Building a ‘civilization of love’: Live Action hosts inaugural summit for young pro-life leaders

Live Action, a non-profit dedicated to opposing abortion, hosted its first Young Leaders Summit March 16 in Irvine, California.

The day-long event focused on issues of sex, relationships and abortion, featuring several prominent speakers.

Over 700 people attended the event, according to Lila Rose, President and Founder of Live Action.

When asked about the event’s significance, Rose told The Lion that not only is Live Action fighting against “the greatest human rights abuse of our day,” but it’s also “fighting to build something, and that’s a civilization of love.”

Rose’s rise to prominence followed her undercover expose of two Los Angeles abortion clinics. She founded Live Action in 2008, which has since blossomed into one of the nation’s leading non-profits against abortion.

The Young Leaders Summit consisted of three sessions featuring well-known speakers in the pro-life community, including cultural commentator Allie Beth Stuckey, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, Catholic apologist Trent Horn, YouTuber and hip-hop artist Ruslan KD and Virginia House of Delegates member Nick Freitas.

Rose opened the event by discussing the current pro-life landscape, the importance of changing hearts, and what she hoped attendees would get out of the Summit. 

“My goal for you today is that you can leave this space and this day that we have together with increased moral clarity, with increased conviction, and I hope inspired courage to go out into the world and make the world better … more welcoming, and more deserving of the beautiful human lives that God gives this world,” she said.  

After Rose’s remarks, the speakers discussed a variety of cultural issues, from IVF, gender ideology, fatherhood, birth control, and sexual ethics, to strategies on pro-life activism.  

The event was wrapped up with a closing word from Rose, who encouraged the audience to “dream of not only an America that’s free from abortion and its evils – the culture of death and its evils – but an America that is a civilization of love and life.” 

Young attendees left the event with a renewed passion for the pro-life cause.  

“It was just packed with information and beautiful knowledge that is a lifetime of inspiration and hope,” said Lourdes Batres, a sophomore at California State University at Northridge. Batres is the president of her university’s pro-life club. 

“Cal State is kind of going through it right now,” she said. “It’s a dark environment where [abortion] is just so normal. There are vending machines with chemical abortion pills. There are professors throwing all these crazy ideas – craziness and darkness thrown everywhere.” 

For Batres, the hardest part of being at Cal State is the lack of support. Attending the Young Leaders Summit made her feel “loved” and “seen.” She felt empowered to “keep moving forward.”  

Madelyn Sequeira, a sophomore and the president of Students for Life at the University of Southern California, had similar feelings.  

“Being in a space where everyone has the same mindset, and then also [being] given the tools and the ideas to be able to implement, is something I find so inspiring,” she told The Lion. “And I’m just encouraged to keep going, and to keep fighting the good fight.” 

According to Sami Parker, a content creator for Live Action, creating a space for like-minded young people was the main goal of the Summit. 

“When you’re online and you have similar followers that have pro-life ideals or good formational ideals, it’s easy to still feel isolated when they’re all just online,” she said. “But when you’re all in a building together and you’re reminded about how many people are around you that have similar ideas, similar beliefs, and similar foundations, it’s just really, really encouraging. 

“We wanted to just offer people an opportunity to learn how to be the leaders in rewiring our generation to find the truth.”