What's Trending? Organ Transplant Laws, Death Doulas, Loneliness, and More

We move through a stack of headlines that force hard questions about death, dignity, and what modern medicine can get wrong when speed and demand take over. We also look at how loneliness and fertility research intersect with real-life choices, and why a Christian view of the body changes how we respond. 

SHOW NOTES:
Kentucky’s “Pause in Procedure” Organ Transplant Law: Kentucky enacted House Bill 510, requiring organ procurement teams to stop immediately if any provider detects signs of life during donation procedures. The law follows a 2021 near-harvest case involving TJ Hoover and aims to strengthen patient protection, restore public trust, and address ethical concerns about death determination and informed oversight.  (Source: https://tinyurl.com/2d6dkp33  accessed 4-17-26)

Death Doulas at the End of Life: Nicole Kidman says she is training as a death doula after her mother’s lonely final days revealed gaps in end-of-life support. Death doulas are nonmedical companions who help dying people and families with comfort, fears, planning, and conversation, reflecting growing interest in more humane, relational care around death.  (Source: https://tinyurl.com/2byty4bq  accessed 4-17-26)

Loneliness Role in Cognitive Decline: A six-year longitudinal study found loneliness predicts worsening immediate and delayed memory in middle-aged and older adults, even more than social isolation alone. The findings recast loneliness as a public health and aging issue, suggesting elder care should address emotional connection, not just social contact, to help protect cognitive health.  (Source: https://tinyurl.com/26zm33kb  accessed 4-21-26)

Outer space conditions hamper sperm's ability to navigate toward an egg https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/outer-space-conditions-hamper-sperms-ability-navigate-toward-an-egg-2026-03-30/

X thread on Cannabis use’s effect on men’s DNA and specifically on sperm:  https://x.com/anishmoonka/thread/2043873122395533525

Researchers eye potential Down syndrome fix via advanced gene editing https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/researchers-eye-potential-down-syndrome-fix-via-advanced-gene-editing-2026-04-17/

Transcript

Welcome And May Headlines

SPEAKER_01 0:02

On today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Because the things that they're identifying as this is what isn't working right in these low gravity or zero gravity situations. Just it's like it's down to the really detailed stuff that's not working right. And you're like, well, that that means that God engineered this with incredible precision that we're still only just beginning to figure out. Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for life challenges.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Hi, and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz, and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischmann and Jeff Samelson. And today we welcome you to the month of May, and we are going to be tackling our current events in this episode today.

Kentucky Organ Donation Pause Law

SPEAKER_01 1:12

We have a wide variety here of current events, but first I have one here that uh that you had found, Bob, I believe. Kentucky's pause and procedure on organ transplant law. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_04 1:27

Those of you who've heard me speak about organ transplantation have always heard me draw an analogy that probably only a few remember now, and that is the old Ernest and Julio Gallo wine commercials. The big punchline at the end is, and we take no grape before it's time. And I said that's oftentimes a premier concern for people when it comes to organ. A lot of people are saying, hey, when I'm dead, I'm in heaven, my body's gonna return to dust. But if they could use my organs, generally we're willing to to offer them as a donation, that kind of thing. But there's always this concern that someone's taken the grape before it's time, somebody's gonna take it when they shouldn't. And that actually precipitated what happened in Kentucky because there was a fellow and his his name was Anthony Thomas T.J. Hoover the second, and he was declared brain dead from a drug overdose. And so there was this whole procedure of we consent uh to allow or organs to be taken. Well, uh he woke up just as the procedure was starting, and it created great alarm and it launched a series of investigations. And I just was looking at the federal investigation of it, and they said that they looked at over 350 cases handled by the Kentucky Organ Donation Affiliates, or CODA, they called it, uh which merged into Network for Hope in 2024. Of the 350 cases, 73 of them, the patients exhibited neurological signs inconsistent with organ donation, which I like how so what does this mean? It means chances are they're probably still alive. Uh, but it said at least 28 cases where patients may not have been declared dead when the organ procurement process began. So this is pretty alarming. Then there was some evidence that there's some pressure going on because organ donation is is uh a very competitive field almost because people are looking for organs. So to my knowledge, no one has ever been charged in that case. But what Kentucky did is they passed House Bill 510 that basically requires a pause when they're going to do an organ transplant, because they're they're trying to to restore public trust in organ transplant so that this pause allows time to confirm beyond any shadow of the doubt that the patient is fully dead, that everything going on in the patient's body is entirely artificial, that there is no life in it.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

And I mean to me that just seems like why didn't they do that before? That's that's the question. And and like I guess I should move to Kentucky if I want to make sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

It's one of those things that you understand somewhat how they got to that situation. And it's easier to understand if you have heroes and villains. But you know, in a story like this, very often the villains are people who are just really dedicated to procuring organs for people that need them. And they want the viable best organs so that they can have the best results, and that means they get them as fresh as possible. And they're just if somebody's single-mindedly focused on that, well, maybe that little thing about that little blip on the uh the EKG or whatever whatever is, you know, that's that's nothing to be concerned about because we know he's dying anyway, so let's do what's best for the end user, so to speak, and and push this. And what this whole thing is saying is like, um, we need to slow that down. And I I certainly, you know, I can understand if I were an organ donor or thinking about it, I was like, I I want to make sure, yeah, I'm dead, dead. I mean, think of all the the stories that there used to be about people being uh afraid of being buried alive. It's a similar kind of thing. You may go into something like a coma or something like that, and before they had embalming, they put you in the grave pretty fast.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

And even too, just as being part of the family, too, because that's a that's a big decision for the family. We go through with the organ donation. So I mean it does maybe help the family have that peace of mind too when when coming to that situation.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Aaron Powell There is also something that's kind of flying under the radar, which I think they're trying to to interrupt, and that is quality of life issues. Organs are in high demand. There's always organ shortage, and people are dying because they can't get a viable organ. So you've got on the one hand, people who desperately to preserve their life are dying, and then you have on this situation a person who's comes in with a drug overdose. You could see or imagine that somebody's going to say, well, he's on his way out. You know, it's it's maybe even deemed not a life worth retrieving. I mean, that's we've seen that mentality permeate throughout history, a eugenics mentality. And but that could be also what's going on. The crazy thing is, is you can you you can find YouTube videos. This guy is walking around. This this guy that it isn't like Oh, like he made a full recovery? Well, full I think he's got some neurological damage. Okay. But you there's videos of him walking, you know, it I think it's as a therapist walking on by his side and stuff like that. So yeah, so that that person's around. It isn't because sometimes you get those stories, you know, like out in the bush country or something, somebody's been declared dead and they're having the funeral, and all of a sudden, you know, he moves in the casket and then they Oh well he's not dead, but then he dies the next day. Well, that's not th this guy was alive enough to be alive today yet. So what happened in Kentucky's a good thing, but you're seeing tension going on now. You're getting the tension of we need more organs on the one hand. So we've talked before in the podcast on how they've been trying to redefine death. And then on the other hand, you've got we have to protect life. So I know that the pro-life people were in favor of this bill passing. I actually believe I I d I thought the article was a little bit confusing. I actually think net uh the network or the the former CODA, the was it, yeah, Network for Hope, I think they were in favor of the bill too, because this created a huge credibility problem. Nobody wanted to sign it. Now, just to be practical about this, mine my card is still signed. I have offered myself as an organ donor. Am I becoming concerned that they might take my organs before their time? I can't deny the fact that the thought hasn't crossed my mind on occasion. At the same time, personally I don't fear death, so I don't view this as I'm running into a suicide. But you know, if this keeps up, I'll probably change that because my responsibility is to be a good steward of my life. But just remember, of all the organ donations that do occur, you're never going to hear about the normal ones where they clearly were dead, they took the organs. You'll always hear about the ones that make the news, and that's what this is.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yeah, that's a good point. Well,

Death Doulas And Hospice Tensions

SPEAKER_01 8:50

another one on the topic of death here is the death doulas. And uh this kind of came to our attention a little bit in article form because Nicole Kidman has come out saying that she is now training to be a death doula after I believe seeing her mother go through the dying process. Uh so Bob, can you tell us a little bit more about the Nicole Kidman becoming a death duela?

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Well, I'll tell you, Nicole Kidman probably we should have her on the podcast sometime because you know, she's she they hired a surrogate to to uh mother her children. Um she's now divorced uh from Keith Urban. Yeah. And um, yeah, because Tom Cruise was the first one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then um Come on, Jeff.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. You gotta read your people magazine here too.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

And what happened is her her father died in 2014, and her mother had had a heart attack then in 2014, and then wasn't in great health, but was cognitively very with it and everything. And then just kind of had declining physical health. And she was struck by how lonely her mother was. And uh a death doula generally is embraced by the hospice world and so forth, and it basically is a companion. Uh those of you who've listened to the podcast before know that my wife is under home hospice, but we don't have anybody sitting around the house keeping company with her. I have somebody come in one day a week so I can run and and do chores. When my father-in-law, when Diane's dad uh was near the end of his life, there was a fellow who turned out to be a family friend. He just happened to also be a volunteer for this, but he used to sit at at his bedside reading scripture. My father-in-law's name was Bob, and he would go, Bob, he'd go, Why don't we today we'll we'll read Psalm 20 and Psalm 21. And he just he had a very pleasant voice, and but he just he was always somebody there. Nicole Kidman, she was concerned about her mother being lonely. Her mother died in Australia. Australia and New Zealand have a lot of problems with life issues down there. So there's a big mess there. What probably is getting more controversial with this, death doulas are not licensed. You get registered maybe or recognized as being a death doula, but it isn't like, you know, you can't do any of the work that a hospice nurse does. You can't dispense medication. But the right to die people are latching on to death doulas and saying, we're just going to make your transition easier by having somebody here with it. So there's a big conflict because the hospice people do not like assisted suicide. So it's going on, but leave it to a Hollywood actress to again bring another bioethical issue into the forefront, uh, get everybody talking.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, my my first reaction, not even on reading the article, just on seeing the headline, was like, oh, okay. I can imagine uh people near death saying, especially men near near death saying, ooh, I have the option of Nicole Kidman as my death doula? Okay, let's start this process as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

The CLR has a program that we created, and you can find it, and we'll put a link uh on the website called the Christian Support Network or CSN. And it was the idea behind it was that you created within your congregation just a visitor's network. The idea can came out of the fact that just as a pastor visiting a lot of shut-ins, loneliness is an issue. Okay. It's it's a real issue, especially if they've been widowed. So there is loneliness and neglect. They were part of a social circle and that has drifted apart. Then the other side of the coin, though, to remember is sometimes like like Diane, when I I finally got to the point where I could bring a caregiver into the house to just sit with her for four hours while I run and get groceries and stuff like that. Sh she qualified a year earlier for it, but she wouldn't want it. You know, she didn't want it, she didn't like other people in the house and so forth. You know, this is why if this came out of a congregation of people who just it could be as simple as sending out greeting cards and stuff like that and then expanding into, you know, I'm gonna come by once a month, and if you ever need to talk, let's just talk on the phone. Uh you know, when you have a Christian family, which is bigger than your biological family, you've got got the bandwidth to not be lonely.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, I mean, I think to me too, it just um it shows the I mean, especially like with the secular world too, there is this death is hard. And I mean it's hard for Christians too, like just watching somebody go through that process. And so I think there is this desire to, okay, how can we help, especially after you see a loved one go through it. I think like with my own family too, with um when my dad passed away, uh, because I was thinking, like, oh yeah, you know, just this whole death doula type of thing. I mean, really, like our death doula in a way was the pastor who came over. I mean, he was great. Like he I I mean, you guys, you know, as pastors, you know what you're doing on the the deathbed there too. And um, and I mean, he came with his red prayer book um and you know, just had a bunch of stuff, was just great with our family too, stayed, and it was just really I I mean, it was wonderful, honestly, to have that somebody who didn't feel like they just had to be rushed out of there. Um, and so I don't know, it just it it made me just kind of think like, oh, that was, you know, that was so wonderful for us. And I I mean, I can see like how the secular world would like something like that, like like having somebody there. Uh, I mean, of course, you know, for us it's sad because they're missing um just what is actually happening and dying and going to that, you know, if they didn't believe that separation from God. But but yeah, it it just it just made me think about that, like how the the secular world is trying to hold on to some of that.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah, this is like the third article within the last three weeks that I've read that was basically making the point you're making, Krista, that that people without religion, and particularly without Christianity, are seeking for the things that we have.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

But they're never going, you know, but but they're they're just refusing. No, no, we're not going that route. But we we want what you've got for the end of life or ending loneliness or whatever. And we have to sit back in the first place say, uh, we've got what you want right here, but also say you're never gonna get what we've got. You may get, you know, something it's a somewhat of an inferior copy of it, but you're never gonna get it the same way because it it's just not you can't have it without Christ.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

Going back to pitching that Christian support network, w when we originally created it, and we we met with a congregation, we piloted uh the program at one congregation. Now there's a couple of them that I know that use it. The idea was is that kind of our knee-jerk instinct has been to do preschool as a major outreach tool. But it's incredible the outreach that you can have on the elder community, those who are homebound and so forth. And where it becomes outreach is not just to your own members, but your own members network with people of their same age. You know, they'll they'll still talk to people on the phone and so forth. And then they would say, Boy, you know, we got twice a month, they come by here, uh, they bring communion, or they they come by and they just sit and visit for a couple hours, whatever it is. And somebody say, Boy, I wish I would have that. Well, there you go. There's your there's your bridge. And uh again, I would strongly recommend, you know, look in the show notes. Uh, we'll have the link there. And I just double checked this morning to make sure it can be downloaded. It's there.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

All right. That's great. Thanks, Bub.

Loneliness And Cognitive Decline Risk

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Well, it kind of going along a little bit with that too, um, because we have talked about loneliness. Um, there is uh an article that came out too on the role of loneliness in cognitive decline. And I believe this was talking about a six-year study that had happened. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_04 17:27

Well, the the problem is, and I guess I'm I'm learning this on a practical level, is that anecdotally, we experienced it in my own family when my when my father passed away almost a year ago to the day of this recording, when that happened, it completely cut like uh obliterated a primary social network for my mother and and for all of us. And a lot of people then kind of like bury themselves and and they'll they bury themselves into their own world and they'll say, Well, you know, I listen to music, you know, uh I still watch our shows that we always watched, and I do a little reading and stuff like that. There was a the story uh that was about how the people who begin to experience loneliness start showing cognitive decline. They become forgetful, more forgetful. And part of it is that they lose that interaction. Now, again, on an anecdotal level, as I'm observing that happening in my sphere of people working that I work with, their idea of reading is reading fiction. There's other studies out there that say that uh as you get older, one of the mistakes people do is they kind of, you know, I had to read a lot in my job, I don't read so much now. Well, not only should you keep reading, but you should actually be reading challenging material. Slipping into old age doesn't mean you you start reading fiction, stuff that doesn't challenge you, and not some fiction can be very challenging, but you know, you want something that causes you to think. And uh that that seems to be very important, but uh the lack of interaction with people is a big deal, which s uh feeds into that whole Christian support network again.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Yeah, it's just uh you know, so many things that you know there's talk, you know, there's a of of a loneliness epidemic in our society. And I I I think you know, m most of us can say, yeah, I I can see that. Um it's been exacerbated by social media where people are in contact with thousands of people every day, but at the same time, they don't really have anybody they can call a friend or to have a really deep, meaningful conversation with. And um, yeah, just as you age, to be without that, you you can see how that's gonna mess with your your mind and your ability to do things. So if you are of an age um and you find yourself feeling a little lonely, and maybe you're even saying, well, this is the way I like it, stop and think a little bit. Maybe make that extra effort to get out, to learn something new. Take a language class. That'll really challenge your brain and keep it working. Do something like that that's gonna keep you out there, keep you engaged, because that's gonna help keep you alive and keep you alert.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah. Good reminders.

Spaceflight And Human Fertility Limits

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Well, uh got a couple of interesting articles here on sperm that that Jeff had found.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

These weren't the only articles that I sent her. They were just the ones that Krista picked out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

I I did I'll admit I found them interesting. All right. So the first one here that we have is outer space conditions hamper sperm's ability to navigate toward an egg. Jeff, can you tell us a little bit about that and um also just why we would care about that too?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah, this was um I mean it was one of those things I saw the the headline of like, oh, that that's interesting. Scientists have done some studies to try to figure out what's gonna happen if human beings try to reproduce once they venture outside of Earth. This is gonna matter for um if if we colonize the moon, if we colonize Mars, or do anything with even further out space exploration where we try to have people living their lives in space and things like that. And they figured out, well, one of the things we need to figure out is if people are trying to reproduce, is that gonna work? Or how is it going to work? And the interesting thing is they've they found that it's going to be a challenge in um zero or very low gravity uh situations, because apparently the way God designed the sperm, gravity sends signals to the various sensors that that God has built in uh to that that that system, that if there is no gravity, they are confused, and so they they have much less uh likelihood of success in reaching the unfertilized egg in order to fertilize it. And it's just uh just fascinating. I mean, I I admit that my first thought when I saw the uh the the headline was what's been going on up there on the International Space Station that they're not telling us about But uh, you know, as a Christian, there are things here that we can uh really look at and say, wow, this really does reinforce the fact that we were made for the earth just as the earth was made for us. This is part of God's design, you know, that he didn't design us for anywhere else. There's there's nothing accidental or happenstance about the way we are and the way our bodies exist. And it also shows just the incredible design of God's system of reproduction. Because the things that they're identifying as this is what isn't working right in these these low gravity or zero gravity situations, just it's like it's down to the really detailed stuff that's not working right. And you're like, well, that that means that God engineered this with incredible precision that we're still only just beginning to figure out. That that uh male gamete, that's one of the tiniest uh of cells. And yet everything that is engineered into that to work in just the right way in order to carry the the male genetic information to the female uh reproductive cell, it's just mind-blowing. And we have an infinitely wise God who knew exactly what he was doing when he designed it. And it just this article is just another way to say it's like, wow, look what God did.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

Well, and if you crunch the numbers a little bit, you know, they're they're saying that it could be as high as 50% of the um the sperm just just loses its direction. It just doesn't know how to get where it was supposed to be going. And they say that it uh effectively results in a 30% drop in fertility. Now, remember that we uh are wrestling with fertility issues as a as a world. We had the population boom, you know, big thing. Now all of a sudden everyone's concerned over the fact that we got a shrinking population. I've first thing when I read the stories, I was thinking of Elon Musk, who's Elon Musk is very big into having big families, and he's also very big into space travel and everything. This is this is a challenge. I mean, this is a problem. But there's a second point that's that's equally challenging. It may not have been in the article that that got distributed, but in this research, and that is that the the problem with with diminished gravity, a change, a dramatic change in gravity, is that it negatively affects embryo uh development. And so we actually have deformities and so forth that are occurring. Uh so this is a this is an outright risk to uh unborn formed life, uh even once once any of the sperm reaches the egg.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Yeah. No, I mean uh it's honestly like just fascinating too that they're already doing that research and really looking into that um and everything.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

So And this is another case where where um science is following science fiction. You know, there are all sorts of different, you know, books, stories, movies, and things like that that have postulated this idea that if mankind did start going to the stars or even just within our own uh solar system, that people born and raised, human beings born and raised outside of Earth's gravity and and uh environment would be physiologically different. And yeah, it kind of fits.

Cannabis Use And Sperm DNA Changes

SPEAKER_01 25:25

So uh another article here on sperm as well is it's how cannabis can alter the DNA, I believe, in sperm. Can you tell us a little bit about that, Jeff?

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah, this is um it's not brand new, but the uh the X thread uh Twitter that um that I founded on was a new one. And it's just some very specific research showing how using marijuana messes and messes long term with the DNA of men's sperm. Uh, and this leads to uh miscarriages, um, you know, when there has been um you know fertilization and uh birth defects and such um you know aft after the case as well. It also just lowers the uh um the potency, shall we say. Uh it makes it just much less likely that there will be fertilization in the first place. And yeah, uh in a previous age, I I think that uh in our culture, I think this alone would have been enough to make a lot of men say, well, this is messing with my manlyhood. I'm I'm I'm not gonna do this. Men today are a little less focused on that idea of, you know, machismo and and all that. But um still it is something really serious. And if you happen to live in one of those uh one of the states or or any location where recreational marijuana use is uh is legal, this should be something that would concern you uh if you are gonna be in a situation where you are gonna want to father a child, um, or or even if you don't want to, where you might father a child. And uh it's interesting how this rise in marijuana use because of being made legal or whatever, is uh correlating with the lower fertility rates uh in the United States. I'm not saying there's a causation here, but it it is something that I think would be really interesting to look into. Um that uh it's not maybe it's not entirely a matter of the choices that people are making as far as when to have kids and things like that. It could also be that um it's not just women's fertility declines as they get get older, but it could also be that the men that they're with they've uh voluntarily given up some of their uh their fertility.

SPEAKER_04 27:39

It's interesting because it's kind of like if you were to tell everybody sex outside of marriage is not a good thing. You'll read all sorts of things on social media that say, well, that's really not proven. That's really not and that you're getting that a lot with the cannabis stories. To give you a little bit more of a scientific approach to it, Jeff touched on it a little bit. There's correlation and causation. Correlation means it's showing up enough that we probably should pay attention. And they haven't nailed down causation. But one one of the side side stories I read on it said, what's interesting is that if you have a an alcohol problem of which there is a causation uh related to birth defects and those kinds of things, that uh adding cannabis to that clearly is a problem. I mean, so you so there's enough correlation that that's what it's basically saying is that men should pay attention that there is a problem here. And um it would the only reason that we don't have the real strong scientific articles is because of what they call confounding data. Confounding data would be um you're a heavy uh cannabis user and you also smoke cigarettes and you drink bourbon. And then another confounded issue would be body mass. When you do field studies on these things, those of you who get driven crazy by going to the doctor and you get these long questionnaires, that's what studies look like. You know, is that they want to know everything about your eating habits and your weight and everything about your lifestyle and so forth, because those are all confounding elements. Because they don't want to declare cannabis use is bad for pregnancy when they find out later that those those are the same people who happen to be way underweight, or in other words, there's another causation factor. But every legitimate study clearly is saying there's there's enough smoke here to be fire someplace. Let's just put it that way. So we're not we're not interested in depriving anybody of the pleasure or the relaxation or whatever they think they're gonna get from recreational cannabis use, but understand that all the evidence so far is pointing towards a correlation that it's gonna affect your ability to father a child.

CRISPR And Down Syndrome Ethics

SPEAKER_01 30:05

All right. Uh Bob, can you tell us a little bit about this next article here at Down syndrome? I think they're using CRISPR, right? To try to identify the gene and and remove it. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_04 30:18

Right. They're using a modified version of CRISPR. CRISPR, just a quick summary, is the ability to basically remove a segment of DNA code and replace it. And where CRISPR's where it needs to be refined or modified, is what they say they're doing now that holds the promise of being curative for Down syndrome. And that is that they're able to more tightly control and proliferate the correction that they they believe that it's a what they call a proof of concept that this could work. Proof of concept is something that occurs uh there's generally three phases of field studies that are done on medication and treatment protocols uh for conditions. And phase one is kind of like uh we got this theory we're doing on animals. Phase two just basically is that that part of it where it's beginning to look really, really good, and then phase three is it gets to humans. And part of the phase two process is you come up with this proof of concept, and they feel that this new refined version of CRISPR can take it out. But it raises some very fascinating questions. You know, this is nothing new. I mean, they've they've talked for years about it's only a matter of time before we're able to fix this. And I've talked to parents, uh I we've had parents of children with Down syndrome speak at our convention and so forth, and I've talked to them and said, if if this came out, would you use it? And I've gotten some pretty adamant no's, you know, this is the way God gave us our child, this is the way we want to take them, and it raises some interesting questions. And uh, but it also raises those eugenic questions I I surfaced earlier, you know, like are you should you be obliged to use this? Because if you've got a Down syndrome diagnosis, chances are it's going to require more government programs to help care for you, especially as you get older and things of that sort. And then should should society say, we've got a cure, you should be using it. I think this is a bigger Pandora's box than we give it credit for, because now that we're into phase two, because I've I've read about this research when it was just you know inching its way into phase one. Now that we're into phase two, the question starts become starts to become real.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Some of these questions were already raised. I I don't know if kids still read this in school or whatever, but uh in school we read a story called Flowers for Algernon, and uh it's basically about somebody who's uh I don't know if he was uh had Down syndrome or not, or but he was definitely somebody who was not intellectually gifted who got this treatment and made him really smart. Then he found out that the mouse that had had the treatment beforehand was losing all of that, and then he had to deal with you know the knowledge that, oh, uh, looks like I'm going to be losing it too. It's a movie. Yeah. I mean, if they were able to pull this off, think of all the other genetically caused diseases and conditions and things like that that they'd also be able to uh to work with. And and Bob says it raises the question, okay, does this mean that we're obligated to do this? And I can certainly imagine that if if I had a uh had raised a child with Down syndrome as a parent, and this is the child that I I know, this is the one that I love, yeah. The thought that, okay, we can do this and we can make little Joey normal, but is that gonna change everything that I love best about Joey? You know, because I mean, obviously it's gonna change personality when you change abilities like this. But on the other hand, if you're able to do this uh shortly after birth, before the child has really grown up and evidenced that personality, your decision-making parameters are probably gonna be a little bit different, or if they're able to do it in the womb even.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Well, and what's interesting too, this is the proof of concept was referring to it as somatic research, which means that it just treats the patient. It doesn't, it won't go into the DNA line. So it it wouldn't be out of the question that a child, grandchild, great grandchild wouldn't be born with Down syndrome again. But that removes one ethical barrier, because that's always been we have always argued that you don't know how this is going to show up down the line. But I I do think that one of the most pivotal points, pivotal points of all ethics and bioethics research has to deal with the issue of where is the line between curative and enhancing? Because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that right now we're talking about curative. Uh you can bet that uh if you can do this with uh CRISPR technology today, what do you think you're gonna be able to do 50 years from now? And then it's enhancing. And then what if we don't enhance, but our our world enemies do enhance? Do we have an obligation to then enhance to fight to fight off the foes? Yeah, that kind of thing. It might be premature to weigh in whether we would do this or not, but personally I think what I would do if I had a child diagnosed with Down syndrome is for the sake of the child, I I probably would explore it. That child's going to live beyond me. And I want to give him or her the best possible chance to lead a full life to glorify God.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Yeah.

Wrap Up And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 35:44

All right. Well, that is all for today. Uh but we did cruise through quite a bit, so good job. And we thank all of our listeners for joining us. And if you have any questions on any of these articles, please reach us at lifechallenges.us. Thanks a lot. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast of Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us, or email us at podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christianliferesources.com. May God give you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge.