NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Workers who identify as “escorts” at an abortion facility in Virginia recently set up a loudspeaker on the back of a truck and began blaring Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” and various other rock songs, breaking out into karaoke at times and laughing and dancing, in an effort to drown out Christians who were preaching the gospel on the public sidewalk and offering help to abortion-minded women.
“It just really showed the folly of the whole practice,” Sam Frain, pastoral intern at a Reformed Baptist church, told Christian News Network. “When you have people who are doing serious things, considering whether they are going to take the life of their unborn child, and you have the women out front nearly making a mockery of what’s going on by their laughing, their joking as they sing, their very flippant attitude … it was just sobering.”
The situation occurred on June 7 at Peninsula Medical Center for Women in Newport News, which performs first trimester abortions every Thursday. The facility, one of three where abortionist William Fitzhugh ends the lives of the unborn, has been in operation since the 1970’s.
The self-described escorts—those who lead abortive mothers into the facility—have regularly expressed opposition to those who seek to proclaim the gospel and offer help and hope to women intent on murdering their unborn child.
Local resident Don Karns, who has conducted outreach outside of the facility for years, told Christian News Network that the workers have used various tactics, as one of the women sprayed him with a hose last year, and the workers have also used umbrellas in an attempt to block him and others from view.
“Before the music, they would take the umbrella and come over to the pro-life person and put the umbrella right in our face,” he said. “At the same time, a different escort would take their umbrella and as someone gets out of the car, they hold the umbrella so that the person can’t see a pro-life person.”
Recently, as the City of Newport News agreed to freely allow the use of amplification within city limits, Karns said that the matter became a “double-edged sword.” Not only did he and others use a microphone to more effectively preach the gospel, but the abortion workers hooked up some sort of karaoke machine to a pickup truck to blare 70’s and 80’s rock music in an effort to drown out the preaching.
Frain said that the women were already setting up by the time he arrived that afternoon. A video recorded by Karns, and reviewed by Christian News Network, shows a truck and car parked in front of the abortion facility with a large umbrella in the back of the truck, and workers holding smaller umbrellas. The song “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne was blaring over the loudspeaker, nearly overpowering Frain’s voice.
“Why would you try to take the life of a child that is made in the image of God? Turn to Christ and live,” Frain preaches amid the riffs, holding his Bible under his arm.
“I’m going off the rails of a crazy train!” a woman is soon heard singing, doing karaoke with the song.
Karns said that the women were not only blasting and singing along with music from artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, ABBA, Bruce Springsteen and Motorhead, but they were also laughing and dancing at times.
“The position is [supposedly] that women suffer with the decision, that it’s a hard decision to make, and for these girls to be making light of that is so sad and so telling,” Karns lamented. “… They’re basically making light of these women who are going in to have an abortion—making fun and games, laughing and dancing sometimes. They’ve made Thursday afternoon a time for them to, in effect, party on the front porch of an abortion clinic.”
He said that the abortion workers would also move their truck to strategically counter the preaching, and that he couldn’t imagine women having to walk into such an “unprofessional” environment.
“The last thing they want is for women to be given a choice,” he said. “They don’t want them to take literature. They don’t want them to hear the truth.”
“These escorts are intent on trying to drown us out so people can’t hear the offer of help, the offer of love, the offer of truth. They do everything within their power to keep us silent,” Karns outlined, noting that the Christians present also offer to pray for the women and direct them to the local crisis pregnancy center.
One online review written by a woman named Ebony who obtained an abortion at Peninsula Medical Center for Women said that she did not feel any compassion in the midst of her turmoil, and warned others not to go.
“Horrible experience. DO NOT go here. It was a hard enough decision as it was, yet when I cried in the waiting room the lady who worked there told me to stop as I was ruining business,” she wrote. “When I my procedure was done, I bled a lot and they didn’t care; I was scared yet just cold. I ended up going to ER next day and they told me I should not [have] gone there. Don’t go.”
Frain said that he believes the reason that the workers seek to drown out the gospel, and keep mothers from hearing truth, is because sin has blinded them—as it does to all men who know not God.
“I think the primary reason is because sin has darkened our minds, sin has corrupted our hearts, and sin has corrupted our wills, that we will do everything we can to make sure that God’s word doesn’t penetrate,” he explained.
He pointed to John 3, in which Jesus said, “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”
“The Scriptures clearly say why people drown out the gospel, because they don’t want their sinful lives to be brought out into the light and therefore reproved by God,” he said.
Despite the attempts of the abortion workers to silence the preaching of the word of God, Frain said that he will not be deterred, as he preaches for the glory of God alone.
“Because I love the glory of God and the God of glory, it gives me that motivation, whether it’s heard [or] whether it’s not, whether it’s received [or] whether people laugh, whether they mock [or] whether they clap, whether it’s a life unto life as the Scriptures say or whether it’s death unto death, I know that God is pleased when we go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” he outlined.
When asked what he would say to those at the abortion facility, Frain said he would point them to the gospel’s message that all men have a sin nature and need to be made new by the Lord Jesus Christ.
“The reason why we come out is ultimately because we know that there is a great problem in our heart, namely sin,” he outlined. “If they would simply repent of their sin, come to a brokenness over their sin, and fling themselves exclusively into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, they would find forgiveness and hope and have the greatest blessing God can give, namely fellowship with Himself.”
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