EDITORS' CORNER
The vote was 60-31 against the pro-choice side
By a nearly two to one vote, the Yale Political Union declared pro-life leader Lila Rose the winner of a packed abortion debate Tuesday – a decision that reportedly “shocked” some organizers.
After the two hour debate, when asked to vote on the resolution “choice over life,” the union voted 60-31 against the pro-choice argument, the Yale Daily News reports.
“Debate just ended. We won. The room voted for the pro-life side,” Rose wrote on X afterward. “Yale organizer was shocked.”
She saw the vote as a sign of hope for the politically left institution, writing, “Change is here.”
During the debate Tuesday, hosted by the Yale Political Union, Rose argued that babies in the womb are human beings who deserve the right to life.
“History is full of moments when humanity was denied and the consequences were catastrophic,” she said, according to a Live Action News article. “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.”
Rose is the president and founder of Live Action, a pro-life education and investigative organization, known for undercover videos at abortion facilities that exposed evidence of child sexual abuse coverups, sex-selection abortions, human trafficking, and more.
Her opponent was Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for Choice, which supports legalized abortion in opposition to the stance of the Catholic Church.
Kissling made the case that women should have “the freedom to make these decisions without being reduced to instruments of conservative population policy or moral ideology,” the Yale Daily News reports.
“I tend to favor more the value of women’s lives, their health, their partners, their children, and that value becomes especially important if and when they become pregnant, particularly when they didn’t intend to,” she said.
While Kissling said she believes that giving birth to a child is a “beautiful thing,” she does not think most men would be willing to go through the pain of pregnancy and labor.
According to the student newspaper, the lecture hall was full despite increased security measures due to the murder of conservative campus leader Charlie Kirk last week at Utah Valley University.
Security guards escorted Rose into the building, and others scanned people as they walked through metal detectors; no bags were allowed inside, according to the report.
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