The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) are children. This case caused many to realize how little they know about IVF and the principles that drive the practice. Christians feel confused because their instinct is to celebrate anything that has to do with children and life. We will talk about the deeper worldview principles underneath the surface. Did you know that the “baby-making industry” kills more fertilized embryos than the baby-destroying industry each year in the United States? That's right, the IVF industry kills more babies than abortion does. Guest Katie Faust, sentinel of children's rights and president of Them Before Us, helps us tackle the complexities of how society's adult-centric desires impact voiceless children. She reminds us to put children's rights at the forefront of our cultural conversations. We will also ask if there is an ethical way for believers to participate in IVF.
The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) are children. This case caused many to realize how little they know about IVF and the principles that drive the practice. Christians feel confused because their instinct is to celebrate anything that has to do with children and life. We will talk about the deeper worldview principles underneath the surface. Did you know that the “baby-making industry” kills more fertilized embryos than the baby-destroying industry each year in the United States? That's right, the IVF industry kills more babies than abortion does. Guest Katie Faust, sentinel of children's rights and president of Them Before Us, helps us tackle the complexities of how society's adult-centric desires impact voiceless children. She reminds us to put children's rights at the forefront of our cultural conversations. We will also ask if there is an ethical way for believers to participate in IVF.
But when sex is God, children are always the mandatory sacrifice, because sex and babies go together. So if you believe that life begins at conception, you're talking about the baby-making industry destroying more embryonic lives than the baby-taking industry.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Well, welcome again everybody to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by my friends and co-workers, tim Williams, hey, tim, hey, dwight Vogt, luke Allen, and we are thrilled today to have as our guest Katie Faust. Katie is the president of a wonderful organization that I am just becoming familiar with. It's called them Before Us, and I want to encourage all of you to check them out. And that's really what we want to talk about with you today, katie. We want to talk about your work, what you're doing, I feel like.
Scott Allen:For me anyways, I'm incredibly pro-life, but the whole area of IVF, in vitro fertilization, surrogacy it's a little bit off to the periphery, so I'm so happy to have an opportunity with you to put it right in front of my face and our faces, and everyone else is going to listen to this. So that's what we're going to talk about today, but before we do, katie, why don't you just start by giving us your background? Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you come from, how you came to be doing what you're doing right now, etc. Go ahead.
Katy Faust:Yeah, it's so good to be with you guys. Thank you very much for letting me talk with your audience. I was not actually planning on doing any of this. My husband is a pastor and I was pretty content just being a stay-at-home mom with four kids. But then the culture went nuts. Culture went nuts.
Katy Faust:And I think that it sort of radicalized I think it radicalized a lot of ordinary people to start to get involved, because the far left went so far, so fast, that even grace givers like myself ended up becoming truth tellers and being willing to do things like you know lose friends for the sake of standing up and saying what is true. So I started writing on an anonymous blog in 2012 about why marriage is a matter of justice for children, and then I was outed by a very powerful gay blogger who, like doxxed members of my church to try to get me to shut up. And then it was sort of a what the enemy means for evil kind of thing, because it enlarged my platform like a hundredfold, like once I was writing under my own name, I could, you know, advocate at the United Nations and speak to members of parliament in Australia and submit amicus briefs to the Supreme Court and things like that. So then I just formalized my advocacy for children by forming a nonprofit called them Before Us in 2018.
Katy Faust:And the basic idea is, in matters of marriage and family, we always put children last, whether you're talking about the definition of marriage, or when you know, or when divorce is permissible, or reproductive technologies, or who has a quote unquote right to adopt? It's always the kids. They get the short end of the stick because they can't advocate for themselves, they cannot speak up, they can't defend their own rights. So the idea of them before us is we put them, the children, before us, the adults, in all matters of marriage and family. And you know your tagline here that ideas have consequences.
Katy Faust:As my friend John Stone Street often says, ideas have consequences.
Katy Faust:Bad ideas have victims and right now, in matters of marriage and family, children are being victimized in just about every way that you can be.
Katy Faust:Children are being victimized in just about every way that you can be, whether it's losing their right to life through a lot of these reproductive technologies, losing their right to be known and loved by their mother and father, through a lot of these legal and cultural shifts taking place in marriage and family, losing their right to be born free and not bought and sold through things like surrogacy. So what we try to do at them Before Us is represent the rights and well-being of children in any issue or any conversation that intersects with marriage and family, whether it's who goes on a birth certificate, whether or not cohabitation is a good idea, why adoption is an institution centered around children and not a delivery system for adults to get kids, for adults to get kids. So I always tell people like, give me enough time and I will trigger you too, because this is a worldview that demands that all adults, at some point in their life, sacrifice for kids, because the only alternative is for kids to sacrifice for adults, and that's an injustice.
Scott Allen:That's so powerful. You know the sexual revolution that we're really living through and hopefully on the tail end of, I mean, it's left just such a wasteland in our culture and around the world. And you're exactly right, it's children that have paid the huge price for this radical sexual revolution that we've gone through. Katie, are you in Seattle? Is that correct? Where are you located?
Katy Faust:Yeah, we live in Seattle. Belly of the beast, baby.
Scott Allen:Well, I'm from the Pacific Northwest, as is Luke, and we love this part of the country and have a real heart for it as well. So, anyways, I'm glad to hear that.
Katy Faust:I always tell people it's the most beautiful place in the country, run by the worst ideas ever. Well, and it didn't used to hear that, but I always tell people it's the most beautiful place in the country, run by the worst ideas ever.
Scott Allen:Well, and it didn't used to be that way, and I'm really hoping that we can see some change and it sounds like, with your help, we're going to as well. So tell us a little bit more about in vitro fertilization or IVF, surrogacy and just what's happening around all of that today, this kind of bigger picture, because I think for a lot of us, you know we have some awareness of it out the corner of our eye, but it's not as front and center as something like abortion or some of these other issues that we do care a lot about and are very involved in. And I know this is a huge issue. It's been in the news, of course, with some rulings in Alabama, but help us understand it more clearly and even define some terms, if you don't mind, yeah.
Katy Faust:Yeah, absolutely.
Katy Faust:I'm really glad you want to talk about this, because the truth is there is way too much moral confusion on the topic of reproductive technologies, even among Christians, even among conservatives.
Katy Faust:And it makes sense, because we have been fighting the baby-taking industry, of abortion for 50 years, because we love babies, and so I think that when a lot of us think about things like IVF, which means in vitro fertilization, it pretty much just means making babies in a petri dish, making babies in glass that's what IVF is or surrogacy, we think, well, this is just about babies and we love babies, and so this must be great.
Katy Faust:So it's very, very important for us to think critically about exactly what's going on here, because when we look at it and you know the truth is, when you look at any of these issues, even abortion, from the perspective of adults, then all kinds of things are permissible. If we're just looking at what adults want, and when you look at any of these issues, even abortion, from the perspective of adults, then all kinds of things are permissible. If we're just looking at what adults want and their feelings or their identity, or their struggles or longings or losses, you can justify doing anything you want with kids when it comes to both the baby-taking industry but also the baby-making industry.
Scott Allen:And it is an industry. I mean I want to underscore that. And you really helped me to see that. I mean, we're talking about a lot of money. Go ahead, Katie.
Katy Faust:Oh, these fertility doctors are some of the highest paid in all of the medical industry. Because this is generally elective and it's completely unregulated, it's incredibly lucrative. So whenever we fight, like commercial surrogacy bills, we are always fighting against the most well-moneyed, well-organized lobbyists because they are raking it in.
Katy Faust:They are raking it in. There's a center for bioethics and culture that put out a documentary a couple years ago called Hashtag Big Fertility, and that's just what I refer to it as. I mean, it is just a money-making machine, especially when you get to something like surrogacy, which is an absolute cash cow for these doctors and clinics. So what we're talking about with surrogacy and IVF is actually technology that in almost every case, violates the rights of children. So at them Before Us, we are primarily concerned with children's right to their mother and father, because that's sort of the lane that nobody else is doing. Thank God there's hundreds of organizations defending children's right to life. We really zone in on defending children's right to their mother and father.
Katy Faust:Biological parents yeah, yeah, but when you get to reproductive technologies, you have got to. Well, reproductive technologies violate a lot of children's right to their mother and father through things like sperm and egg quote unquote donation or surrogacy, but all these technologies highly threaten the rights children have to life, and so let me just put a few numbers out here for you. In 2020, abortion was responsible for about 750,000 deaths, like child deaths. Okay, ivf was responsible for about 900,000.
Katy Faust:So if you believe that life begins at conception, you're talking about the baby making industry destroying more embryonic lives than the baby taking industry every year. Now those babies have not been implanted and so maybe you know in your mind you're thinking well, you know no big deal, right? You're not talking about aborting a five-month-old or a seven-month-old, but if you believe life begins at conception and if humanity is indistinguishable from personhood and that rights begin at the moment that a new genetic code is created when sperm and egg come together, you're actually talking about a mass violation of human rights in IVF. So you know, you see and you know babies that are created through IVF, and every single one of them are precious and valuable and wonderful, but they're also just a fraction of the number of lab created babies that are actually born alive.
Scott Allen:That's what we don't see and that's part of what makes it morally confusing is because, you're right, we see these ones that are born precious little babies, but we don't see the ones that are thrown away like trash. That's exactly right. I read your article in the Federalist and we're going to link to that. I thought that article was just fabulous, katie, in terms of its clarity. It was for me very hard-hitting. Only 7% of lab-created babies are born alive 7% and it might be less than that.
Katy Faust:The thing is that we don't know, because Big Fertility does not have any requirements for tracking, screening or sharing what they do with these tiny little lives. But yeah, 7% is a pretty safe estimate. The 93% that you'll never meet are donated to research, graded and thawed and discarded, deemed to be the wrong sex or have the wrong eye color or hair color, or just simply are undesirable or unwanted or surplus, and then they spend forever in a freezer. So this is unfortunately, when you're talking about IVF, which is a huge part of surrogacy. You very rarely will have a surrogacy situation that does not involve IVF. What you're talking about is not a process that's responsible for babies. You're talking about a process of designer, disposable, discardable babies. That's really what big fertility is.
Scott Allen:Yeah, that whole element of designer babies too is something that needs to be kind of put in front of our faces here that people are making choices based on all of these kind of preferences. So in that sense it kind of the image that comes to my mind is a slave market where you've got somebody kind of checking out the teeth and the arms and everything else. You know, it's just that dehumanizing.
Katy Faust:But I want to talk a little bit too, scott, and let me just validate what you're saying. Ok, so you know, in 2019, virginia passed a commercial surrogacy bill, and with commercial surrogacy always comes all of these new fangled arrangements and ways to validate parenthood of very often unrelated adults that never went through any kind of screening or vetting or adoption or background checks. And when they made this change, when they legalized commercial surrogacy, they redefined well, they defined the status of the embryo and, for the first time since slavery, a category of people was defined as property, and it was in the context of IVF and surrogacy, and it was in the context of IVF and surrogacy, and so these little embryonic lives, they are consigned as objects to be swapped and traded by adults and purchased very often.
Scott Allen:So, yes, connection to slavery. The moral ethic behind abortion and this IVF is no different than slavery. It's that, you know, because it treats human beings as property to you know.
Katy Faust:That's right. And the way that we connect the dots between, you know, the baby making industry and the baby taking industry is that the reality is that they're two sides of the same child commodifying coin. You know, abortion says if a child is unwanted, I can violate their right to life and force them out of existence. And reproductive technologies say if a child is very wanted.
Katy Faust:I can violate some child's right to life, and maybe a child's right to their mother and father, and force them into existence. Both of them make determinations about the rights and well-being of children just based on what adults want, and so slavery and human trafficking is the proper comparison here.
Scott Allen:You know, I have two questions. First of all and I appreciate you're kind of going quickly on some of these questions just to get our heads around this but what is driving this right now? Is it you know we've is it Senso-Bergerfell? We have legalized same-sex marriage, is it, you know? Is that what's driving this right now largely, or is it just regular married couples male, female that can't have children?
Katy Faust:Give us a little bit of sense of that you know, intact understanding that, like marriage for example, is an institution centered around the well-being of children. When we go from that to where we are now, which is children as functional accessories, we at them Before Us say there's sort of three main drivers of that huge worldview shift cultural, legal and technological. So cultural you alluded to at the beginning, you know, which really started with the sexual revolution, and I would say the big cultural change is elevating adult feeling and sexual desire to the status of God right. This is the highest good that we can pursue, this is the most important thing, the thing that defines us, the thing to which everything must be sacrificed. But when sex is God, children are always the mandatory sacrifice because sex and babies go together. So culturally, I'd say that's one of the biggest shifts.
Katy Faust:Legally, we've seen a massive shift in the way we conceive of and understand marriage, away from, you know, what used to be the most child-friendly institution the world has ever known, because it united the two people to whom children have a natural right for life. We saw that starting to deconstruct in the late 60s and early 70s with the rise of no-fault divorce, which in essence communicated that this is no longer an institution centered around the well-being of children. It's really just a vehicle of adult fulfillment. And so that moved into the gay marriage debate where same-sex couples says, well, if this isn't about kids and it's just about adult fulfillment, being married to somebody of the same sex fulfills me. So you've got that legal change.
Katy Faust:And then you've got these rapid technological changes. That began with IVF for heterosexual couples moved into IVF using donors sperm and egg. Now we're into this epoch of renting out wombs and we're moving quickly into the world of artificial wombs, where we're going to be able to cut women out of the process altogether. So you've got these three major areas of culture and technology and law that all work together to reduce children to commodities, and then get the laws stamp and seal of the approval right on top of it. Oh gosh.
Scott Allen:Wow, it's changing so fast too, isn't it? Like you were saying, women are pretty soon going to have the ability to conceive children out, completely apart from a woman. Actually, it leads to my next question, because in your Federalist article and I should have the title of that article in front of me as I reference it here, Do you happen to it's probably the conservative, pro-life case against surrogacy. Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah, thank you. We'll link that to our podcast here. You said one of the most powerful ways that we can advocate, you know, for the rights of children in this whole you know area is by listening to their stories. Tell us a little bit more about that. I found that to be really powerful. I actually read a couple of these stories. What happens to children as they grow up, you know, but they don't know their biological mother or father. I mean, just tell us a little bit about how that affects them.
Katy Faust:Well, I think that we have so minimized and diminished the importance of biological bonds in the parent-child relationship, and I think that we're even guilty of this on the right, probably because we understand adoption to be a redemptive institution and we don't want to diminish or offend our friends who are adopted or who are adoptive parents.
Katy Faust:But that de-emphasis on the importance of biological bonds has actually paved the way for the normalization and acceptance of a lot of what's going on in big fertility right now, and I can say that as an adoptive mother and I used to be the assistant director at the largest Chinese adoption agency in the world, so I am pro-adoption.
Katy Faust:But the reality is that biology affords something to children that unrelated adults do not, and we boil that down into three different things at them Before Us. Number one is statistically, biological parents are the most connected to, invested in and protective of kids, and if you think that children should be safe and loved, then you think that children should be raised by their married biological mother and father whenever possible, because any other arrangement, including adoption, only increases risks of abuse and neglect. So we catalog the stories of them before us and at them before us, and you're going to if you go to our website, thembeforeuscom, or if you pick up our book, them Before Us why we Need a Global Children's Rights Movement, you're going to get dozens or hundreds of stories of kids who experienced increased risk of abuse and neglect or disconnectedness.
Scott Allen:Yeah, they just struggle with their identity. You know they have this deep longing to know this. You know woman whose egg gave me life, but I have no idea who it is.
Katy Faust:You know, yeah and that's the second aspect of what biology affords children that simply intending to parent doesn't, and that is only a child's own. Mother and father. Grant them what they crave, which is their biological identity. Grant them what they crave, which is their biological identity. It's very hard to answer the question who am I? If you cannot answer the question, whose am I? And sometimes kids are separated from their mother or father to tragedy. But right now what's going on, especially in reproductive technologies, is we are severing that connection intentionally and commercially, and then subjecting children to drastic identity crises and identity challenges because that's how adults want it.
Luke Allen:If you'd like to explore what a biblical worldview is and how you can begin the journey of transforming your mind to start seeing everything through biblical perspectives, we would encourage you to check out our free biblical worldview training course, the Kingdomizer Training Program, which is available at quorumdalecom and is also linked in the episode landing page. The Kingdomizer Training Program was created to help Christians live out their call to make disciples of all nations, starting with themselves and working out from there. I would recommend this course to any Christian who wants to stop living in a sacred-secular divide that limits their faith to only some areas of life, but instead it will help them to start to see everything quorum Deo, which means before the face of God, and to start connecting their passions and their calling to their faith. Begin to have an impact with Christ in your culture that, if it's anything like mine, is in desperate need for truth and purpose right now.
Scott Allen:Again, this course is completely free and available at CoramDalecom. Not that confusing, especially if we believe that life begins at conception, but still, somehow it seems to be more confusing and there's just a lot of you know. There's less kind of conviction morally on this question. Are there any times when those who can't have children and sincerely want to, is there any way that they can use IVF? That's not unethical.
Katy Faust:Well, it depends on what you mean by ethical. Honestly, is there a way that you can do it without violating any child's right to life or right to their mother and father? Yes, but that's pretty cost prohibitive and you're going to fight your doctor the whole way because they don't want you to do it in a way that's pro-life. They're going to encourage you to grade and select embryos based on their fitness and then discard or donate the rest to research.
Katy Faust:So I speak about this a lot and I speak at conferences and I do a lot of interviews and I've probably interacted with hundreds of people that have used IVF and I know six couples that have done it without freezing any embryos, without deselecting any embryos, Because what that means is extracting, immediately fertilizing and immediately implanting only the number of embryos you intend to use, without any kind of grading and without selectively reducing if you get too many or if they develop abnormally. That pathway is possible, but nobody does it.
Scott Allen:Nobody does it Because it's too expensive. It's too expensive?
Katy Faust:And then, if you do, is it ethical to make children in a laboratory to begin with? Is that simply dehumanizing in terms of just recognizing them as the Imago Dei that they are? And then on our website we've got a sheet called IVF harms to children, which talks about the drastically increased risk of things like cognitive disabilities and developmental disabilities. Because it looks like forcing children into existence through a petri dish guess, I would say, within the natural authority of your own biological system and making sure that you don't violate child's right to life or right to their mother and father, then you have to appeal to whatever supernatural authority you answer to, and you know, for me I would say biblically, just as a straight like Bible-thumping Protestant, you know, I'd say that the big meta-narrative of our faith is that in our world it's always the strong that sacrifice for the weak.
Katy Faust:We can never, ever allow the weak to sacrifice. We can never insist that the weak sacrifice for the strong. I mean Christ embodied that for us by being the strongest of all, sacrificing for the most weak and needy, and we're supposed to go and do likewise. So is creating a baby in a Petri dish a form of forcing the weak to sacrifice for the strong? So I'd say it's very dubious as to whether or not you can use these technologies to create children, and a better way is probably to say Lord, you know our longing, you know our heart.
Katy Faust:Can you find a creative solution for us to be the parents that we long to be in a way that honors the rights of children rather than victimizing them? Maybe that is through pursuing something like NAPRO technology, which seeks to resolve and identify the underlying fertility issues, so you are not dependent on a fertility doctor to get pregnant. Maybe it is conforming your life to a child that has lost their mother and father, even though it's going to be significantly harder. It is. It's harder to bring an older child into your home, but that is a very them-before-us approach. And maybe it's letting God use your mothering and fathering longings in ways that fortify the other children around you rather than having them in your home. But you know, making children sacrifice for you is the no-go zone for any Christian. So we have to think very clearly about whether or not we're insisting that children do hard things on our behalf, even if what we want is noble and God-given.
Scott Allen:Well, I'm really happy that you brought this around to kind of these first principles of worldview. That's very much what we deal with here at the Disciple Nations Alliance, and you mentioned two of them. You know the fact that human beings have this very precious and unique status, you know, in reality, as God's, you know image bearers imago Dei, as you said and so every human life, from the very moment of conception, it has immeasurable worth. Right, that's such a foundational pillar of what it means to live as a faithful Christian according to the biblical worldview. And then the other is and I really appreciate you bringing this one up is that, yeah, the strong sacrifice for the weak? I mean, this is very much what we see at the incarnation and the cross, and that's a radical idea. That radical idea has changed this world.
Dwight Vogt:It's interesting, katie. You made me think here because I was listening to a Discovery Institute podcast on the amazing intricacy of fertilization and how much it takes for one single sperm out of 20 billion or whatever it is, to get into the egg. And now we're just taking any sperm we want and it won't be the weakest link in that entire group in creating a child, and God has created it. So it's a pretty big endeavor and I'm thinking, wow, we're messing with that too.
Katy Faust:We're messing with so many things you want to talk about. We're messing with that too. You know we're messing with so many things. Uh, you know you want to talk about. We're messing with the gene pool. I mean, we've got some men that are fertilizing, that are having hundreds of offspring. I mean, like Genghis Khan did it, but like, and how many of us are related to Genghis Khan? A lot, and that's actually what we're doing right now with um, these prolific sperm donors, is it's our? Our species isn't really set up to have dozens or hundreds of half siblings, because once you work down a couple generations, you've got first, hundreds of that, well, 10s of 1000s of first and second cousins. I mean, like we really are adulterating the gene pool to through these processes.
Dwight Vogt:So I hadn't thought of that either.
Tim Williams:Katie, I'm. I'm just curious. You know, one of the things related to IVF and all of this big picture stuff and kind of a moment in our culture is this issue of delaying marriage and delaying childbirth, even within conservative Christian families. Would you like to speak to any of that?
Katy Faust:Oh yeah, we've absolutely lied to women about their bodies. That's one of the biggest things, right? And we started it, gosh, it started in the sexual revolution, right? You're not really equal unless you want everything that men want as it relates to home, career and sex. You know you need to be able to walk away just as easily from sex as he can, and so obviously that led to abortion.
Katy Faust:But then it also led to this sort of like viewing our own bodies as the enemy, because we much more easily and naturally attach the oxytocin levels in sex for us, are a lot more powerful and you know his testosterone will dampen the effects of oxytocin, that bonding connection but our estrogen levels heighten it. So at the end of sex we're much more likely to say we belong together forever, even if we never see the guy again, right? So now we've taken that those same lies into the world of like career and we've told young women like you're you don't need to align with the natural design of your body. Get your master's degree first. Establish your career. You can have babies in your 30s and your 40s, which is egregious.
Katy Faust:And you don't find out too late that actually you know what. You've got a biological clock and maybe you want to get pregnant when you're 36, but you're a geriatric pregnancy at this point. So we are totally lying to especially young women about what they can do. We're lying that that career matters more than marriage and family, because by the numbers and by the testimonies that's absolutely untrue. That women are happier, the most, the happiest people on the planet are married mothers and fathers with children. You know it is children and it is marriage. In fact, brad Wilcox just came out with a great new book called Get Married and he details all of this.
Katy Faust:Yeah, happiness factor off the charts. So personally, you know I have a daughter, that's about. I have one daughter in college. I wonder, daughter that's about to go to college, and I literally would not let her look at any colleges that had a male-female ratio greater than 60-40. Like it's hard to find a 50-50 college. But I was like you cannot go to, for example, grand Canyon University. It's 75% female. It is very, you know, if you're going to get married, this is the next four years. I'm not saying that, I'm trying. You know you've got to set them up for success and getting married and dating is hard. Yeah, friendship is hard.
Scott Allen:That'd be a whole other discussion. We could have Katie right now. Boy, that's an area we all have kids that are about your age and we're not all of us but we're with you, we're with you.
Katy Faust:You have to say your body is aligned for child rearing early and you can have it all in terms of marriage, career and family. But you have to do family first and we are lying to young women saying they can have career first and family later.
Scott Allen:Well, I just think you know. Back to the worldview you know kind of framing here. Yeah, the modern and postmodern worldview is materialistic. It doesn't believe in God and therefore it says that what it means to be human is essentially just matter that can be bought and sold and manipulated in any way that we want, or the powerful one right. If there is no God right, then it's ruled by the most powerful right, and the weakest are always the one who get the short end of the stick and have no voice. So we've just had to be so careful as Christians that we're not crossing lines and kind of operating in that materialistic, you know view of human beings that have. You know, we're not just dealing with matter here that we can manipulate at will. We're dealing with creations of God. So appreciate you bringing those worldview issues up, katie. We really appreciate your time with us today. How can people be involved in this issue? What charge would you give to our audience and to us in terms of how we can support them before us or just this issue more generally?
Katy Faust:You need to become an expert. That's the first thing I tell everybody is. The reality is that, on issues of marriage and family, I think a lot of us feel pretty equipped and pretty in the know about abortion, which is great, it's a great starting point, but we have got to think about marriage and family. If abortion is children's rights 1.0, marriage and family is children's rights 2.0. We need to have the same child-centric, child-dignifying mentality on both sides of the womb.
Katy Faust:And if we cannot do marriage and family, not only are we going to get struggling children, but we're going to have a society that collapses. Collapses like that is. We're actually kind of at a civilizational moment here in terms of our perception and understanding of what it means to be human, and then, especially, what it means to be a human child like. If we don't get that right, um, it's, it's, it's we're doomed, and so we are working very hard to take this um, child-centric message everywhere. We got a lot going on people. There's an awful lot going on over here, so I would just encourage you to become an expert. The book is the best way to do that, but for those of you guys that are like, ah boy, 350 pages.
Scott Allen:And I haven't even mentioned the book, forgive me, katie. The book has the same title as your organization, them Before Us why we Need a Global Children's right movement that, thankfully, you're starting to launch here. So, yeah, go ahead.
Katy Faust:That'll make you the expert Like you read that and nobody's going to be able to stand against you. You're going to have the studies, the stories, the talking points. You are going to be an advocate for children. We also, like in a couple of days, are going to debut a small group curriculum for churches where we actually have the book content in video form seven short sessions that deliver this with a Christian audience in mind.
Katy Faust:So almost everything we do, everything we do at them Before Us, is natural law-based, social, science-based. We've got this one lane where we specifically say we're going to pair evidence from God's world with evidence from God's word and say, in essence, protecting children is a mandate for Christians and God's design for sex and marriage is plan A for child protection, and we go through all these different marriage and family issues and layer scripture on top of it. So go to thembeforeuscom, subscribe to our newsletter that's coming out. We have something for Christian corporations on how they can protect children through their HR benefit packages. We've got a documentary that we're working on with focus on the family, major global documentary.
Katy Faust:We've got really exciting new legal endeavors where we are going to try to take back lost marriage ground and, as far as I know, we're the only organization in the country that is trying to carve back some of the some of the lost judicial and legal changes that have been made. So there's a lot going on over here and you should absolutely get on board. Stay in touch. Subscribe to our newsletter is the best way to do it, because over the next couple months there's going to be a lot you can get involved with.
Scott Allen:Okay, so we have our marching orders, everybody, we're going to go to thembeforeuscom and we're going to subscribe to the newsletter. Check out the book and the curriculum that you mentioned as well, Katie. That sounds fantastic so we can learn and we can do our part to fight back against this horrible injustice that's happening right now around the world. So, Katie, thanks for just being faithful to God and responding to His calling on your life, and we're grateful for you and we hope that we can stay in touch as well.
Katy Faust:Yeah, I hope so. Thanks so much for having me, scott and Dwight and Tim and Luke, and God bless you. God bless you as you continue to spread the truth about who God is and who we are because of who God is awesome, by the way, I will mention Katie.
Scott Allen:I am putting the finishing touches on a book that I'm writing right now called 10 words that transform culture, and I'm looking at how really powerful words have been redefined in the culture, to the point where a lot of Christians don't even know the true kind of biblical definitions. And I'm looking at the word human, the word marriage and the word sex, and so those all three relate very closely to what you're doing. The word marriage has been just so drastically redefined and, like you say, it went from being an institution that had children central to it and future generations to one. And, like you say, it went from being an institution that had children central to it and future generations to one, that, if you look at the definition of marriage in the Encarta kind of Microsoft online dictionary, children aren't even mentioned. Now Children have nothing to do with marriage anymore, and so, yeah, we cannot, as the Church, go along with these changing definitions. We have to keep marriage about children. I mean, it's not only about children, but it's primarily so.
Katy Faust:Anyways, Katie, yeah, if it's not about children, you've really forsaken—I mean, like God makes it about children. I mean that's what he says in Malachi. He's like why am I making the two one? I want godly offspring. God makes it about children. I mean, that's what he says in Malachi. He's like why am I making the two one? I want godly offspring.
Scott Allen:That's exactly right, god makes it about children.
Katy Faust:Yeah, I'm with you, man Scott, send me that book and I'll do some serious underlining.
Scott Allen:I will. It'll be out here shortly, but thanks for all of your work and God bless you. Katie, yeah, thanks for having me. All, right, and team, we're going to stick around and we're going to have kind of an after discussion here with Tim, luke and Dwight. So, anyways, we'll let Katie get back to her incredibly important work and then we'll just continue the discussion. So, katie, take care.
Katy Faust:God bless you. Thanks Katie, thanks Tia.
Scott Allen:Great, all right. Wow, that was powerful. I'm so glad that we could have Katie on today. Guys, I would just love to hear from you what did you hear? What kind of struck you? What are your takeaways? Who wants to start?
Luke Allen:Well, I thought that was fantastic. Yeah, I didn't know anything about this probably two years ago. Yeah, I heard the words, but that was it, and I'm very pro-life, but it just wasn't in my purview until I listened to a podcast that my wife recommended about a year ago, where she used that 7% statistic of only 7% of babies conceived and created in IVF live, and that shocked me and I was like, wow, we need to talk about this. This is the next, you know, front of the pro-life movement that needs to be addressed. We need to understand it and if Christians don't understand it, then you know, if the church isn't discipling the nation, the nation will disciple the church and we'll just fall in line. So I really liked her line that she was talking about when worldview shifts um, like we saw with the sexual revolution and like we've talked about before, um with you know darwin's theory of evolution that led to a new understanding of what it means to be human and then,
Luke Allen:um freud picked that up and then it was followed by Margaret Sanger and we have the entire sexual revolution and this, this rewriting of what it means to be human, and marriage and children and all of that. Um, when you have a worldview shift like that, she said, downstream from that you have cultural shifts, legal shifts and technological shifts. And, uh, I think a lot of times we look at it from, we see the legal shifts and we freak out like, oh my gosh, you know this is a very immoral law being passed, but we don't exactly understand or take a stance on so much technological shifts or cultural shifts. Those can kind of go under maybe the radar. So I thought this was a really good opportunity to look at a technological shift that's happened because of a redefinition of what it means to be human and a misunderstanding of what children are and what their rights are that are God-given. And the shift has already happened.
Luke Allen:I believe IVF's the first time it was used in the late 70s, so it's relatively recent. But we've got to keep up as Christians and we've got to say, okay, this is here. We need to understand this, we need to talk about this and we need to point to the better story or the biblical worldview, because all other stories lead to harm and destruction for humans and everyone else. Yeah, so that was a lot, but really enjoyed it.
Scott Allen:Great Luke, Thanks. How about you, Tim and Dwight? What did you guys hear? What did you take away?
Tim Williams:A couple of things. I mean I could underscore everything that's already been said, because it was so good and so informative. You know, I feel much more equipped now than I did 40 minutes ago.
Scott Allen:Me too, and I hope all of you listening do too. So, yeah, thanks, tim.
Tim Williams:So you know one thing we didn't talk about. We talked about it, but we just didn't say those words. But I mean, this is an issue of the most wealthy people on the planet. This is not, you know an issue, you know, because people can't afford it. This baby making industry, as she said, you know very expensive issue. So there's, there's.
Scott Allen:I mean she used. What did she say was was it was more than four figures, it was like six figures. You know the typical kind of procedure here. So yeah, yeah, go ahead, tim. You know the typical kind of procedure here. Yeah, go ahead, tim.
Tim Williams:So I mean just you know there's a socioeconomic divide in who is, you know, chasing after this and you know, and then also you know, like the distinction between, biblically, the commission is the priority of the family, but where we are in today's cultural moment is the family is a commodity. It is at my convenience, it's at my timing, it's in my way and, yeah, no wonder that children end up abused and neglected because we find that children don't do things our way and our timing, exactly the way we want them. We have to be of a mindset of self-sacrifice for this to truly become something of flourishing.
Scott Allen:It's really really good insights, tim. Yeah, thanks for sharing that, dwight. How about you?
Dwight Vogt:I think the same thing. Two things really jumped out at me as she was talking. One is, as Tim talked about, the commodification of children, and I'm thinking, when did that happen? Have we always looked at children that way? And I'm thinking, even when my wife and I got married, we were like, well, when are we going to have children? Because we could use birth control. And it's like, well, when are we going to do this? And it's like, immediately, you have this. Well, we're going to.
Dwight Vogt:I'm thinking it's a subtle shift where you start to go, though, these are my children, I'm not saying they're my children, but we knew they were image bearers of God from day one. But somehow you start to think, well, we decide when we have children and we decide if we'll have children. Anyway, the commodification of children and where that can lead. And the second one is just our. We just have never really thought about where life begins, where human life begins. And is that fertilized egg a human? Oh, that's just a fertilized egg. Well, the embryo is a human. Yeah, the embryo is a human, but I don't think we've gone back to. No, when the egg is fertilized, the spark of divine life, bingo, you have it.
Scott Allen:Yeah, everything is set up. Everything is set up. It's not touched. If it's not, you know, destroyed, it's going to become a human being. It is a human being. It's just a matter of growing. You know, everything is in place, everything we don't.
Dwight Vogt:We don't think that way and we should. I mean, we don't think consciously like that, I guess.
Scott Allen:Yeah, no, so then all at once.
Dwight Vogt:We're doing IVF and children are made in test tubes. And well, those aren't really children yet, because they're just, you know, test tubes.
Scott Allen:Yeah, that's one of the positives, I think, of the time we're in right now scientifically is that there's really not any debate anymore about when life begins.
Scott Allen:You know I think when for example, roe v Wade was being decided back in 1973, there was a lot of like unknowns about what was going on there. You know, inside the womb. But now we know right, very clearly, that you know that life begins at conception. That's not just a Christian kind of theological position, that's an absolutely scientific, biological position. So I think it's increasingly hard to argue any other way. Then you know, once we say life begins at conception, you have to be consistent as a Christian, because you know now we're talking about a human being. You know, and Christianity has no, there's no other worldview that has a high view of human life as Christianity, and we have to represent that, live that.
Dwight Vogt:Well, there's none other that believes that the human soul is planted in a person. I mean, I don't know when it develops, in Hinduism or Islam, but you know.
Scott Allen:Yeah.
Dwight Vogt:In conception. You have the soul Created by God in his image and in his eternity.
Scott Allen:You know immeasurable worth. Purpose as well. Every person has a purpose. I always love Elizabeth Heumann saying that, you know, we all are created for a purpose. I always love Elizabeth Heumann saying that we all are created for a purpose and there are no accidents. God doesn't create these accidents, but we have commodified people right and that's just. Yeah, that's the fruit, that's the consequence of a lie, this lie that there is no God, there is no human soul or spirit. We're just matter and therefore we can be manipulated at will. And I mean, it's such an evil lie and it's behind, you know, all that we're talking about today. It's also behind transhumanism. We haven't really talked a lot about that. But, boy, the fruit from that lie is really bad. There's a lot of really wicked fruit that's being born right now because of that lie.
Luke Allen:Ideas have consequences.
Tim Williams:The strong can modify the weak, and that's played out on the other end of life also. Where's the value for.
Scott Allen:Do you remember your idea? Go ahead.
Dwight Vogt:I just had one other point.
Dwight Vogt:As we were preparing for this podcast, or as I was thinking about talking to Katie, I thought well, what's the argument that you know, 900 million fertilized embryos are stored in either cold storage or they're, you know, discarded?
Dwight Vogt:Some people would argue well, lucky them, they didn't get to go through life and suffer and they kind of avoided this whole thing.
Dwight Vogt:And I thought it speaks to our own conviction and worldview, understanding just how precious life is. Maybe I'm saying the obvious, but this idea that God has put us here on this earth and he's given us the command to have dominion and rule and to love our neighbor and to somehow live out his purposes for as long as we can and as long as he gives us breath and God knows it's a fallen world and he goes, you know it's still worth it. Your life is so important in what you do, how you live, what you create, what you make. It's so important to me that don't let anybody take that from you and certainly don't deny that from anybody, in spite of the challenges we all face in a fallen world. So it's just, it's the value of that whole thing of living a life, you know, and living it in a way that the kingdom actually comes in part through your working, as God empowers you and lives through you. You know.
Scott Allen:I think you're saying something so important. That's so important. Yeah, we just can't forget, can't forget. We have to remind ourselves that you know how precious and how important every single life is, how many other lives are touched by that life, how much you know humans have this amazing creative potential and how we have the potential to literally leave the world better than we found, and I mean it's phenomenal what God has created with human beings. Yes, we're fallen and that's the source of all this evil. But, yeah, we just have to raise our view of what it means to be a human being constantly, because we live at a time in a culture where it's being just pushed down and minimized. People are just being treated as commodities, as trash. I mean, we're talking literally about throwing out trash here. These are human beings that are being frozen, but they're human beings that are being thrown away and property that can be bought, sold. Yes, right, and that's the other thing that, I think, is really it's so evil.
Scott Allen:Yeah, this one doesn't have the blue eyes or the genetic kind you know kind of disposition that I want and throw it away. Let's get another one, you know.
Dwight Vogt:I thought it was interesting Her idea that there's so many sperm donors that they're they're lowering the, they're adulterating the sperm pool Are they yeah, gene pool yeah. By all these half brothers and half sisters in the world.
Scott Allen:You know, no pool by all these half-brothers and half-sisters in the world. No, I think we're playing with fire here. I really feel like, when you're dealing with human life, I go back to the Garden of Eden, where Satan says you can be like God, you don't need God, you can be like God. But there are certain things that are really in the realm of God, and that one is you know this whole area of life bringing it about, you know. I mean, you know, got married to Kim. You know we have sex, but I sure didn't make that baby. You know what I'm saying. So it's really a holy ground.
Scott Allen:You know, and you know at the beginning of it, at the end of it and all the way through, and we are just dismissing that and saying, no, we'll take it over God, we know better. It's just so wrong.
Scott Allen:We got this, we got this no, we do not, and we have no idea of all the evil that's going to be unleashed to your point, dwight, when we start doing this. Guys, really great thoughts, thoughts, and just so blessed to be on the team with you guys and be able to kind of debrief some of these profound conversations. But I just want to remind our listeners again the organization is called them Before Us. I love the name of that organization and I just want you guys to become, as she said, katie said educated. Check out her book, look at the website. I'm speaking to myself here. Let's move this from the periphery to the center here and make this a bigger part. This is a justice issue fundamentally, and so we need to stand up for the rights of those who have no voice. That's part of our mandate, all right, well, thank you again for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Luke Allen:Thank you for joining us for this episode with Katie Faust. As you guys heard, I think many of us have some homework to do after this episode, so I would encourage you to join me in learning more about this critical justice issue of the unborn. As Katie mentioned, the best ways to learn more are by one, going to thembeforeuscom and signing up for their newsletter, which I'm sure will notify you when the small group video curriculum comes out that Katie told us about, and then to check out the book titled them Before Us, why we Need a Global Children's Rights Movement. You can also find those resources on the episode page, which is linked in the show notes, or you can just skip that step and google thembeforeuscom. As you heard in the commercial, our flagship training course here at the DNA is the Kingdomizer Training Program, which is available for you today for free at quorumdalecom. One of my favorite parts about that course is that it will equip you with the tools to start seeing every area of life through a biblical worldview, which is extremely helpful for when a new issue pops onto your radar and you're trying to discern the truth from the lies in it. A perfect example of this is today's reproductive technology discussion and how to know how to respond to it from a biblical standpoint.
Luke Allen:Ideas have Consequences is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, facebook, youtube or our website, which is disciplenationsorg. Thanks again for joining us and make sure to listen in next week for a very helpful discussion with our friend, dr Elizabeth Humans. As we look at how our world is constantly either creating words or redefining words faster than us, as Christians, can often keep up. So we ask the questions of which words should we be champions of? Which redefined words should we either try to reform or just simply reject? And then, lastly, which new words should we accept and which ones should we reject? Just to give you an example of a couple of those words that we talked about were words like truth, gender, marriage. The list goes on. So, again, I hope you find the time to listen to that discussion, as it was really helpful for all of us and I hope it is for you as well, and that episode will be out next Tuesday at 5 pm Pacific time here on Ideas have Consequences.