Is Surrogacy Worse Than The Gospel Coalition? | A discussion with Michael Coughlin

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Michael Coghlan as we answer the age -old question, is surrogacy worse than the gospel coalition?

So, in case you're wondering where that question came up with, it actually came from Michael.

So, if that question for some reason offends you, you know who to crucify tonight.

But it's a pretty funny question if you ask me, especially given the recent circumstances.

So, before we get started, Michael, thanks for coming back on the show. You've been on before and you're brave enough to decide to come on again.

Congratulations. Michael Coghlan Thank you. Yeah, the normally non -offensive Bible Bash podcast needs to add me to become offensive to people, huh?

Jared We bear no responsibility for this episode whatsoever. This is all my… Tim Yeah, we're using you as a shield.

You didn't know that, but we're using you as a shield tonight. Tim It's just, it's important that people understand that the timing of this episode, if you're listening to it much later, is the same week that the

Gospel Coalition published what was ultimately a somewhat sexually explicit article comparing even the

Lord's love for His church to a sex act. So, we were just kind of making fun of the

Gospel Coalition there, and I think you can read into where we're going to go tonight with surrogacy that we made that comparison, right?

Jared Yeah, you know, it is pretty funny given that article came out. I've seen pretty much everyone is upset about that article.

Obviously, conservative Christians are, but I've seen even a lot of liberal people in general be really frustrated by this article.

So, it seems like the Gospel Coalition has, you know, they've really started uniting everyone.

Like, it seems like they wanted to set out to do that. They're finally doing it. Tim Yeah, yeah.

Jared But, Michael, so, why don't we just start there with that title question, and then we'll let that kind of dictate the way the rest of this conversation goes.

What are your thoughts on this? In terms of surrogacy, is it worse than the Gospel Coalition?

Michael So, when we talk about surrogacy, there are a few different definitions that people might have, and Tim graciously put a couple in the chat that we can read at some point.

But generally speaking, I think when we want to talk about any way that we do things as humans, we want to first think about what's

God's actual design, and then we can start working out what are the definitions of all of the things that deviate from God's design in some way.

And then we can start to evaluate, are those deviations things that cause concern?

Do they describe outright sin, or does it delve into an area where at least we could say there's a lack of wisdom?

Because there's things that aren't part of God's design that we just have to live with as well, since it's part of the fall.

So, just because something's not exactly how God designed it doesn't automatically make it wrong.

But with surrogacy, where we want to start is the idea that God has made male and female,

He made man and woman to be in that covenant relationship of marriage for life, and for that to be where procreation occurs.

And so, when we think about what surrogacy is, surrogacy is always deviating from the one man and one woman in marriage doing the procreative act as part of their marriage covenant, and then

God blessing that by providing a child in the womb of the woman. Now, does that mean that every single time there's some deviation from that, that it's always wrong?

That's not what we're saying yet, but in particular, when we start to talk about surrogacy being a woman offering her body, or even if she somehow didn't, a woman being used so that her body can be a place for the gestation of a human being, that starts to call into question, well, where does wisdom take us?

Where does what the Bible actually says, where should we go with this kind of thing?

And so, Tim had the example of Abraham and Hagar, Tim, if you want to pop in on there.

Tim Dutton Well, yeah, you definitely have different types of surrogacy, and the more that technology is increasing, then these options are increasing as far as that goes, but there's different types of surrogacy.

Like, the concept of surrogacy in general, just for people who maybe aren't clear what surrogacy actually is, but like the idea of surrogacy in general is you're going to hire a woman essentially to have a child for you.

So, that's typical surrogacy is you're going to hire a woman to essentially have a child through some means, and we'll talk about different ways that this could come about.

But then you had an article though too that deviated from that in the sense that now, like a new wrinkle on that is not actually hiring a woman, but then using brain -dead women in order to be vessels for surrogacy too.

Maybe you could say a brief word about that, and then I'll talk about different categories. Pete Yeah, there was an article I found in the

World Magazine called, Surrogacy's Next Logical Step, and it's by Adeline Allen.

I'm not quite sure who she is, but her writing is very Christian.

I don't know anything about her personally though, but the subtitle of this article was

Deep Evil Comes Disguised as Technological Compromise, and the idea was that a philosophy professor from Norway recently made an argument in the

Journal of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, and the argument was women who are in persistent vegetative states or are brain -dead could be used as surrogates to gestate babies for commissioning parents.

And the idea is that they're not actually there anymore, and if they can define that person as, in some sense, not actually there in their personhood, then they could say, well, we don't really need their consent.

Now it's just a pound of flesh, and we're just using the warm body, which is really what surrogacy ultimately ends up being as well.

You know, one of the problems, and we'll probably get into more problems, but when you said you're hiring a woman, one of the problems ends up being that it becomes a way to really take advantage of the poor, and that's just a byproduct of what

I think is a bad idea. So that would be taking advantage of the poor, and then in the analogy of the brain -dead woman, that would be taking advantage essentially of a woman unable to make that choice, and maybe we could talk about some of the ethics related to that in general.

But then, like in general, surrogacy is just like the idea of hiring a woman essentially to have your baby, and then it can be done in different ways.

So, you know, you have what's called traditional surrogacy, and that could be done through natural or artificial insemination, and just giving those categories, like just trying to explain the categories, and then we'll get you to comment on some of these things.

But, you know, if you think about traditional surrogacy done through natural insemination, that's just essentially, you know,

Abraham -Hagar kind of situation. So, Sarah's unable to have a child, Abraham is, you know,

Abraham goes into Hagar at the request of Sarah, which is obviously not a bad idea, or not a good idea.

It's not a good idea. Pete Yeah, yeah, make that correction, please. Jared He goes into Hagar in order to obtain offspring for Sarah, and so, you know, that would be the earliest form of surrogacy would be

Abraham -Hagar kind of example, and that would be, you know, traditional surrogacy through natural insemination.

Now, you can, you know, a wrinkle on that is now we have the ability to do this through artificial insemination, and so that would be still, though, you're hiring a woman to have a child for a couple, and then instead of, you know, naturally making the baby as couples have done throughout history, you're basically, the man is just treated like a sperm donor to the woman, and the woman still then in that kind of arrangement is going to be the biological mother of the child, okay?

So, you have traditional surrogacy naturally done or artificially done, the mother being hired, the woman being hired is the, you know, biological mother, and then, you know, the other category, which is the one that's more common now, which is what's called gestational surrogacy, and that's going to be done through IVF, and, you know, basically what you have is you have a fertilized egg being implanted into the woman's uterus, and that woman is hired essentially to carry that baby to term, and she's not, you know, quote -unquote biologically connected to the child.

It's a, you know, it's a fertilized egg that's being – she's, you know, the person who's going to carry it, and I mean, you could do that, you know, through hiring her or maybe she's a, you know, a family member and trying to help you out or something like that, but that's the idea is that she's not biologically connected to the child.

So, in traditional surrogacy, the woman is the biological mother and gestational surrogacy is done through IVF.

And so, why don't we just go through this in order, Mike? So, what do you think? Traditional surrogacy?

Yes or no? Traditional surrogacy, natural insemination. So, Abraham Hagar, what do you think? Okay, I'm going to say no.

Is it worse than the Gospel Coalition? Well, that's our standard that we're holding everything to tonight.

All right, yes. I think it's clear from Scripture that, you know, that it's adultery is what ends up occurring in the case for that to even happen.

And so, we can never promote anything like that as Christians. All right.

So, worse than Gospel Coalition or better? I'd say it's worse.

He paused there for a second. I'm not for the Gospel Coalition. In fact, I question anybody that's been reading them since 2015.

What if you're reading them for the last? Yeah, that's a tough dilemma for him. You know, that guy's article that he wrote, he was actually trying to make a point that he made really, really poorly, but it certainly didn't involve adultery.

So, yeah, surrogacy in that case would be promoting adultery, and you could never advocate for that.

I don't know how, no matter how bad a couple wanted a child, I don't know how you could ever take what happened with Abraham and Hagar and say this was a model for you.

In fact, God pretty clearly didn't bless it. You know,

He really made it clear that this was a problem. It showed a lack of faith at the time.

Yeah, I mean, can you imagine what would happen if they would've just not done that? Like, you wouldn't have had all this conflict in the

Middle East for, like, years and years. Pete Sure. Jared Like, it seems like, you know, if there's any, you know, often narratives, they show you theology instead of telling you theology, and that would be an example of how you can see all the disastrous consequences that have come from that one act over the course of, like, history of the world, right?

That was just one of the worst decisions that ever happened. I mean, God obviously uses these for good, but, you know, it was a bad decision.

Pete But you can see how instantly Hagar hated her mistress. This immediately created a level of jealousy and division in this, you know, tribe, in a sense, that may or may not have been there before, but there's nothing,

I mean, even if Sarah was the one that came up with the idea, there's nothing like infidelity to really destroy people's relationship, to destroy their trust, it was…

Jared And Abraham shouldn't have went along with it. Pete No. Jared I mean, Abraham shouldn't have went along with it, he shouldn't have passively followed her and that, and then,

I mean, even, you know, Hagar, she looked upon Sarah with contempt immediately after that because,

I mean, there's something that, you know, like, hey, you know, my womb is working, yours isn't, right?

And so, you know, it seems like it's setting both, like, the enmity is both ways because -

Jared And your point is essentially it's because it's unnatural, is that right? Pete Well, it's not the way that God designed us to procreate, and it's adultery, and so in that situation it's really bad, but one of the things you see in that situation that I think is applicable to the entire discussion is that Abraham's choice that he made, and Sarah's, and really

Hagar too, although she may not have been quite as able to have said no as maybe

Abraham and Sarah could have, what it showed was just a lack of trust in what

God had promised and that God wants us to do things in a righteous way in order to work toward what

He has promised. And so, that becomes the issue, ultimately, is do we believe that God's way is not just, like, the best way, but the right way?

And that we don't need to take matters into our own hands to do things in a way that is outside of how

He has ordained that they should be, or we'll say decreed or said that they should be.

And when we start to think, oh, well, I've got a better way than God, a lot of times

He lets us somehow discover the technology to do things or the way to make things happen that we think

He needs our help with, and a lot of times what happens is we find out after the fact that wasn't the right way to do things.

Does that make sense? Jared Fair enough. All right, well, so you have traditional surrogacy done through natural insemination in that way, so there's

Abraham, Hagar. Now, just think of the same kind of scenario and then do it with artificial insemination.

So, Hagar is the woman being hired to bear the offspring of Abraham and quote -unquote

Sarah at that point, but then it's not technically adultery in the same way because it's not like a physical act in that way.

She's just, you know, Abraham essentially is going to be the sperm donor, you know, it's going to be done artificial insemination, not natural insemination.

What's the reaction? What do you got? Pete Better or worse than it is you see? Jared My initial reaction is that that one is a little harder to just come right out and say, hey, it's wrong, okay?

Some of these are clearly there's wrong things involved in such a way that this one's harder.

But still, I'm going to say, especially if you're a Christian, who's going to actually be the people that draw the lines here?

Who in society is going to say, no, we're not going to cross this line into what ultimately amounts to sort of playing

God? And so, I'm going to say no, Christians shouldn't do it. I'm going to have less ability to say because for sure there was adultery involved, although any time there's artificial insemination, there's something that has to happen to create the donation.

And in traditional IVF, in traditional in vitro fertilization, where there's just anonymous sperm donors, there's a ton of sin happening, all of which is a violation of the

Seventh Commandment. And so, in this specific case, maybe it's a little bit of a...

Pete How's here? I was going to say, maybe it's a little less of a clear line in this case, but I would go beyond that, and we probably won't get into this whole discussion, but I would go beyond it to the, we need to avoid that industry in general.

Sure. I think one of the things about it that is difficult to imagine is that, you know, in the case of, like, okay, there's the adultery component to it, right?

Yes. And so, that component may not be present so much in, like, artificial insemination, traditional surrogacy, okay?

So, there may not be the adultery component, but then, like, the major problem that sticks out to me is that, like, this woman is still the biological mother of this child.

And then, like, this biological mother of this child is going to be separated from her child via contract, right?

Yes. Like, via, like, financial contract, like, so essentially, she's going to, like, have to turn off all of those motherly instincts that she has, right?

To care for this baby that is part, you know, her biological contribution, right?

And she's going to essentially have to turn that all off. So, I mean, I think there's, like, a variety of things that I can imagine that are problems that are related to that.

Some of those are even the same problems that you may see in the Abraham -Sarah scenario, but do you have any thoughts about, like, that aspect of it, like, the woman being separated from her offspring through this, you know, adultery, non -adultery kind of thing?

Pete Yeah, there was actually a pretty well -publicized case that happened sometime in the past year, maybe it was just among abortion abolitionist groups that I'm in, where there was a woman who was a

Christian woman who was offering herself as a surrogate to a couple. And she thought she was doing something good by helping provide a child to this couple that wanted one.

And it wasn't the situation you brought up. She was the actual surrogate and it wasn't her child. But the couple decided they didn't want the baby and ordered her to have an abortion.

And she did it. And her reasoning was that she didn't have any choice.

It was their child to do with what they wanted, which becomes really interesting with the My Body, My Choice group.

David She did it or didn't? Pete She did it. David Oh, she did. Pete This was a woman that professed to be a Christian that went to an abortion clinic and had her baby, you know, ripped out of her womb or burned to death or whatever procedure was done because the couple that was paying her, who were the real parents, they got to make the decisions.

And I think that when we start to get into these situations, the idea that you would lack that motherly instinct of any child that was in your care, whether it was yours or not, is a big problem.

But I'll agree with you that it's probably unwise. My argument would be less, oh, that's absolutely wrong.

There's no possible way that could ever be done in an ethical way. But my argument would be more along the lines of if you are a

Christian and you trust that God is the one who's deciding your life.

If you're a Christian and you're following Christ, you've signed up for suffering.

David Right? Like you've signed up for, I could get killed for this. I could go to prison for this.

I'm going to suffer for Christ in order to be glorified with Christ. That's from Romans 8.

And if I've signed up for some level of suffering, maybe, just maybe, your suffering is infertility, which would be not an uncommon suffering with women, even from Scripture and since the

Scripture has been completed. And maybe God is giving you the infertility for the purpose of you seeking to do things the way

He would have you do them, which, you know, I'm not a signs and wonders person, but if there was ever, to me, a sign to someone that you should adopt, it's infertility.

That doesn't mean you don't try things. And it doesn't mean there's no compassion for people that struggle with that.

But I think that God actually gifts people with infertility to draw them closer to His Son, conform them to His image, and I think in many cases, lead them with that love for children and the desire to have a child, to adopt a child that desperately needs a family, rather than insisting on trying to effectively create a child with their

DNA. Petey You know, so, Michael, just to kind of push on what you're saying a little bit so I can hear what your response would be, they're probably going to,

I imagine there will probably be some people who hear what you're saying and then they say, okay, well, what about cancer, for example?

What's the difference between the two? I mean, couldn't we just say the same exact thing that we should, you know, if you find out you have cancer, don't go get the radiation therapy or whatever the doctor is telling you to get to treat it, don't go get it removed somehow.

The cancer is actually a test that God is giving you, you know, to sanctify you, basically.

So, in your mind, is there a difference between those two scenarios in some way, or what would your response be to that kind of person?

Michael Yeah, that's a great question, and that's actually the concept I was thinking of as I was trying to answer and say that it's really hard to be black and white and say just no, no, no, it's sin automatically, but what

I would say becomes different is if I go to whatever is my cancer treatment, if I take ibuprofen, right,

I don't, you know, I'm not saying if you have a headache, trust God and don't take ibuprofen. There's things we can do.

God's given us medicines. He's given us ways to accomplish some of these things.

For me to go to an IVF clinic where advanced reproductive technologies occur, where in vitro fertilization occurs, for me to go to one of these places for a service,

I am willingly submitting myself to an industry that is almost 100 % murdering children daily.

So the same doctor, if we can call the person that, who's going to be artificially doing whatever it is

I'm asking him to do that I think I'm doing ethically, he's going to walk down the hall and he's going to take some little image bearers of God and he's going to destroy them.

He's going to take a few other ones and he's going to donate them to science to be tested on and then some more because the parents have a little bit of a conscience about it.

He's going to freeze them so that they'll never be born, but they'll just be stuck in this like frozen prison.

And I can't advocate that a Christian could be a part of something like that. So in the same sense that people might, like if you owned a slave today, we'd say, man, you wouldn't want to be a part of that.

I think that's the same concept. We don't want to participate at all in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather we expose them.

Jared That's interesting you bring up the slave concept because there is a part of this that is somewhat like that.

And so, like in different scenarios, Harrison, you brought up the idea of what's the difference between getting cancer treatment and doing some sort of surrogacy arrangement and one of the distinctions

Michael is making is he's making it as it relates to just tying yourself to an evil industry.

But then there's also something else you can think about too as it relates to this topic in that like in traditional medicine, you're actually fixing a problem, right?

So you're fixing a problem. So like, you know, if you have cancer, you know, supposedly what you're doing is you're curing the cancer by removing the cancer.

You're fixing the problem. You're restoring some sort of function. Now in like in what's called traditional surrogacy done through artificial insemination, you're not actually fixing a problem, right?

It's just kind of a workaround that does involve slavery in the way that Michael is talking about.

So you have like two different stances. You have the traditional one and then you have the gestational one.

But then in the traditional realm, you're not actually fixing a problem. So what I mean is like, so in that arrangement, the woman is going to be the biological mother of the child and the husband is essentially going to be the sperm donor to this other woman.

And then what's happening there is you're not restoring like the function of the wife's lack of pregnancy in the same way that like with a cancer treatment, you would be fixing a biological problem.

You're not actually fixing it. You're asking someone else to do the job for you. You see what I'm saying? But then in that arrangement, she's selling her child as a slave to you, right?

So like, she's selling her child as a slave to you. Now if you move out of that realm into gestational surrogacy, in that way, then the husband and wife's fertilized egg is going to be implanted into this woman, right?

But you're still not restoring function in the same way that like cancer is supposed to be fixing a problem.

What you're doing is you're asking someone else to do the job that you can't do for you, right?

And then in doing that, then you're creating all sorts of ethical problems. And some of those ethical problems are the problems that Mike has mentioned.

So let's move into the realm of gestational surrogacy, which is done through IVF, where a husband's wife fertilized egg or eggs or whatever is being treated to, given over to another woman to basically deliver them.

What are some of the problems you see beyond the ones that you mentioned? Or maybe you can reiterate the ones you've mentioned and just talk about what are the problems with IVF in general that you see?

And why is that a bad solution to the problem of childlessness as you see it?

Yeah. So one of the first problems is that IVF isn't done.

It's not like when somebody gets their wife pregnant and one of the sperms made it to the egg and that's that.

This is a situation where traditionally what will happen is through several cycles, the people in the

IVF clinic are fertilizing multiple eggs. So they are in effect, we'll say, creating multiple human beings.

Since we believe that fertilization is the point when a person becomes a person.

This is why it's important that we define life that way. If you define life at implantation, then

IVF clinics are doing nothing wrong. They're doing the equivalent of mixing vinegar and baking soda and just seeing what happens, but they're using different elements or substances.

And so I would say the first problem is you end up in a situation where you're intentionally creating life so that you can kill those lives or freeze them for an indefinite period of time, which

I think is also equally unethical. Maybe somewhat preferable to just murdering them outright.

I don't know which of those I'd actually say is worse. So I think you want to avoid that situation entirely.

So when you get the person that says, okay, my wife and I are going to create the donations in an ethical way without violating any commandments.

And then we're going to tell the doctor that we want all the embryos that possibly get fertilized.

We want them all implanted and we're going to take all of them. First of all, you're trusting a person whose job it is to provide you with the product you're trying to purchase to not hide from you the ones that he considered to be defective.

Like it's just not going to happen. It's why we don't regulate abortion. It's why we call for abolition of it and criminalization, because we don't trust the actual people that are willing to murder children for money to then tell the truth that they followed all the regulations.

So traditionally, what will happen is these embryos get fertilized. The embryos are fertilized.

So the eggs get fertilized and embryos are created. And then there's ways that they can test to see, hey, does this thing have

Down syndrome? Does this have some other abnormality? And then they can selectively decide, even by gender, which ones to destroy, which ones to just freeze, which ones are probably not likely to be viable.

And nobody's going to pay $20 ,000 to a clinic and then be told, well, it didn't work.

And so to me, I think you're getting into a situation where there's just so much wrong with it that you can't involve yourself in it.

Now, somebody could argue, well, a lot of cancer places are doing bad things. Well, maybe they are, but we don't know all that for sure.

And their intention isn't, we're trying to murder some of the people in order to make money off of the ones we keep.

And so I think that couples should avoid it entirely. And if you're going to want to be a part of an industry that tries to figure out this technology, there needs to be the

Christian version of it where, for example, snowflake adoption, which is where you take a baby that somebody else created and froze and a person that wants children goes and says, okay,

I'll go through all the difficulty of the actual gestation and figuring out if this baby will even live and all this stuff to try to give this baby life.

And there are Christians who have gone and adopted what's called a snowflake baby, where they take a baby out of the cryogenic freezer and they actually put them in a woman's womb and then they raise them as their own child and adopt them.

Now, that's a picture of the gospel right there. You know, I mentioned it right before we started recording, but I wanted to bring it up again just for everyone listening.

I read an article recently about, I think it was Paris Hilton. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was

Paris Hilton. And the article was basically saying that she had gone through the

IVF process a few different times and she was looking for a very specific combination of genders for all of her children.

I don't remember if it was like two girls and one boy or one boy and two girls or something like that.

Jared She wanted twins, twins that are a boy and a girl. And so, she ended up having like 20 fertilized eggs that are just on ice now because she hasn't gotten the combination that she wanted.

And so, reading that was very off -putting. It was very much like, this feels unnatural in every single way possible.

Like, sure, you can talk about the hypothetical, you know, what about this situation or that situation, but just reading about what she was doing was like, what are we even talking about at this point?

Jared What's funny about this, Harrison, is I'm reading an article on it right now because I pulled it up, and their major concern with her is that this is a procedure that can cost upwards to $12 ,000.

And by her doing it so many times in order to get the specific combination, this is showing great insensitivity towards those who are struggling with infertility who can't afford this kind of procedure.

Harrison That's what people are worried about with this. Jared That's what they're worried about, how insensitive it is to the people who can't afford it, that she would waste so much money on this.

Harrison That ought to show you that our society is perfectly fine at identifying the most pressing moral issue in any sort of situation like this.

That's certainly a comfort for me to hear that, then. Jared What do you think,

Mike? Do you think that… Mike And what's horrific about it is that this is so normal to us. Like, we should be on the floor about this.

We should be like Daniel praying that the Lord would forgive our nation, and to us, it's just normal.

I mean, a hundred years ago, this would have been something they would have made a movie about, and people would have said, no, no one would even watch that.

It's too horrific. And to us, it's like, yeah, I guess it makes sense.

And so, I just think that's horrific what she's done. And if there's 12 frozen embryos, that's 12 of your neighbors, my neighbors, who we've been commanded to love that are just sitting in a freezer.

Pete Yeah, who are never going to hear the gospel, who are born into sin, and they're never going to have anyone, well,

I mean, they're going to miss out on so many things. They're going to miss out on having parents that would ideally care about them and provide for their needs and raise them up, right?

They're never going to learn about who God is. They're never going to have a chance at living a life that is pursuing glorifying

God, right? And so, there's so many things, all in the name of, in this situation at least, all in the name of having a specific, you know, like pick out the children that I want in a catalog, kind of like you're a kid coming up on Christmas and your parents give you the catalog.

I mean, that's basically the same situation, right? Well, and if when they do an

IVF cycle, if they, you know, the numbers could be different, but if they go with like trying for 15 or so to try to get one or three good ones, the 12 frozen children of Paris Hilton right now is really more like 180, maybe, that have already been destroyed.

Where something successful happened from a fertilization standpoint, but well, it just wasn't what we were looking for.

This one didn't grow as fast as this one. So, we'll just destroy those. And that's, it's a huge problem.

And if we would want to tell Christians, you know, hey, don't, you know, don't boycott something, right?

You want to boycott, like if there was anything to boycott, it would be the IVF industry and the abortion industry.

Like, I'll tell you right now, and this will get me in trouble too. If Christians stopped getting abortions, I don't think we'd have much of an industry in our country.

Like, we're a country filled with professing Christians that do

IVF and go to abortion clinics. Watch any of the videos, especially of the abortion ministers in the

South. It's all Christians that show up at these clinics that aren't getting abortions. And they say things like,

I'm forgiven already, and like all sorts of stuff. I mean, it's just, it's horrific what they're doing.

And I wouldn't want to go get a tooth pulled that was hurt by a person I knew was a child murderer or a child rapist or a child molester.

So, why would I go to an IVF clinic where I know they're destroying children to participate in anything there?

I wouldn't want to get a drink of water from them. Jared So, isn't it, Michael, a contradiction to say that, you know, this is how people respond to what you're saying, essentially.

So, you know, as Christians, we're, you know, all about having babies and we think that God's obviously, you know, told

Christians to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And then, you know, there's the dink problem out there, the double income, no kid kind of problem where, you know, couples just get married and, you know, get a dog instead of having kids.

Pete And call it a kid. Jared And call it a kid. They call it their precious, you know, beloved fur baby or whatever. And so, like, now,

I mean, that's obviously a problem that I think the church needs to be pushing back on in a wide variety of ways, but then, you know, if you're doing that and you're saying, hey, you know, you need to be having kids, isn't, you know, what you're saying essentially, like, rude and insensitive and unloving to the infertile couples out there who are unable to have kids?

And, you know, if there's a chance for them to have kids, isn't it, you know, aren't they just kind of doing what you're telling them to do, which is to be fruitful and multiply and, you know, like, why would you stand in the way of their opportunity to have a child at that point?

So, isn't there some kind of, this is, you know, the pushback, isn't there some kind of double standard there, like, make up your mind, you know, are you about having kids or aren't you, you know?

Pete Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And the people who've been offended already, I hope they're still listening because it's a good question and it's deserving of some treatment.

Michael, not to cut you off or anything, but normally the people who disagree with us aren't very good at listening to begin with.

Pete Okay, I've read the comments on YouTube. So, well, but I mean, if there's a genuine

Christian couple out there that's struggling with infertility and they were offended early in this,

I am genuinely sorry because we have, you know, and I can speak for both of you guys, we have great compassion for any couple that is having trouble with fertility.

And as a biblical counselor and pastor, I know Tim's probably dealt with this on multiple occasions and he's prepared to continue to for his life.

And so, we want people to understand that we know that there's hurt.

And that's why what we do is we promote the God of comfort. And we lead you to the

God who's able to comfort you in all of your distresses and afflictions the one who is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

And we lead you toward Him so that in all ways by faith, if you follow

Him, you are at least on the right track, whether or not

He blesses you with fertility or not. And my response would be that the idea of being fruitful and multiply, you know, is correct, but you can be fruitful and multiply and have the fruit of the womb, a reward to you through other means such as adoption.

And I think that you can be a godly parent of adopted children and still be somewhat fulfilled.

And I would challenge somebody who, that there is such a thing as we'll say like idolatry of your own genetic children.

That the desire to have children is a very wonderful and good desire. And the desire to have your own children and to carry a baby in your womb, which

I can't understand as I'm a man, it's a very good desire that God gives women. And Scripture is filled with women who are just despondent because they can't have children.

And I think it's a normal feeling. But I think we have to be able to differentiate between, do

I really just want kids with my DNA so bad that I'm willing to go into a certain type of situation that we're telling you you shouldn't?

I mean, would you go to Satan for IVF? Most people say, well, no, I wouldn't go to Satan. It's like, well, what about going to his children?

Yeah, yeah. How close to like genuinely just Satan do you want to be, you know, in that situation?

Now we live in a cursed world. We're always going to, you know, I go to the store and buy milk and somebody that's getting the money

I bought milk is maybe doing something evil with it. I get that there's always going to be something evil in this world.

I understand that there's going to be some levels of separation we'll have from it and we'll be connected.

But the industry of IVF is an industry of death. There's nothing that God condemns more clearly in Scripture than cultures that are cultures of death.

Pete Yeah, especially with their little ones. Gary Yeah, that is what he condemns, especially, yeah, the children, right?

And we are, I mean, we put ancient Israel to shame in the

United States in the wrong direction in that we're killing way more children way more efficiently than they are.

And we found ways to do it that are less bloody. And we found ways to do it where it seems more sanitary and we'll say less barbaric.

And we're proud of ourselves for that rather than repenting of it. Pete Well, and shouldn't another comfort be when it comes to the, you know, hey, we need to be fruitful and multiply.

Shouldn't there be some comfort in knowing that a command like that is not given as if, you know,

I and my wife need to fulfill the command all on our own, right?

It's a command given to all of humankind. And then, you know, because we live in a fallen world, because we're living under the curse of sin, there are going to be people who, you know,

God makes barren. And those people aren't necessarily going to be held accountable to being fruitful and multiplying in the same way that, you know,

I might be, right? I mean, isn't there some comfort? I know it's not like the greatest comfort in the world, especially knowing the

Bible says things like, you know, the barren womb is never satisfied. So, obviously, the

Bible is telling us that, hey, you know, being barren is generally a negative thing that brings a lot of heartache with it.

But then there should be at least some sort of, like, you know, hey, you're not being unfaithful.

Jared You're not in a perpetual state of sin just because you're unable to have a child. Jared And a lot of people need to hear that.

Pete Yes. Jared I mean, I think there's like two, you have like the command to be fruitful and multiply and that's, you know, essentially fill the world up full of people.

And then you have the Great Commission, which is fill the world up full of disciples and those are two tasks that are beyond any individual

Christians that we should all be essentially doing our part. And, you know, there is, you know, there's a lot of stories, like as it relates to barrenness, there's a lot of stories of barrenness in the

Bible. And it's really kind of a prominent feature in the Old Covenant narratives when you think about it.

I mean, almost all the wives of the patriarchs are barren. Then you have like, I mean, you have good examples and bad examples too, you know, so you have like, the

Sarah example seems to be a bad example of that. You have, you know, the Rachel and Leah, their birthing competitions and, you know,

Rachel essentially saying, give me children lest I die. And at first she can't have children. So she's asking him to go into her maid to obtain children from her and Leah's doing the same thing going to her maid.

But then in contrast to that, you have someone like Hannah who, like certainly she felt the loss of infertility and, but then she submitted that desire to God, right?

So she submitted that desire to God and she let God deal with it and then she felt comfort in knowing that she had prayed to the

Lord and asked him for his will in that way. And I think that a lot of, like part of what you're saying

Harrison is that there has to be some sort of comfort in the knowledge that, you know, if God tells you to be fruitful and multiply and he won't let you, he's not holding it against you.

But then there also is the knowledge that he's given you another commission to do too. So there's more to life than simply just having children and that's, you know, you're now free like to devote yourself to, you know, adopting as Michael was saying and also the

Great Commission too. I mean, you have another task to do that you can devote yourself to that might provide certain freedoms there as well.

But do you have any thoughts related to that, Michael? Michael Sviggum And both of the commissions that you referenced, the Be Fruitful and Multiply, which

I think was pre -fall and at that point in time there should have been no infertility. And then also you have the

Great Commission, Go and Make Disciples of All Nations. In both cases, as you said, it's our job to do our part and then trust

God with the results. And so I think that that is the exhortation here is to trust

God with the results. And when you were talking about good and bad examples from Christians, or from Scripture, I thought about Elizabeth and John the

Baptist being, you know, such a great man of God and he was the result of a barren woman who was granted a baby later in life with Zechariah.

Pete It's amazing how many of those stories there are. Michael Sviggum Yeah, it's a very normal thing in a fallen world for people to have various health struggles, fertility being one of them.

And I think that whenever we're trying to make a decision, we need to ask ourselves like,

A, am I going to violate, at least clearly violate one of God's commands that He's given in this act?

So, you know, am I going to commit adultery in order to do this? Am I going to be a party to murder by doing this?

And then am I being unfaithful to the ways God has ordained for me to do things or said that I should do things?

And then maybe secondary to that is, you know, can I even trust the people that are supposedly helping me not to murder?

You know, one of the things we tell Christians is not to take certain birth control pills.

Because they act as abortifacients and because if you actually take certain birth control pills, they don't prevent fertilization, they prevent implantation.

So, you actually get pregnant, have a living child in your womb or in your body, and then you end up destroying the baby yourself with your pill that you took.

And so, we tell Christians, hey, don't take it at all. Because you don't want to even accidentally, when you didn't intend to murder a child, do so.

And so, I think that if we could exhort people, hey, you want to be closer to holiness and farther away from these worldly things to do them.

Getting back to the cancer analogy, I had one other thought on that one was, if you had cancer and you said you were going to go to your friend who has a

Ouija board and is able to summon spirits that he's proven to cure cancer, I'd probably say, yeah, no, you shouldn't do that.

Even if you could say it was proven to work, I'd say, no, that's not a method that God has allowed for us to go and try to do that type of healing.

He's given us methods that make sense and that are in accord with what is legal according to his demands.

So, we're coming right up on, I think, about 50 minutes right here, and so,

I wanted to go ahead and ask you, since we haven't technically answered the question, is

IVF worse than the Gospel Coalition? But I wanted to do this one a little bit different,

Michael. So, we've already asked that question twice now, and I wanted to make this one maybe a little more difficult for you.

So, instead of asking, is IVF worse than the Gospel Coalition?

Rather, what I wanted to ask is, is IVF worse than being the one who actually writes the

Jesus having sex with the church article and then refusing to apologize for it in any way?

Which one is worse, in your opinion? IVF or writing the

Jesus having sex with the church article? Michael Sviggum I'm going to say

IVF is worse. Darrell Bock That's probably the right answer. Michael Sviggum I don't know this guy, and he may have had some good intentions.

I don't really know him. I just thought it was, I thought that was horrific.

And then I could, but I guess I look at that like, if he wasn't a pastor,

I might say, hey, you know, Christians can make a mistake and say something kind of dumb.

I'm a little disappointed that he's considered a pastor and that actually is aligned with what the

Gospel Coalition, you know, wanted to publish. It's not like it slipped through the cracks, okay? It's not like, you know, all the editors were off that week.

That was intentional. And the whole backlash was intentional. I think it's all planned. This is just to get the buzz going to sell his book eventually and things that they're going to do.

But IVF, just generally speaking, straight up murder. It's just straight up murder of children.

And I'll take a guy living next door to me who writes stupid articles once in a while over a child molester or a child murderer any day.

Yeah, absolutely. Tim, is there anything else that you want to add in closing? No, I think

I'm good. Okay. All right. Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation then.

You know, I know a lot of people personally who have gone through, you know, some form of barrenness or at least, you know, minimum, just it being really difficult to have children.

And it takes them a while to eventually get there. And, you know, by God's grace, he has actually allowed them to have children.

But it definitely took a lot of work. And it was very much a very emotional sort of journey to go through just dealing with, you know, are we actually going to have kids or not?

And so I sympathize a lot with this. And, you know, and the crazy thing is some of them have legitimately considered some form of surrogacy as an answer to it.

Now, thankfully, you know, none of them that I, as far as I know, have ever went through with it. It just became this, you know, what do we do with this option?

You know, is this actually an option? We need to think through this. And, you know, so I know a lot of people who have had to think through this thing and, you know, as science advances, as we gain the ability to do more and more, you know, we do have to start asking ourselves, hey, is this actually something that, you know, morally and ethically we should be doing?

And I think you're right, Michael. I think as Christians, we should probably be the people out in the forefront championing, you know, the

Bible as our moral guide with these kinds of things. And so, hopefully, everyone out there listening, this has given you a lot to think through.

And maybe even some of you listening are the people who are actually considering some form of surrogacy.

You know, you're asking yourself, hey, how does this line up with the Bible? And so, hopefully, God uses this conversation as a means to help inform you guys about how

God thinks about these things, about what He's told us is right and wrong. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, what's more important than even having children is obeying

God, right? And calling good what God calls good and calling evil what

God calls evil. And so, we need to be constantly searching the scriptures, asking God to reveal what is righteous to us and what is unrighteous to us, and then aligning our lives with that no matter what it means.

No matter what sort of trials that we might face, no matter what sort of persecution we might face.

So, Michael, we really appreciate you coming on and joining us for this conversation and talking through, you know, this issue that can really be emotionally charged in a lot of ways.

And, you know, we especially thank you for being our shield to protect us from all of the flak that we might possibly get for this episode.

Yeah, I know you guys are so sensitive to all that. Can I recommend Dusty's book?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. So, just, you know, if you want pastoral help with this, first of all, talk to Tim, not me or Harrison.

He's good at this stuff. But also, if you go to rescuethose .com,

just spelled rescuethose .com, and if you click on resources, there's a few books there.

But one of them is called Loving Your IVF Neighbor, In Vitro Fertilization, Assisted Reproductive Technologies, and Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself.

And it's a pastoral little, it's just a little booklet. It's free.

You just tell them you want one, they'll send you a bunch. And it'll walk through a lot.

And a lot of the things I said tonight were just straight out of there, just the same thinking. And that's a pastoral way of trying to exhort

Christians exactly as you just did, but with a little more detail to help people think through IVF if they want.

Pete Right. Michael And that's by Dusty Devers, and he's on Twitter and stuff if anybody wants to find him.

Pete Okay, all right. Well, thank you, Michael, for putting that out there for everyone. So, if you're interested, yeah, go and check that out.

Again, like always, we want to thank you guys for listening to us, for supporting us week in and week out, interacting with us online.

We really appreciate that stuff, and it's really encouraging to hear a lot of your stories and hear the questions that you guys have for us that you ask privately and publicly.

So, we want to thank all you guys, and we look forward to having you on the next one. Transcribed by https://otter .ai

Transcribed by https://otter .ai