(LifeSiteNews) – Live Action’s Lila Rose defended on national television this week the right to life of unborn babies, including babies expected to die upon birth.
On September 12, the founder and president of the non-for-profit pro-life group, appeared on the Dr. Phil Show to weigh in on the abortion debate.
Dr. Phil’s Monday show also hosted Christian Numes, the President of the National Organization for Women, Civil Rights attorney Ben Croft; State Senator Katrina Jackson, writer of the Louisiana Abortion Law, and a post-abortive couple, Nancy and Shedric. Lila Rose was the only pro-life representative.
Dr. Phil began the debate by introducing Nancy and Shedric’s story. The couple decided to have an abortion when their doctors diagnosed their unborn child with acrania, the partial or complete absence of skull bones, a condition that would likely cause the child to die upon birth. While the other debate participants said that Nancy had taken the right course, Rose disagreed.
READ: Baby born without most of his skull, whom doctors wanted to abort, dies at age 5
Rose expressed her sympathy for Nancy, saying that “the worst thing any mom wants to hear, is that their baby is going to die, their baby has a life-threatening illness.” She mentioned her own miscarriage, describing it as “some of the darkest days of my life.” Reminding the audience of the sanctity of human life, Rose said that she grieved for her miscarriage because she knew that she had lost a baby.
Rose also said that Nancy deserved better healthcare, and that her child likewise deserved to die in the loving arms of his or her parents, not by the tools of an abortionist.
The Live Action founder reminded the audience of the right to life of every person.
“Our fundamental human right that we all share in this room is life,” she said. “Laws are meant to protect the weak. In a society who is the weakest? A child.”
Dr. Phil also asked Lila Rose if she defined human life as beginning at fertilization; she replied that fertilization is the scientific definition of when life begins.
“Well, that’s science,” she said. “It’s not my opinion. The science is clear when human life begins: at the moment of fertilization.”
Dr. Phil debated this point, refusing to say when he believed life to begin and saying that there is no consensus among the scientific community on when life begins. Rose responded that he was being “simply inaccurate.”
“96% of scientists say that life begins at fertilization,” she said. “If you’re an in vitro specialist, you’re looking to create a single cell embryo, and then you know you have a new human life. So it is a scientific fact.”
The debate got heated when Dr. Phil previewed the story of a ten-year-old girl in Ohio, who became pregnant after being raped. Because of Ohio’s strict abortion laws, the child traveled out of state for her abortion. Nancy, too, had traveled to abort her disabled child.
A woman in the crowd lambasted Lila Rose for her “lack of empathy,” calling her “disgusting” for her views that the child conceived in rape is not to blame and still deserving of the right to life.
“Do you know what it’s really like to be raped and then to have to have the child? What kind of trauma is that that you’re inducing on somebody?” the woman asked.
Lila responded that the trauma in this situation is from the rape and that the punishment for generational sin should not be taken out on the child, who is an innocent party. “That’s not fair to the child,” she said.
“Listen, whether you live ten minutes, or ten years, or a hundred years, you’re a human life and you deserve the right to not be killed,” she continued. “And that’s what the pro-life fight is all about. That’s what we’re fighting for: a culture of life.”