‘RH Reality Check’ misrepresents Lila Rose, pro-life movement as ‘anti-sex’

At RH Reality Check, Amanda Marcotte offers a perplexing and colorful story about pro-life activism that is bound to leave reality-conscious readers scratching their heads. Marcotte’s claim is that the pro-life movement is not at all about protecting life but is, instead, “anti-sex”. For reasons that only Marcotte knows, she adds false claims about Live Action and Lila Rose to the mix. More troubling, she appears to have no understanding at all that child sex trafficking is something that should be prevented. Is this the new ‘reality’ at RH Reality Check?

I’ll leave it to others to take on Marcotte’s conspiracy theories about an “anti-sex” agenda in what she terms the “religious right”, but will address her misrepresentation of Live Action and Lila Rose. There is nothing in Lila Rose’s work at Live Action that could reasonably be interpreted to be “anti-sex” unless Marcotte believes that working to keep predators from sexually exploiting children is “anti-sex”. Sadly, this does appear to be her position.

Marcotte specifically refers to Live Action’s investigation of Planned Parenthood clinics where workers showed willingness to turn a blind eye to child sex trafficking.

“[T]he only reason to release the videos and act like something scandalous is in them is to suggest that the “dirtiness” of some people should prevent them from obtaining reproductive health care.”

Are we really now at the point in America’s discourse on human dignity that we have to explain to so-called “pro-choice” columnists why child sex trafficking is bad? Child sex trafficking is not bad because the “religious right” thinks it is “dirty”. Child sex trafficking is bad because it is an egregious assault on the dignity of the human child. It is because it is an assault on the dignity of children that laws are in place to require reporting.

Any culture that is turning a blind eye to the practice of child sex trafficking is a culture in need of reform. Marcotte is not merely suggesting that Planned Parenthood does not possess such a culture, she is saying to us that if it did possess such a culture, it would not be wrong.

I do appreciate that Marcotte gives credit to Live Action for sparking a movement to defund Planned Parenthood.

“It’s worth noting that Lila Rose set the tone for this with her round of videos that kicked off the current defunding craze.”

Pro-lifers would argue that it is not a “craze” to call for defunding any organization that has allowed such a culture to develop in its local branches. Rather, we will continue in our hope that it will never become a “craze” to defend such organizations by claiming that something as hideous as child sex trafficking might actually be a legitimate form of income for a corporation, whether that corporation is tax-funded or not.