Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.
Ephesians 5:7-14
One of the ways you can tell if a particular position is right is by listening to its supporters argue for it. Several days ago I came across this Tucker Carlson interview with Dawn Laguens, executive vice-president of Planned Parenthood. Below are a few selected excerpts.
Carlson: What is being aborted? If you can hear the heartbeat, what is that thing that’s being aborted? How do you feel about that?
Laguens: Well, abortion is a right in this country. Women have their own views on whether or not they want to be pregnant….
Carlson: You work at the country’s biggest abortion provider—if you can hear the heartbeat of this thing, this fetus, what is it? Is it a piece of tissue, or is it a separate human being?
Laguens: I think it is up to each woman to decide what they believe… What I’m here to talk about today is that the Pence Ryan plan will take away health and cancer screenings and birth control from millions of women in this country….
Carlson: People say, “Look, this is killing a life. A heart is beating.” You can hear it at five and a half weeks and the majority of your abortions take place after five and a half weeks. So I want to know if that bothers you at all. . . . Do you ever stop and think, wow, what is happening here? Is a life being taken?
Laguens: I personally favor safe, legal, abortion in this country decided on by each individual woman and her doctor to decide for themselves. I personally do not believe that that is a viable fetus at that point.
Carlson: … I’m asking you a human question, and I hope you’ll favor me with a human answer. I’m not saying it’s viable; at five and a half weeks it’s not. But you can hear the heartbeat. Is that a human being or not? Is it separate from the mother or not? Different blood type, often a different sex, different DNA? It doesn’t seem like a tumor or something that is connected to the woman wholly. It’s distinct. What does that mean? I would think you would’ve thought about it considering you provide more of them than anyone.
Laguens: I have thought about it very much for myself, but I am not going to project onto other women what I believe. What I believe is that women have the right and the choice and we’re going to leave it up to them.
The interview goes on painfully in that vein for roughly 6 minutes, with Carlson continuing to press the question, and Laguens continuing to evade. Obviously I have edited the interview, so you can watch it in full.
Carlson tried as hard as he could to expose the unfruitful works of darkness carried out by Planned Parenthood. In the end, he couldn’t get Laguens to answer the simple question of whether or not she thought abortion was taking a human life. It doesn’t take much to recognize her predicament. If she says, “No, we’re not taking a life,” she will be dismissed as ridiculous. She knows we know better. If she says, “Yes, we are taking a life,” she reveals that abortion in fact is killing a child, and she knows it.
In the end, her non-answers were perhaps more telling than a straight answer might have been. For, to quote Ephesians above, even Dawn Laguens finds it “shameful to speak of the things that they do in secret.” If she believed that her work was “the fruit of light… good and right and true” she would have no difficulty speaking clearly. That tells an enormous amount about what Planned Parenthood thinks of the dark work they do. Carlson may not have received the straight answer he sought, but he certainly exposed the unfruitful works of darkness that Planned Parenthood so desperately seeks to keep hidden.
Heavenly Father, our hearts break for the lives lost in Planned Parenthoods across the country, for the unborn killed in the womb, for the women damaged and broken, for the fathers missing out on raising their children, and for the clinic workers hardened and numbed by the killing. We struggle to understand this darkness, but we trust in Your Righteousness. May the Church walk in the Light and reject abortion universally. Use us to stand in the way of darkness, to help others find healing, and to save the lives of unborn babies. In Christ’s Name we pray, Amen.
This week’s reflection has been written by Anglicans for Life’s Board Member, the Rev. Dr. W. Ross Blackburn. Rev. Blackburn is the Rector of Christ the King, an Anglican Fellowship in Boone, NC.
