It has been brought to my attention that Lila Rose is very, very bad.
Not evil. We don’t use the word “evil,” because the concept of evil is for simple-minded Christians.
But Lila Rose is very, very bad. Mostly because she’s pretty.
This has been called to my attention by Kathryn Joyce at On the Issues Magazine in her article “Lila Rose: A Sweet Face to Accompany Extreme Anti-Abortion Claims.” After pointing out – quite accurately – that Lila’s star is on the rise among conservatives and pro-lifers, Joyce goes on to explain that Lila became famous catching Planned Parenthood employees breaking the law. In so doing, Ms. Joyce manages to sound sympathetic to Planned Parenthood, in one instance referring to their “head in hands” attitude whilst suborning statutory rape.
But the gist of the article is that Lila Rose’s looks – her prettiness – make palatable views that would be seen as extreme coming from a man. Joyce points to activists she considers extremists, such as Reverends Clenard Childress and Patrick Mahoney, and notes that Lila admits – admits! – to being influenced by them. In return, Mahoney, for his part, admits that the pro-life message sounds better coming from a fresh-faced young woman, causing the alert reader to think to herself, “Well, yeah. So does everything.”
I digress.
Joyce goes on from there, referring to Lila’s “mainstreaming of fringe anti-abortion conspiracy theories” and calling her “a ventriloquist for ideas shaped among … the far Right.”
I’m gonna shock you when I say this, but Ms. Joyce is halfway right: Lila Rose does make people listen. But it’s not just because she’s young and attractive.
I was in Washington, D.C., with about half a million pro-lifers last week, and at least one sixth of them were young, attractive females. Any one of them could be Lila Rose, except for the important distinction that they aren’t Lila Rose.
When you’re discussing the pro-life cause with Lila, yes, at first you notice that her hair is from a shampoo commercial, and she is extremely cute and young and, okay, “fresh.” (When you google “Lila Rose,” the second search term that pops up is “Lila Rose hair.”) But then you kind of quit thinking about that because she is taking control of the room, guiding the conversation, proving her formidable knowledge of the subject, and surprising you with her insight and focus.
Yes, she’s genuinely sweet. Yes, she has a youthful freshness about her. And yes, she is very pretty. Looks help almost anybody in almost any walk of life. Lila Rose is a young, attractive female. Barack Obama is an attractive half-black man. Does the left really want to open that can of worms? Do they really want to talk about the role appearance plays in politics?
No, they don’t. They seek only to discredit what Lila has uncovered, and they can’t. Unfortunately for them, Live Action’s “fringe conspiracy theories” are now backed up with videotaped proof.
So they fall back on playing their little hypocritical games, referring to Lila’s “antifeminist” tendencies even while they take antifeminist potshots at her looks.
Lila is a pretty young woman. Last I checked, that’s still not a crime. Failing to report statutory rape is.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
And I promise you, if Lila didn’t have anything to say, if she didn’t have a mountain of righteousness to back up her prettiness, she wouldn’t be on TV, she wouldn’t be famous, and she wouldn’t be the face of this movement.
Ms. Joyce and her ilk amaze me. They want to talk about the dishonest right-wing badness of beautiful women making extreme views palatable, yet we see ScarJo and AshJudd (I just made that up) extolling the virtues of Planned Parenthood every time we turn around. Oh, but that’s okay! Because, um, because…Scarlett’s from New York City! She’s…street-wise! Yeah! Lila’s just some home-schooled Catholic! And AshJudd has an advanced degree in Contemplative Feminist Literary Yoga. Or something. Lila’s degree is probably in, I don’t know, Rosary Studies.
I have never in my life seen anything like the hypocrisy and willful ignorance of the anti-life left. This latest attack on Lila Rose and Live Action doesn’t bring up anything new. They have no evidence that Planned Parenthood doesn’t break the law because, well, Planned Parenthood does break the law. All they can come up with is, “Lila Rose is pretty.” Sounds pretty desperate to me.
Then again, if I were trying to defend abortion these days, I’d be pretty desperate, too.
One of Lila’s investigations into Planned Parenthood failure to report child sexual abuse:
LifeNews.com Note: Kristen Hatten is Vice President of New Wave Feminists.This post originally appeared at the Live Action blog and is reprinted with permission.
