A Fox News host just pressured Planned Parenthood to answer something the liberal media never ask: What does abortion end? Is it a life – a human being?
On Monday, Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss the new GOP health-care plan that promises to defund her organization, which is America’s largest abortion provider. Laguens argued that the definitions of abortion and human life depend on each individual’s position. At the same time, she refused to answer, as an individual, the question “what is being aborted?”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson first asked Laguens about Planned Parenthood’s refusal to halt abortion. While The New York Times reported that the White House “proposed preserving federal payments” to Planned Parenthood if it cut abortion from its “services,” Planned Parenthood representatives rejected the offer.
“Why is abortion so important to Planned Parenthood that you're willing to forgo a half-a-billion dollars in federal subsidies?” Carlson asked.
According to its latest annual report, Planned Parenthood performed 323,999 abortions and received $553.7 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements” for the year 2014 – 2015.
Laguens responded that Planned Parenthood supported the “wisdom and power of the individual to decide” on “care,” or, in other words, abortion.
Carlson challenged Laguens in a follow-up question.
"Why include abortion if the [other] services provided are necessary?” he continued. “A lot of people think it's murder. Why don't you just take that out and then taxpayers can feel good about subsidizing the rest of your services?”
“Taxpayers don't pay for abortion services,” she responded. “Women deserve access to the full range of reproductive health care and that includes safe, legal abortion.“
While the Hyde Amendment generally bars federal funding (from taxpayers) from abortion, pro-life leaders argue money is fungible – or that Planned Parenthood could offset costs with public funds to free up other resources for abortion.
Later on, Carlson asked Laguens a series of questions on something that she couldn’t – or wouldn’t – answer: does abortion end a life? Video below.
“The majority of [Planned Parenthood's abortions] are after five-and-a-half weeks, that's the point at which the fetal heartbeat can be detected,” he said. “I'm just wondering, as someone who works there, what do you think of that? What is being aborted? If you can hear the heartbeat, what is that thing that's being aborted?”
Laguens waited for a moment before giving a non-answer.
“Well, abortion is a right in this country. Women have their own views on whether or not they want to be pregnant,” she said. “That is not a viable fetus at five-and-a-half weeks, anyone knows that. And what you would do is make your own choice.”
But Tucker wanted to know what Laguens’ specific stance on abortion.
“[I]f you can hear the heartbeat of this thing, this fetus, what is it?” he asked again. “Is it just a piece of tissue or is it a separate human being?”
Laguens argued that abortion and life mean whatever an individual wants them to mean. Except if that individual is an unborn baby, that is.
“I think that's up to each individual to decide what they believe,” she said, and tried to bridge into talking about cancer screenings and birth control.
"I get your talking points,” Carlson said towards the end, “But I want to take it just a level deeper, because I think it's worth it. It's a big deal to a lot of people.” He added:
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? Does it all? Do you ever stop and think, wow, what is happening here? Is a life being taken? People say a life is being taken. Do you think that?
While Carlson admitted an unborn baby isn’t viable (or can survive outside the womb on its own) at five-and-a-half weeks, he still stressed that he or she has a heartbeat.
“Is that a human being or not? Is it separate from the mother or not?” he continued. “A 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?”
It didn’t matter what she thought, she insisted. “I have thought about it very much for myself, but I am not going to project onto other women what I believe,” Laguens concluded.
Talk about relativism. And with that, here’s a quote from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895 – 1979):
America it is said is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance, tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted, as it is overrun with the broadminded…
Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience towards evil… a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons... never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error... Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscraper as doctors are intolerant about germs in the laboratories…
Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of stability.
Laguens interview followed Carlson’s Friday debate with Democrat Jehmu Greene similarly on Planned Parenthood funding.
