Recently, Lila Rose, the President of Live Action, a Pro-Life nonprofit, came out against Donald Trump for softening his position on abortion. Rather than rehash the arguments over abolitionism, the debate soon turned to the nature of Live Action being a grift. While Rose’s basic contention is that Trump is capitulating on abortion, which is correct, the MAGA X crowd countered with claims that the Pro-Life industry wants Trump to lose to fundraise off abortion. This is a standard critique of the Pro-Life Industry or Big Baby, but it was paired with attacks specifically about Live Action.
The critiques against Lila Rose have come from those outside the MAGA-sphere, which would include Manosphere types like Rollo Tommasi. Ironically, Lila Rose received a puff piece by National Review which was then promoted by Mike Pence, the same former governor who cowered on RFRA.
Form 990 Analysis
Through either ProPublica or through the IRS, their Form 990’s can be obtained. Live Action defines itself as the following:
Live Action exists to defend the human rights of the most vulnerable: preborn children. Through educational media campaigns, visual storytelling, and investigative reporting, Live Action works to change hearts and minds about abortion and human dignity.
Essentially, they claim on their Form 990 to be a media entity. They do not claim to benefit pregnancy centers nor to be a lobby organization. This does not itself a contention for grifting as certain ethots have been saying.
Since 2018, Live Action has more than doubled in size, going from a $2.96 million charity to one that generated $13.5 million in 2022. However, this is down from their 2021 revenues which peaked at $14.3 million. Without seeing 2023 numbers, it would be difficult to discern whether the decline in contributions is caused by Roe being overturned, inflation, or a singular blip. Like NAMB, they did operate at a deficit with their expenses exceeding their revenues by $403K. Salaries represented the largest increase by $1.1 million, reflecting a large increase in employee headcount.
One of the pertinent attacks against Rose was that of personal compensation. Except for Rose, all the other salaries are included in the $3 million salary expense. The total salaries of the board exceed $1.1 million, with Lila Rose taking home $271,592 in salary. This is a vast increase from the $161,712 in executive compensation Rose received in 2020. The claim of grifter can be sustained by the nearly $300K salary for overseeing a pro-life charity. It is safe to assume that overall compensation has increased since 2022, including that of Rose. Even in California or Arlington, VA, $300K is a lavish lifestyle, and this is without analyzing the traveling expenses and other fluff that 990 forms cannot expose by themselves.
Financially, they function much like a media organization but their largest expenses are functionally that of customer acquisition: fundraising. They rely on print media, direct mail, and advertising as their primary expenditures to sustain their stream of donations. Eberle Associates is a conservative fundraising firm that specializes in direct mail. Live Action spent $4.23 million and $3.45 million on their services in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Live Action Content
While it is within reason to criticize Live Action for not really supporting pregnancy centers or lobbying efforts, it is important to understand that they have never claimed to do these. Legally, they claim to be an educational advocacy organization, and they specialize in media content. Functionally, they are a media business that is structured as a 501c3 organization.
Their content aims to do investigative journalism, much like James O’Keefe, except targeting abortion providers. Rose was partnered with O’Keefe, which is why the style is the same. They do post quite a bit of gore, depicting the aborted fetuses. Most of their content is not undercover videos. From a media standpoint, their YouTube presence gets relatively little traction despite 390K subs unless there are big names involved. On TikTok, their content has varying degrees of success, but not as much as would be expected for 565K followers. Despite a nominally large following, Lila Rose is not must-see content, generating low views relative to the account followings.
Post Roe, it is clear that the Pro-Life movement needs an outreach strategy, but hearts will not be changed by posting abortion gore, no matter how disgusting it is, but rather in branding the women who get abortions as disgusting human beings. This would work to increase male support as it takes advantage of the gender divisions in the culture. Late last year, Lila Rose appealed to MeToo to make the case that Planned Parenthood is the real sex abuser. Why not just say, “The Democrats are the real racists?” The messaging sucks.
Exposure does not work. Ultrasounds do not prevent abortions. Gore does not work and will not reach a mass audience. The overall movement needs a better strategy, and this is reflected in the Post Roe failures.
Tax Exempt Status
Part of the problem with the Pro-Life Industry is how they structure their organizations. Too much of their advocacy centers around 501c3 tax-exempt status rather than a more advantageous 501c4, which allows for direct political involvement. The former is tax-deductible, but most taxpayers utilize the standard deduction.
Just as churches are hamstrung by the tax-exempt status limitations on political activism, so too are organizations like Live Action. What did they actually accomplish for $13 million? The environment got worse while they received greater compensation. That is $13 million which could go towards direct activism on ballot measures, supporting grassroots candidates, or supporting pregnancy centers.
Take a candidate like Dusty Deevers, who raised over $40K for a state senate primary election. While this included many small, local donors who made up the majority of the contributions, he did receive money from a few PACs. $2,000 is given to 100 local or state candidates each, which is $200K, which would make a difference in many of these primary elections. $2,000 can make or break a school board race. Even at a success rate of 30 candidates, that is tangible change with relatively minimal investment.
Is the pro-life movement a movement or an industry?
Conclusion
While some of the attacks from MAGA Twitter towards Lila Rose were unfair, the primary contention that she is a grifter is sustained by the evidence, all of which was readily available in the form of IRS documents. But this speaks to the broader problems with the pro-life cause, that people would donate $13 million to Live Action which produces so little value for the money. This money could make an impact if it went towards pro-life candidates or political action committees, but instead, it is being wasted. Then people wonder why Trump, Vance, and the GOP are weak on abortion when the movement is an industry dominated by grifters at the top like Lila Rose.
