Lila Rose is no stranger to the pro-life movement or the tens of thousands who will be marching tomorrow at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Her voice and presence has been a major force in shaping the pro-life landscape for the past 25 years. 

Last year, she headlined the West Coast Walk for Life; but this year, Catholics across the country will hear her inspiring message from the March for Life. Speaking to the Register ahead of the big event tomorrow, Rose said it’s her Catholic faith that fuels her: 

“I couldn’t do anything that I do without the grace of God, and I am incredibly grateful to my Catholic faith for being just such an incredible conduit of the grace of Jesus Christ.”

From her first time learning about abortion, to years investigating Planned Parenthood, her moving conversion, and now to her life as a wife and mother, Rose has made a very unique and profound impact on the pro-life movement. 

Here are 10 things everyone should know about pro-life force-to-be-reckoned-with Lila Grace Rose. 

1. Lila Rose first was exposed to the terrible reality of abortion at the young age of 9. 

After innocently picking up a book in her own home as a young girl on a cold and wet day in San Jose, California, she learned the terrible truth about abortion. As a home-schooled child, along with her seven siblings, she loved all literature, but she was not prepared when she found the Handbook on Abortion by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke. 

“And there they were: pictures,” Rose recounted. 

“In shock, I quickly shut the book and pushed it away. And then I opened it slowly and looked again. I was looking directly at the picture of a tiny child, maybe 10 weeks old, with tiny arms and legs, who had been the victim of an abortion.”

2. At 13, she posed as a pregnant teen at a Planned Parenthood facility. 

In an attempt to talk a peer out of having an abortion, Lila assumed the role of a pregnant teen at the young age of 13. In her memoir, Fighting for Life, she explained:

"I said, how about we both just get out of here — I was desperate to get her to leave and she said 'No,' and there was this complete despondency that overcame her; and then a clinician came to the waiting room and called her in, and I saw the door close, and it’s this sense of desolation: We’re fighting to save lives, but we lose lives as we go.”

3. She created her first pro-life club at age 14 — and that effort quickly became Live Action.

Knowing she had to do something to help reveal the terrible truths of abortion, Rose begins writing her local political candidates, imploring them to vote for life. “When I was 14, I began planning a pro-life club. Within months, it became Live Action. It began in my parents’ living room, with a meeting of about a dozen of my closest friends, all of whom I had convinced to come.” 

4. Her group Live Action was instrumental in several undercover investigations that exposed the barbaric practice of Planned Parenthood selling aborted fetuses. 

Rose had no idea that Live Action would ultimately begin to lead national investigations into the travesty of abortion, but it happened quickly. She was a freshman at UCLA when she led her first one. While posing as a pregnant student on campus, she was told by the university health center that “UCLA doesn’t support women who are pregnant.” 

So Rose partnered with James O’Keefe to infiltrate the place that her university was sending scared, pregnant young women to: Planned Parenthood. 

“I posed as a young, scared, pregnant girl, 15 years old, the victim of a 23-year-old statutory rapist. The Planned Parenthood staff told me, into our hidden cameras: ‘Figure out a birth date that works. Lie about your age on the paperwork. Say you are older than you really are. We will give you a secret abortion, and no one will ever know.’”

The investigation led to Rose being sued at the age of 18 by the abortion giant, but that didn’t stop her. 

5. Her former colleague David Daleiden’s earth-shattering investigation brought Live Action into national media attention. 

ln 2015, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released harrowing undercover videos showing executives of Planned Parenthood discussing the odious business of selling baby body parts. 

The footage left the pro-life community aghast and even led some Democratic senators to launch an investigation into the abortion giant’s practices. At the time, CMP was completely unknown to the media, but Daleiden began his investigative career alongside Lila Rose at Live Action several years earlier. 

And these videos allow the American public to understand the detrimental impact that the abortion industry has had on our culture, as Rose told the Register:

“They kill 1,000 babies a day; they cover up child sexual abuse; they lie to women; they mislead women; they sell baby body parts. They were founded on a eugenic, racist vision. The more people are aware of this, the more they say, ‘This is ridiculous. I don’t want to support this organization.’ And we shouldn't be spending 700 million taxpayer dollars every year on Planned Parenthood.”

6. Live Action’s independent investigations have uncovered other grievous offenses by Planned Parenthood, including the aiding of human trafficking and prostitution of under-age girls. 

With cameras rolling, Rose’s team made headlines yet again. 

“Planned Parenthood staff at multiple facilities were willing to aid child sex traffickers,” Rose recalled on X this week. 

Other exclusive footage captured by Live Action exposes Planned Parenthood employees ignoring reporting laws, approving race- and sex-selective abortion of female babies, and withholding medical care for babies who survive abortion.

 7. Raised in a Christian household, Rose attributes her conversion to the Catholic faith to an encounter with the Eucharist.

In moving testimony, Rose recounted at the National Eucharistic Congress her powerful conversion story that occurred on a chance visit to Mass. 

“I was raised Protestant, and when the priest held up the Holy Eucharist, there was an explosion in my heart, and I was hungry. I was hungry for Jesus. After the Mass was done that day, I turned to this woman sitting next to me in the back of the chapel ... and I said: ‘Is there someone here who can mentor me or something? I want to learn more,’ and she said, ‘Yes, and I can see you this week.’”

A year and a half later, Rose had her first confession and confirmation and was “able to receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time.”

8. Lila Rose and Live Action produced a pro-life video that is now shown in schools across the country.

An amazing computer-generated imagery-integrated video showing the moment of conception and the gradual growing of a baby in the womb captured the hearts of millions when it was first released in 2021. Now, the video is used as a teaching tool in several Catholic and public schools throughout the country, although several pro-abortion groups have been fighting its inclusion in school curricula. 

9. Since her first national media appearance at 18, Rose has been advancing the culture of life in mainstream media, including appearances on Dr. Phil and other secular platforms. 

Appearing on the podcast Whatever, in 2023, Lila heard the admission from the guest-host that he would like to be monogamous but he’s just not “programmed that way.” 

In the conversation, Rose carried herself beautifully as she expounded on how these lies of the hook-up culture have taken shape, even pointing to the flawed thinking of biologist Alfred Kinsey, who tried to taint the idea of monogamy. Rose also speaks truth on the issue of abortion and the secular-championed false theory of life in the womb being simply a clump of cells.

She also recently took 25 “pro-choice” advocates to task on the truth about what we know about life in the womb, and she told the Register that one woman’s heart was changed by what Rose had shared. Rose added: 

“I think people’s hearts are ready to be opened on this issue, but we have to show up, and we have to be willing to have the conversation and be uncompromising in speaking the truth and being principled with the truth.”

10. Her fierce love to protect the unborn grows even stronger each day, through her vocation to marriage and motherhood. 

Rose is now a wife and mother of three darling children, and the experience of growing life in her own womb and watching tiny babies become young children, playing and laughing, with beating hearts, only builds more strongly her the desire to protect the unborn. 

Speaking to the Register, Rose reflected about this new witness of life and how it shapes the future of her work: 

“I just want every woman to see her dignity and to recognize the beauty and gift of life in the womb. And it also makes me passionate about fighting for families because children deserve parents who love each other and are committed to each other for life.”

LEARN MORE

Watch The Lila Rose Show podcast on EWTN On Demand.