Prominent anti-abortion activist Lila Rose has issued an ultimatum to former President Donald Trump: Strengthen your stance against abortion or lose votes.
Rose, the leader of the anti-abortion group Live Action, is urging her followers to refuse to vote for Trump unless he changes course on his abortion message, which has continued to soften as the election nears, reports Politico Magazine Thursday.
"Don't get me wrong — I would love to see Trump coming out standing strong with life and say, 'I'm going to fight for life' [with] a strong pro-life message. I would love to see him stop saying this nonsense about supporting abortion. But unfortunately, that's not the case," Rose told Politico.
Her stance has met with opposition on the right, including in the anti-abortion movement, who say that Trump is the lesser of two evils when compared to Democrat nominee Kamala Harris and her stance supporting legalized abortion.
Trump, whose three Supreme Court appointments helped lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, has moderated his stance on abortion. He now says the issue should be left up to the states, as the Supreme Court ruled.
Trump has also criticized strict bans such as Florida's six-week rule, and has come out in favor of in vitro fertilization.
But Rose told Politico that his current stance isn't strong enough and if the election was today she would write in a different candidate rather than pick Trump or Harris.
"People will need to vote their conscience in November," she added. "We're over two months out, so there's a lot of things that can change. I think that it's the job of the pro-life movement to demand protection for pre-born lives. It is not the job of the pro-life movement to vote for President Trump."
Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, have also come out against several of the anti-abortion movement's policy priorities.
Vance said this week that Trump would veto national abortion ban legislation.
"It's disappointing to say — but perhaps he lacks principle on this issue," she said. "The positions that they are choosing to take are making it untenable for pro-life voters to get out the vote for them. This is, unfortunately, the path that they've chosen."
Rose said she will wait to see how the next two weeks unfold, but she's urging both Trump and Harris to change course.
She also rejected arguments from some who say Trump is not telling the truth about his real position on abortion, but has softened it to attract more moderate voters and will move to a more anti-abortion stance if he's reelected.
"I think that's pie-in-the sky thinking," she said. "I've received no confirmation from the Trump campaign that they're going to secretly lie about abortion and then go do pro-life things afterward. I think that's a narrative that there's no proof to back up."
And if Trump is secretly pro-life and trying to play both sides, that is "morally wrong and it's extremely misguided politically," said Rose.
That doesn't mean Rose isn't holding out some hope.
"I would love to see a September or October surprise where Trump comes out swinging for human life, [where] he says that we have got to fight for human life, we will do everything in our power through the executive branch to protect the lives of innocent children."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.