looking everyday person and commit atrocities.
I mean, think about the abortionists. They just look like a doctor. They wake up in the morning, have their coffee, they go to the abortion clinic and they dismember children and they're called doctors in our society. So you can be doing the worst evils, and if you normalize it, if you desensitize yourself, if you in anesthetize yourself to the pain that you're inflicting on another, the human person is capable of the worst evils. And that's why moral clarity is so important. And reality is so important to see this is a human being, your lies about them, other people's lies about them, don't change their value.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Your thoughts about what we're seeing in modern day, Christianity, Lila. And when you think about how they're trying to silence, I'll call it silencing of the lambs of God, if you will. Shame, stigmatizing, and more. It's like in mental health, that's exactly what happens in mental health. We're seeing the same thing happen with modern day Christianity. It's scary. And by the way, people are turning a blind eye to it. They're going numb. They're tired of it. They don't want to engage the fight. What do you say to us?
Lila Rose: Well, I'd say first there's a distinction between the treatment of martyrs in parts of Africa or the Middle East. Christians who are literally dying for the faith. Parts of Asia. And then there are the Christians of the west, us, Europe, America, Canada, and we are so privileged. So yes, I think there are attacks on morality today and by default, that's an attack on Christians who stand for that truth and that morality and that view of the human person. But we have so many privileges. And I talk about this in the book, the victim is the pre-born child. The victim is the one who is being taken away to death. No one's being taken away to death for their faith in the United States. And so I think we have to have perspective. We have to be grateful for the rights we have and fight for them, but we have to turn our focus on where is the bloodshed. Who are the people that are really being hurt and use our faith to fuel the fight for others.
Because I think we're going to trip ourselves up, if we have a victim mentality as Christians and say, "Oh, poor us. The culture is against us." No. Good for you. You have the faith. You have the gift of moral clarity. You have the blessing of grace so go out there and serve. Go out there and share that with others. What a gift we've been given. We are not the victims. The victims are those who are living in moral confusion and going to have abortions and those that are being aborted. So let's just be grateful for what we have and rejoice in it, be Christians of joy and then go out and serve others.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Let's stay with the insanity of the moment, just for a second, Lila. And when you look at the pro-life movement, I think it's a winning issue. I think we are making ground. I mean, we're winning, okay. And when you look at some of the statistics, the research out there, an overwhelming majority of Americans, an overwhelming majority, I'm not saying Christians or evangelicals at all, an overwhelming majority of Americans want limitations on abortion, yet we're in a moment where we're talking about taking the life of a baby in the birth canal now. And it's like, common conversation is, how are we getting there? How's this happening? It's like we're cascading right off the cliff here for a moment. And the administration that we're currently seeing is taking us right down those roads. And it's just chaos in a sense.
Lila Rose: I mean, listen, it's always been this bad on the abortion side. They've always been for full term abortion. In the nineties, they wanted to protect partial birth abortion. The baby's dangling from the birth canal, their feet and the abortionist inserts scissors in their neck and slices it open and sucks out the child's brains. I mean, this is the abortion industry. I mean, sometimes it's not reported on, sometimes it is. So sometimes we learn about it and we're shocked. And sometimes we're not because we don't know about it, but it's been this way for decades. What is changing is this, what is changing is there is unprecedented determination and action now to protect lives legally and culturally. In just the last two years, even Planned Parenthood did a press release, their research on Guttmacher, recently. And they said, "This is unprecedented attacks on the women's right to choose because there have been almost 600 state laws in the last two years that have been proposed to ban abortions at different stages. And dozens of them have passed."
I mean, it's amazing. I've seen it myself with Live Action. We have millions of people who are watching, viewing, sharing our content every week, 15 million. That number has grown dramatically in the last few years. So there's change happening. People are waking up and yes, there are tax, censorship, there are challenges, but I think the extremism of the Biden administration on abortion, he's even more extreme now than he was under Obama. Even under Obama, he supported the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding from paying for abortion. Now he's for it. He wants taxpayers to fund abortion through all nine months. People, when they learn about this, they do not support that. The extremism will serve us. And politics is a yo-yo. It's been yo-yoing federally for decades. You can go from Bush to Obama, to Trump, now back to Biden.
I think we're going to see another big yo-yo, federally. And I think we're going to see at the Supreme court, a ruling that's going to undo much of the evil precedent and unjust precedent of Roe V. Wade. So I think there's going to be even more amazing unprecedented strides forward in the work to completely abolish abortion and build a culture of life in the US.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. Looking back yet again, what God's been doing in and through Live Action, your ministry, the calling in your life, this new book Fighting for Life. It looks glamorous. It looks like there's a lot of heart and energy, and there is, but we all know it's not easy. And they say in sports, 90% of success is showing up, getting up every day and getting after it. Lila, what's the word of encouragement to people to stay the course, to stay the fight, because again, I know you've had some battles. It's a tough road.
Lila Rose: Well, the entire… so the book is three parts. Part one is getting started and how to do that. Part two is overcoming and part three is really entering wholeness as human beings and the power of family and forgiveness and love. And so in the overcoming, I would just say, listen, I love what you just said about sports. That's great, I actually talk about, I'm not so into sports myself, but I talk about it a little bit in the book. It's really about what you do today. Yesterday's gone, tomorrow's not here yet. God will meet you today. So do one thing today. One thing today, maybe it's research, call a friend, learn more about the issue, send an email to get involved. Call the local pregnancy center to volunteer, go outside the abortion clinic peacefully, 30 minutes, say a prayer.
Even you standing there might be the reason a woman drives by and doesn't have her abortion that day. Do one thing today. One thing. And then tomorrow wake up again and do one more thing. It doesn't have to be glamorous. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't even have to be super courageous. I mean, courage is small little actions, building that muscle daily. Little things. Even when we're tired or even when we fail the day before, we get up again. So don't talk yourself out of fighting for what's right before you've even started. Just give it a try one day at a time.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Beautiful. Lila, let's close this way. I know celebrating life unconditionally is a real theme for you. And I think it's the best way we can end. Can you close us that way?
Lila Rose: I'd love to. So I get personal again. I talk about my sister, her unplanned pregnancy, her choice for life, that impact on our family and on me and the choice to celebrate life, no matter what, which is, I think, the solution to the crisis, the unhappiness, so many of the problems we face today. God gave us life as a gift. He is a gift. We are gifts to each other. Each of us have so many gifts in just the people we've been entrusted with. And on the seventh day of the week, He rests to celebrate creation. He rests to celebrate and have leisure to enjoy the work that He's done. So that's an essential part of our fight. Celebration, worship of God, celebration of His creation and the gift of love He's given us. And if we punctuate our fight with taking a step back and celebrating all the good, that will be ultimately what will sustain us for the battle to take it to victory.
Dr. Tim Clinton: On behalf of Dr. Dobson, his wife, Shirley, our entire team at Family Talk, we tip the hat to you and Live Action Ministry and celebrate this new book, Fighting for Life. I can't wait to see what God's going to do, and then through it. Lila, thank you for joining us.
Lila Rose: Thanks so much for having me.
Roger Marsh: You know, Lila is right. One of the best ways to combat the culture of death that is advanced by the abortion industry is to celebrate life unconditionally. Even when the circumstances don't seem perfect, every new life is created perfectly by God and that is reason to rejoice indeed. Now to find out more about Lila Rose, her book Fighting for Life or the ministry of Live Action, just visit our broadcast page at DrJamesDobson.org. Again, that web address is DrJamesDobson.org/broadcast. You can also listen to any part of the broadcast that you might've missed, either on today's program or yesterday's by visiting our website as well, DrJamesDobson.org/broadcast.
And of course, feel free to give us a call anytime day or night. We are here to answer questions that you might have about Family Talk or the JDFI. We're also happy to pray with you or suggest a resource as well. Our number is 877-732-6825 that's 877-732-6825.
Now, before we go, I want to tell you about a valuable resource that's available from the James Dobson Family Institute. It's our weekly public policy email. Our public policy team breaks down the policy issues in our nation that affect the family, and then wraps them in a biblical worldview just for you. Often, these issues involve the sanctity of life and the pro-life movement, and we want to equip you to think critically and biblically about what's going on in our nation so that you can understand the truth and then get involved.
To sign up for the policy emails, go to DrJamesDobson.org/policy. That's DrJamesDobson.org/policy. Now for Dr. and Mrs. Dobson, Dr. Tim Clinton and all of us at the James Dobson Family Institute, I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us again tomorrow for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
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