Top 8 of the Yale Debate: Lila Rose's powerful remarks on human rights

Last week, Live Action president and founder Lila Rose appeared at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, to debate both Yale students and former president of Catholics for Free Choice, Frances Kissling. To the shock of the event organizer, Rose won the debate 61-30, despite the pro-abortion environment at Yale and in the state of Connecticut.

Key Takeaways:

• Lila Rose debated Frances Kissling on September 16 at Yale University on the resolution "Choice over Life." Rose won the debate by a 2 to 1 margin.

• Rose argued that "True women's empowerment cannot come through the bloodshed of our children."

• She also argued that women don't need abortion to have autonomy, and a person's value is not dependent on their size or location.

• Rose discussed the human rights violation of abortion in light of some of the darkest practices in human history.

• Rose urged attendees to 'choose love, not violence.'

The Details:

The more than two-hour debate on September 16 was attended by over 200 people, where attendees showed their support of a speaker's argument by stomping their feet; they showed their disapproval by hissing.

Abortion and Human Rights Debate: Lila Rose & Frances Kissling at Yale University

In the end, Rose took the debate on the resolution "Choice over Life" by a 2 to 1 vote margin. Here are some of her top comments from the night:

Women's empowerment cannot come through bloodshed of children

"[The] idea ... that somehow a woman's objectives, her empowerment, her rights have to be at odds with a child's — I want to fully and wholeheartedly reject that notion. True women's empowerment cannot come through the bloodshed of our children."

Women don't need abortion to have autonomy

"... The indication by Ms. Kissling seemed to be that because she values, as do I, a woman's ability to make decisions, to think, to have autonomy, to move out in the world and to pursue something better for ourselves -- that because of that, we somehow need abortion, we somehow need the ending of innocent life.

And she was saying that from the standpoint of, the woman has consciousness, the woman has the ability to think, the ability to move about and make these decisions. And... that, because the child doesn't have consciousness, because the child doesn't have the ability to move about in the world to make his or her own decisions yet, it is okay in some circumstances, completely up to the woman... she can end the life of the child at will.

It is interesting that we do not, and I would guess that Ms. Kissling would not, extend this to a newborn baby.

And yet a newborn baby, just like the unborn baby, has no ability to reason or think the way that adult woman does, [and] has no way to work about and move out in the world and make their own decisions. They are 100% dependent on their mother, but their dependency doesn't mean they don't have humanity and value and rights."

Life begins at fertilization

"It doesn't matter your religious beliefs or your lack of religious beliefs. The science is clear. Science affirms that human life begins at fertilization from the moment of conception, a new, unique  and whole human being exists. This is not a matter of an opinion, but of observable fact."

The 14th Amendment protects preborn human beings

"The 14th amendment, ratified in 1868, declares, 'No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, nor deny any person equal protection of the laws.' The promise is clear, and it was meant for every human. At the time of ratification, three quarters of the states had laws against abortion at every stage. The word person included the child in the womb. The Ohio Legislature for instance, which voted to ratify the 14th Amendment, went so far as to call abortion 'child murder.' They knew the truth...

[O]ne of the authors of the 14th Amendment said its purpose was to protect, even 'The lowest and most despised of the human race.' That is the heart of equal protection, regardless of your opinions, your beliefs, your feelings, your inconveniences about another human's existence, no one has the right to take their life."

A human being's value is not dependent on size or location

"The baby at six weeks is just as valuable as the baby at 26 weeks, or the toddler at two years old, or the adult at 26 years old. Any other lines that we may draw are arbitrary and innately inherently dehumanizing.

Justice demands consistency. Killing preborn children must be illegal for the same reasons that killing born children, [or] a newborn must be illegal. Because our human value, our worth, is not based on our size, on our age, on our level of development, or on our location or dependency."

Abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings

"Let me ask the question here plainly: Should murder be legal?... Of course not. Then why do we excuse abortion?

Abortion is the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being. It is not an accident.... That is the reality behind euphemisms like 'choice' and 'healthcare.'

What does abortion actually do? Abortion procedures tear babies limb from limb in suction abortions, and the abortion pill... starves a child to death with drugs, and in later term abortions, [the abortionist] pierces a needle into the beating heart or the brain of a living, developing child.

These are not acts of healing. These are acts of killing. Every day in this country, nearly 3,000 children meet their fate by abortion."

In abortion, dark history repeats itself

"History is full of moments when humanity was denied and the consequences were catastrophic. And in every case, the humanity that is denying the rights or the value to the other has more power. They have more strength. They have more ability to dominate. The Nazis called Jews 'der untermensch' or 'subhuman.' ... This wasn't just rhetoric. This was a logical prelude to mass genocide....

In 1860, over 3.9 million African Americans were enslaved in this country. Entire families, men, women and children were treated as property, not people. The Supreme Court of our country, in the Dred Scott v Sanford decision of 1857, said that Black men and women were, 'So far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.' That judicial lie about their humanity paved the way for brutal oppression.

Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery, exposed this evil with this piercing clarity. He says, 'The slave holder in order to justify himself...' — and by the way, his justifications include his economic rights, his, ultimately his convenience, his property in order to justify himself, '...must prove the slave to be a brute. He must deny him intelligence and rationality, and dispose of him as a beast.'

Douglass tells us the soul of the injustice. When you strip a class of people of their humanity, you open the door to every kind of violence.

Since 1973 ... over 63 million children in the United States alone have been killed by abortion, have been denied their humanity, their value, their choice, have not been given a chance.

The pattern has always been the same. Strip away the personhood, redefine human beings as something that is less than, and then commit atrocities in the name of someone else's progress.

Abortion is the latest injustice, and it follows the same dark logic."

Choose love, not violence

"How do we make a more just and loving future? How do we do that?

We can't do that on the broken bodies of children... The future must be life first. That is the only way forward for a nation that cherishes justice....

And so I ask you tonight to stand with children. Stand with the preborn, the most vulnerable among us who cannot vote, who cannot speak, who cannot defend themselves.

They need you, women and men. They need us.  They need our voice, our courage, and our love. Choose love, not violence."

Go Deeper:

Live Action's Lila Rose wins Yale debate against former 'Catholics for Choice' president

Rose v. Kissling debate at Yale: A conflict between dignity and discrimination

Abortion and Human Rights Debate: Lila Rose & Frances Kissling at Yale University