April 9, 2024 Show with Laura Klassen AND John Speed on “In Vitro Fertilization & the Questions of Biblical Ethics & Morality”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this ninth day of April, 2024.

And I'm thrilled to have two guests on today, one a first -time guest and one a returning guest to discuss a matter over which

I have never dedicated a full two hours to discuss in my memory anyway, which doesn't mean much at 62 years of age.

But from what I can remember, I've never dedicated a full two hours to in vitro fertilization and the questions of biblical ethics and morality, and I am glad that I have the opportunity to do so today.

And we have on the program to discuss this very important issue, first -time guest

Laura Claussen. She is an anti -abortion activist, an actor, and founder and director of Choice 42.

And first of all, let me welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Laura Claussen.

Hi, thanks so much for having me. And by the way, is it Claussen? I should have asked you this before we went on the air.

No, I meant Claussen. So it is Claussen? It is. Okay, I pronounced it correctly.

And before I introduce my second guest, why don't you tell us about Choice 42 when

I understand that there is actually a fuller name to that ministry?

Right. So it's Choice 42. So it is an anti -abortion

Christian organization based in Canada, and we are now operating almost worldwide, and we do two different things.

On the one hand, we are creating awareness for different issues relating to pre -born children, and we do that through a lot of videos that we've done.

We've had a lot of videos go viral online and that kind of thing. And the other half of what we do is we connect one -on -one with women who are considering abortion, women who have abortions booked, and we talk with them and we try to plead for their babies' lives.

And if we're able to help save the child, then we are able to offer the mom financial assistance that she might need.

Yeah, and so that's pretty much Choice 42 in a nutshell. It's written Choice 42, but pronounced

Choice 4 -2, meaning the woman is making a choice, but she's making it for two people, herself and her child.

Yes, and that explains why you use the term or the word choice, because that may strike panic in the hearts and minds of many of our listeners who may wrongly quickly jump to the conclusion that you are so -called pro -choice.

That's right. Well, it actually gets us through a lot of doors that would have been closed to us, especially here in Canada, where if we came out and said, if we had a name that was blatantly anti -abortion, then we'd be in trouble.

So this choice has been working nicely for us. Yeah, if you want to really have a lot of success in Canada, you might want to think about a website,

IHateWhitePeople .com or something like that. It's true. And since you're a first -time guest, in a moment, we're going to have you give your salvation testimony, at least a brief summary of that.

But before we do that, let me welcome back to the program, a returning guest, John Speed, who is an elder and pastor of missions and evangelism for By the

Word Baptist Church of Azle, Texas, and he's public relations director for Choice42 .com.

It's great to have you back on the show, John. It's great to be back on the show.

And why don't you tell us about By the Word Baptist Church of Azle, Texas.

Well, we're a church that is a Reformed Baptist church. We were in the

Southern Baptist Convention, but we left that a few years ago. And yeah, we're a small country church that, by God's grace, we've been able to do a lot of different things with missions and evangelism.

We do a lot in Mexico and Central America with some pastors, just kind of doing conferences there, weekly

Zoom call with, I don't know, 15 or 20 pastors there. And we do a lot of street evangelism locally.

We've done a lot of abortion clinic ministry. They sent me to Syracuse, New York, to plant the church,

Christ is King Baptist Church up there. And now I'm doing

IVF clinic ministry in Tarrant County in the Fort Worth area. By the way,

I have to be honest with you, and this will probably confirm in your mind,

I knew this guy, Chris Arnson, was a moron. But when you first contacted me and said, hey, do you want to discuss the controversies involving

IVF, I thought you were talking about the encroachment of liberalism into inter -varsity fellowship.

I really did. Because I know that, for instance, right near where I'm sitting, about a five -minute walk, maybe even less,

Dickinson College, which is a huge, prestigious college right here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

They have an IVF inter -varsity fellowship campus ministry.

And I just recently, tragically, found out that they support

Side B Christianity, which for those unfamiliar with that term, as I was until I recently organized a debate between Dr.

James R. White and Dr. Gregory Coles on the theme, is it biblically appropriate for a

Christian to identify as a gay Christian, which the latter, Dr.

Gregory Coles, defended that position since he identifies himself as a gay Christian, although a celibate one.

But that is the official position of at least this campus fellowship. And apparently, you can't have the view that homosexuality, even in the desire, even if it's not acted upon physically, that you have to repent of that as well, that it is not a natural desire.

Apparently, inter -varsity fellowship, at least a local campus ministry here, is opposed to that traditional biblical view and has been taken over by this leftist understanding.

Of course, they would deny that because they still say homosexuality, when physically consummated, is a sin.

And they would even say lust is a sin. But they make a non -existent differentiation between same -sex attraction and lust.

So anyway, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about today. But I just thought you'd get a kick out of what

I thought originally, when you contacted me, we'd be discussing. But providentially, it's not about that, because as I said in the opening,

I've never discussed for a full two hours in vitro fertilization and how

Bible -believing and biblically obedient Christians should respond to this.

And before we do that, as I said earlier, we're going to have Laura, who is a first -time guest,

Laura Claussen. She's going to be providing for us a summary of her salvation testimony, as we always do with first -time guests here.

Providing an idea of what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which you were raised, what kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved him—saved you. So I would love to hear your story.

Oh, sure. Yeah, so I was born into a Christian family, very blessed to have that happen.

And I was taught, you know, I was taught the Gospel my whole life, and I became a

Christian very early. And I was baptized very early as a child, and I have just continued walking with the

Lord since then. So it's not a very exciting story full of strife or anything like that.

Definitely, I, you know, leaned on my faith throughout the many trials of life.

But I was just very fortunate to be born into a Christian home. And I grew up in a

Baptist church. And yeah, that is pretty much that.

And it was the pastor there who—yeah, he was the pastor through most of my childhood.

He is the one that I came to with this crazy idea of Choice for Two, however many years ago.

Choice for Two started eight years ago. So I came with him to the idea—with the idea. And fortunately, he was just very open and encouraging about it.

And really, because of that conversation, that is where this whole organization came from.

So I'm assuming from your salvation testimony that you are one of these folks, and it's always a reason to rejoice when you hear about this, because it's not,

I don't think, the common story—well, it might be more common than I think—but that you were raised in the faith and God had mercy upon you and preserved you to the point where you don't even remember a time when you were in rebellion against Christ.

I'm not saying that you were born sinless. Obviously, that would be a heresy. But you obviously must have been born again by God's mercy at some young stage in your life where you don't recall ever being a rebel and not in love with Jesus Christ.

That's true. That's a really good way of putting it. Okay. And also, we're not going to get too specific about Laura Clawson's personal life, because she's actually received death threats because of her ministry with choice42 .com.

Do you care to mention anything about that further? Sure, yeah.

It's very hostile, as it is in the United States. Here in Canada, abortion is very celebrated.

So if you step out against that, the reaction to it is just vile. I expected it to be a nasty response in general, but I didn't expect that.

Very specific things I've had online, in writing even—I know the person that said it—things like,

I'm going to come and find you and douse you in gasoline and light the match. Wow. Yep.

I had one guy tell me that he would behead me, which was kind of an interesting one.

And this is all because they are so infatuated— Pro -women. And also, perhaps, infanticide.

They love infanticide so much, I'm assuming. That's right. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

So really—and of course, lots of rape threats, you know. Let's see what happens if you get pregnant from rape, then you'll be the one needing an abortion, so they say.

You don't think these are coming from, like, just idiot teenagers or anything like that?

No. I mean, some are, but most of those were adult men.

And when I took it to the police, they said, nothing can be done until something happens.

And if something happens, then you have the evidence to back it up. And I was like, well, if I'm beheaded,

I mean, this post on Facebook. That's insane. Yeah.

So if I live in Canada and I call up a Black family and say,

I'm going to come to your home and burn a cross on your lawn, I doubt that the police would say, oh, there's nothing we can do about that.

Oh yeah, you'd be in jail. It's a complete double standard. And I'm aware of it. And so I'm very cautious in details that I give out publicly.

You know, I've had a couple people so dedicated to trying and, like, get me or whatever.

They've gone after other Laura Clawson's in the country and tried to get them fired.

There was one schoolteacher at West and I feel really bad for her, Laura Clawson.

And they came after her. And I mean, we look nothing alike. So yeah, they and they were trying to get her fired.

Now, does she have the same worldview as you? I don't know anything about her.

I just I found her and I saw what she looked like. And we look very different. So I mean, her boss didn't go for it that she's me or anything like that.

Wow, that's a nightmare. Yeah, the only death threats I've ever had were from my own elders.

But I'm only kidding. But well, we praise

God for your testimony and we praise God for the work you're doing. And instead of interrupting either of you mid -sentence,

I'm going to go to our first commercial break right now. And then when we can come back, we're going to have

Laura Clawson give us more of a detailed description of what goes on medically with in vitro fertilization.

And perhaps if you have questions about that, if you're totally ignorant about that, or at least very ignorant about that, feel free to send in a question to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us the first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

And then after that, we are going to have John Speed give the reasons theologically and biblically why

Christians should find this morally repugnant and why we should believe biblical ethics are being violated.

So once again, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence.

And your country of residence, if you live outside of the USA. And only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And we will grant your request to remain anonymous in those cases because we realize a topic like in vitro fertilization would very likely evoke questions from our audience that involve very intensely personal and private matters.

So feel free to do that. But please, if it's a general question, give us your first name, at least city and state of residence and country of residence.

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We are now back with my guest today, Laura Claussen and also

John Speed with choice42 .com. We are talking about in vitro fertilization and the questions that arise regarding biblical ethics and morality when it comes to Christians seeking to be obedient—and all

Christians should be, obviously. If you could, Laura, give us an overview technically of what is actually going on in the procedure of in vitro fertilization.

What exactly does that phrase even mean, and what is going on technically and medically during such a process?

Okay, so in vitro fertilization in vitro really means in glass.

So what's basically happening is human beings are being created in glass instead of in a woman's body.

So the reason that I even got IVF on my radar was because as I was doing my anti -abortion things online, one of our followers who is pro -choice made this comment a couple years ago.

If you guys, you know, care so much about babies who are being aborted at these young ages even, like you're against the abortion pill, if you care about these lives, then why aren't you at the

IVF clinic also caring about those lives and doing something about the murder happening there?

And she was saying that, you know, sarcastically. And I was thinking, well, because that's not the same thing at all.

But then I realized I didn't know actually how IVF worked. All I knew was that the church that I grew up in, a lot of people did

IVF, and it was just a completely normal thing. And a lot of my friends are people who were created through IVF.

And so I never questioned it. And so after this person made that comment, I went and I looked into it and I realized that she was right.

And if we believe that life begins at fertilization, which is when life begins, then we cannot support

IVF because so many, way, way more human beings are being killed through the process than are created.

I believe the stat, correct me if I'm wrong, John, I think it was 7 % of embryos that are created are actually born as babies.

Wow. You know, what you said reminded me years ago when

Chris Matthews was still on either CNN or MSNBC, I can't remember which station he was on, the notorious, infamous leftist

Chris Matthews. He was interviewing an anti -abortion activist who was making the point that from the moment of conception, human life exists in the womb of a mother.

And he challenged that pro -lifer, just as that other pro -choicer challenged you, or pro -infanticide individual challenged you,

Chris Matthews said, if you believe it's murder, why don't you believe in prosecuting the women who are getting abortions?

He was doing that to shame the guest. And sadly, the pro -life advocate didn't even acknowledge the question.

But it reminded me of that. Right. Okay, so I started looking into it, and I realized,

I don't know, I, someone who's been, you know, spending years of my life fighting for babies,

I don't have a clue how IVF actually works. So I looked into it, and this is why we ended up releasing the

Build a Baby video that we put out last year, because it's on IVF, and it explains it.

So basically, what happens is, the woman and the man, or any combination of people, or a single person, anyone who wants a child, but is struggling for whatever reason to have a child, can go and look into IVF.

And if you are someone who has eggs, they'll test your eggs and see if your eggs are good.

If you're someone who has sperm, they'll test your sperm, and they'll see if that's good. And if you're missing an ingredient, if you're a single woman, and you don't have sperm, then you can go and select sperm from a sperm bank, and you choose, you know, what you want, what features you want this child to have.

Okay, so, but say that you're, say you're a heterosexual couple going in, and you're experiencing infertility, and you want to undergo

IVF. What will happen is, they'll give the woman lots of medication, lots and lots of hormone shots over a period of weeks, and that's all leading up to egg retrieval day.

On egg retrieval day, after she's taken all these hormones, her body has been manipulated into releasing multiple eggs at one time.

Usually, you know, a monthly cycle, you'll release one egg, maybe two, but so they trick the body into releasing a whole bunch, and she goes in for a surgery, and the eggs are collected.

Then the man has to have his sperm collected, and how is that done?

That's done in the sperm collection room, which is a room that is full of porn, and he goes in, and he gives his sample into the cup, and he comes out, and then the doctors or scientists, or whatever you want to call them, they will, the medical professionals, will inject the sperm into the egg in a dish.

So, this is where in vitro comes from. It happens in a dish, and then they will transfer one, maybe two, of these embryos back into the woman, which

I should, I mean, on all of these steps, you can go down such rabbit holes, but if you are a couple, and you don't have a woman, you can then rent a womb, essentially, through surrogacy.

So, you will be paired with a woman who, you know, your embryos will then be put into, and the remaining embryos will be frozen.

And so, hopefully, the embryo takes and implants into the woman, and, you know, the end goal being that resulting in a live birth of a child.

A lot of the time, it doesn't work, and this is why there are so many, you'll hear people say, you know,

I had to do five or six cycles of IVF before we got a baby, and it costs, it's so expensive, it costs between,

I think, $15 ,000 and $30 ,000 per cycle. So, your embryos there, your extras, remain frozen, and should you need them for, you know, another cycle, and they can be thawed out at any point, but most do not survive the thawing process.

And you pay a fee to keep your frozen embryos frozen for years, because even people who are, you know, they have the family they wanted, they got the children they wanted, they don't want anymore, they've still got these other human beings frozen in freezers who they're paying monthly for.

So, what happens at the end of all of this is they have to decide, okay, are we going to try and transfer these embryos, or are we going to allow someone else to adopt our embryos, which is the whole embryo adoption thing, or are we going to stop paying the fee and our embryos will be thrown into the garbage, or, which people are encouraged to do now, is to donate them to science, because, you know, then you feel good, like you're doing something to further the cause of IVF, and you're helping, and you're giving a gift, and you're giving back.

So, that is kind of a very basic overview.

And like I said, you can just go down rabbit trails at every stage, especially, like, with the exploitation of surrogates in other countries, and just how badly they are treated.

That's a whole situation. And then the eugenics, ah, that is what

I forgot to mention, is that all of the embryos, when they're first created, they're tested, and they're graded.

And if they don't make the grade, they are discarded immediately, and the parents probably wouldn't even be told about them.

They would just be killed immediately. And so, their screening for any genetic issues, such as Down syndrome, anything like that, they will just kill those embryos.

They do not want to implant imperfect embryos. And then, if, you know how,

I mean, just within a normal pregnancy, sometimes a woman's egg can split, and she'll get twins.

That can happen as well. And if more than one embryo implants, or if a splitting happens, and there are multiples, then they will perform selective reduction, which is where they abort the undesired extra babies that are alive and growing in the woman.

So, the whole process just has death from the beginning all the way through until the end.

And once I realized all that goes on, it was very clear to me that IVF is immoral, and that we can't support it if we believe life begins at conception, at fertilization,

I should say. And before I move on to John with some theological thoughts, when you said that you were a member of a church where it was very common for couples to get involved with in vitro fertilization because they were having problems conceiving, did the elders know this?

Did the recognize that this was really very little different from abortion, that human life is being allowed to die, which is really the same thing as murder?

And tell us more about that. Were these people ever educated about the truth later on, and so on?

They've been educated now since my video, which has made my relationship very awkward with a lot of people, but I can't say for sure because I haven't talked to all of them about it, and I was, you know, a baby when this was happening.

But I think they probably did not understand all that comes from IVF.

I think they just thought this is an amazing way to, quote, work with God to create a child.

And even a lot of pro -lifers today and Christians today see IVF as a pro -life thing to do because you're creating life.

They don't understand that you're killing far, far, far more human beings than are being created.

And so, no, I'm guessing they didn't fully understand it, and I have talked to some people from the church who were, you know, involved with counseling people to do

IVF at the time, and they see the inconsistency,

I think, in what they're saying, but they will not say that they were wrong to do it.

And I think that that is driven—they tell me, like, you didn't see the heartbreak of infertility for these people.

Like, you didn't see that and you haven't experienced it, and that is why all of this is okay, even though I think they truly do understand now and believe that it is wrong.

They just haven't gotten to the point of actually admitting it yet. Okay. John, tell us about more of the theological implications about biblical ethics and morality surrounding this.

Sure. Well, like you heard in what Laura was talking about, it starts off with the sperm collection.

I mean, you're, in a lot of cases, you're looking at porn in order to collect it, and so even on a very baseline level, you're, you know, obviously you're looking with lust and you're getting the sperm that way.

I've heard people try to justify that in various ways, say, well, no, I didn't, I didn't do that.

I didn't use porn. I didn't think lustful thoughts or whatever. I guess that's between them and God, but we all know what

Jesus taught about looking with lust, so that's— How about the excuse—have you ever heard the excuse,

I was contemplating my own wife? Sure, and maybe they were,

I guess, but I doubt it, honestly.

I mean, just human flesh being what it is, human nature being what it is, I doubt it. But the biggest issue, as I think about it, is the fact that because of the enormous loss of human life throughout every stage of IVF, you're looking, since it's a scientific fact that human life starts at fertilization, the cells begin dividing at fertilization, it's human, it's not in some other sort of life, it's not a giraffe, and when you have life and it's human, it's human life.

The embryology textbooks that these embryologists have to study in order to get their bachelor's degree to become embryologists all say that life starts at fertilization, and we know it scripturally that that's the way it is.

I know Jeremiah 1 .5 is speaking also about, you know, the sovereignty of God, but there is a very literal aspect to this.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you're in the womb, you're in the fallopian tube as an embryo, traveling down that fallopian tube, waiting to attach to the wall of the uterus, and so human life begins at fertilization, and so what you have with IVF is you have couples that are willing to literally sacrifice their own children to get the genetically perfect child or children that they want, and the numbers are very difficult to nail down specifically, but, you know, like Laura was saying, like 93 % of these embryos will never see the light of day.

You also see numbers like maybe 30 embryos to every one live birth, and so, you know, when

I preach out in front of an IVF lab, I will say, you know, imagine you've got a bus that pulls up here.

You've got 30 children on the bus, and you jump on that bus, and you, you know, take a look at them.

You ask them questions to see how smart they are. Ask them what their parents do for a living, all that kind of stuff, and after you've done that, you pick one out, the one that you think is the smartest, the prettiest, most handsome, whatever, and then you walk off the bus, and you tell the bus driver, okay, you can do whatever you want with the other 29, and then he goes back there and just kills them all.

I mean, that's, in essence, what you have going on with IVF and the amount of human lives that are created to get the one or how many ever you want, and so it is child sacrifice on a level that actually makes abortion pale in comparison a bit.

When someone goes to an abortion clinic, they're there to kill one or maybe several, two or three, babies that are in their womb, but not 30, and then, you know, financially, they're making so much more money at IVF than the abortionists ever thought about making, and so this thing is really wicked, and when

I first started going off to the IVF clinics, you know, and I do try to be gentle with the people that I talk to, but the more

I'm out there and the more that I understand that these folks, if you ask them a few questions, they begin to open up about how many, they know how many eggs were fertilized, they know how many of that first batch did not survive, they know how many didn't make the grade, they know how many they have in frozen storage, if they lost any when they were thawed, they know how many of those they've lost, if they transferred and they didn't transfer, they can tell you how many of those, and so they know that there's a certain amount of child sacrifice that's going on here.

They just have never heard it put to them that way, and so, you know,

I had one lady ask me, she says, are you saying this is sin? And I'm saying, when you're sacrificing your own children, it's murder, and you say, yeah, that's sin, and so—

So this is actually, we who are anti -abortion will very often call abortion infanticide, and we're generally thinking about the broader picture of the babies being murdered one by one by individuals worldwide, but in this case, it's infanticide with multiple children being murdered each and every instance by the same parents.

Right. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. That's a hard pill for them to swallow, and especially while here in Texas, when

I'm out there, I'm talking to people that are generally pro -life, and they will, you know,

I'll ask them, do you believe that life begins at fertilization, and all of them, almost all of them except unbelievers will say, yeah,

I believe that. So then you just have to start walking them through the stages to help them see that, and I have seen people when they realize what's happened,

I really believe what happens is they harden their own hearts against, or God's hardening their heart, maybe some combination where they just don't see those embryos as human lives, although they know intellectually that they are, and then as you ask questions and point out biblical concepts,

I've seen people's eyes fill up with tears and realize I've done something wrong here.

Wow. It doesn't happen as often as I'd like to see it, but I have seen it, and I think you see it with people who are truly

Christians, you know, who maybe have, you know, they've, I'll get to this issue in just a minute,

I don't get too far ahead of myself, but I think there is an element of idolatry that's going on here at some stage, and so there's that.

And then the other issue, and this is something the Roman Catholics do a much better job with than we do, talking about the nature of marriage and reproduction.

They don't do a good job of arguing it biblically, they argue it more academically or philosophically, but biblically we know that the marriage bed is undefiled, we know that Genesis chapter 2 verse 24, we know that marriage is blessed by God, one man and one woman, but when you start to introduce other parties into the marriage bed, so a third party, a fourth party, a fifth party, then you violate the essence of the scriptural command, and you are violating, whether you go for natural law or not, natural, you know, what we know is true in terms of reproduction, and so you are, it's essentially a form of adultery.

If you have a woman who's got eggs that are fine, but she needs to go find the sperm of another man in order to reproduce, you know, why bother with IVF?

I mean, and this sounds crass, and it is, but I do it to shock people and wake them up,

I mean, you can get a cheap hotel for 50 bucks, you know, I mean, seriously, it's immorality to do that kind of thing, and so what people are doing in essence, it's really the essence of every sin, you know, so if I lie before God, and I say,

Lord, I know you want me to tell the truth, thou shalt not bear false witness, but in this case,

I know what I want, and I know what I need, so I'm gonna stretch the truth to get what

I need. I don't care what you want. I think the same thing, in essence, is happening with IVF.

God, I know that these things are true, you know, that I shouldn't be looking for another party to have a child with, and I know that it's one man, one woman, and I know that child sacrifice is wrong, but I really want a child.

That's the essence of every sin. Now, how do you respond, because I'm sure this argument would come up by people outraged by you making a comparison to adultery.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm not cheating on my husband. There is no interaction between the woman and the other male involved in this fertilization.

There's nothing—there's no emotional attachment. There's no physical contact. How can you make such an outrageous claim?

How do you respond to that kind of argument that people may frequently have? Well, when it's someone else's sperm with your egg, there's a physical—not me, nothing that you personally, like, in the same way as sex, but it's still a physical contact that's happening between the semen of another man and your genetic material, your egg.

And so, I would say that while I understand what they're trying to get at, the fact is that, at essence, it is—and this is, you know, it's an end around on what

God has ordained, and, you know, it's idolatry.

It's saying, what I want matters more, and I don't trust God. I don't believe

God can do this, and so I'm going to look to man to create something that—although the

Bible's very clear here, God—in 1 Samuel 1, it was God who closed

Hannah's womb, and it was God who opened her womb. Now, we either believe that or we don't.

And by the same token, we all claim that we believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, and the

Bible teaches that very clearly. And by the way, could you pick up on your point of Jesus being born of a virgin, because we have to go to our midway break.

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Before we go to any listener questions, please, John, pick up where you left off on the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

Speaking to people in front of IVF lab, often point out that many of these people, especially here in Texas, are professing

Christians. I'll challenge them and say, listen, at Christmas time, you'll go to the church and you'll sing songs, the virgin birth of Christ and how

God made that happen. And at Easter, you will sing songs about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, raising him from the dead.

I mean, if he can cause a virgin to conceive and he can raise

Jesus from the dead, he can definitely, he has the power and the ability to cause you to have a child.

And I mean, it's a very simple concept, but it's either a question of whether we really believe those things or not, and whether we really believe the things in scripture that speak to the fact that God seems to rejoice at doing that, of causing the barren to bring forth children.

And so, yeah, those are things where if we're as Christians, especially

Christians, we should not be people who just abandon biblical concepts because some doctor or technician has told us that it's impossible for us to have a child.

With God, anything's possible. Nothing is impossible with God. So, yeah, that's where I was going with that.

Okay, we have a question from Maisie in Blue Jay, West Virginia.

Maisie asks, I'd like to have both of you answer this question.

How often do you come across a pastor, even one who shares your theological views, who is ignorant about how murder is actually taking place during in vitro fertilization?

And why don't we start this time with Laura, and then we'll have John follow up with that.

How often? So often. All the time. So even theologically Reformed conservative pastors.

Yeah. Wow. But I will say those would be more

Canadian, and I will say that after they've looked into it, then they do agree that it's wrong.

Is that across the board, or just the Reformed guys? That's Reformed guys.

Okay. Other pastors will say there's nothing wrong with it, that God is using

IVF to fulfill, you know, be fruitful and multiply, that God is using

IVF to do this for some people. That's what I've been told. So a lot.

There's a lot of pastors, but I think they don't understand, again, I don't think they understand actually what happens during IVF.

I don't think they care to understand. That's been my experience. Wow. And John?

Well, I can speak from my own experience and say that I never thought about it at all up until a couple of years ago.

And then when we started working on Build -A -Baby, that's when I became really aware. But that's myself.

But talking to other pastors, I think what's happening is they know people in their congregation who've had

IVF, have used it, and they have given the idea that what they did was ethical.

And so I think because of those sorts of comments, pastors will generally say, well, yeah, okay, so ethical

IVF is okay, but you know, unethical isn't, or just normal IVF isn't. And I think what's happened is they're just believing whatever they hear from their parishioner, their congregation, rather than looking into it very far for themselves.

I think it's true what Laura is saying. If they look into it a bit and really, if they are firm on the area of life beginning at fertilization, then they'll recognize it.

But I also have heard this argument that God gave us the technology, and so therefore it's okay because God allowed this to happen.

Well, my response to that is, what are we saying about transgender surgery?

What are we saying about the internet? You know, okay, so God gave us the internet, and so porn's okay.

I mean, it's just a weird, it's a weird take on it if you look at what IVF really is. And I have one more weird thing to say about that, which

I think John and I both realized is that IVF is very expensive, and the people who are doing

IVF, generally speaking, are the more wealthy people, and they are the people that are donating more to the church.

And I think there's a bit of awkwardness there that some pastors don't want to confront it because their biggest donors are the ones who are doing it.

Wow. Yeah. Now, John, when you were saying that there are some pastors who are defending some kinds of IVF, calling it ethical

IVF, what are they talking about? How are they making a difference from any other kind of IVF?

They've heard about people transferring multiple embryos, and so when you do that, of course, some of them can die, or they do selective reduction after transfer.

If the couple only wants one baby and say they transfer three, well, they can abort the other two, or how many ever that they transferred that they don't want, they can abort up until the second trimester.

So they know about that, maybe, and then the couples are saying, well, no, we didn't do that. We only transferred one at a time, and they focus on the number of embryos transferred rather than all of the embryos that had been destroyed through the entire process.

And so I think that's where they're kind of just listening to their congregation member that's had this done, but they haven't really looked to see how much human life is discarded or destroyed through the entire process.

Wow. Let's see here. We do have an anonymous listener who asks, do you think that IVF is an excommunicable offense to a congregation member if that person does not repent over what they have done?

That's an interesting question. I think, you know, of course, when you're dealing with sins that people aren't aware of, right, when they do it, and then you start to educate them regarding what the scriptures say about those things, and they're unrepentant after they're faced with all the facts,

I think you might very well be dealing with a church discipline situation. And, you know, it's the first time

I've had that question posed to me, so I'm kind of doing this on the fly a little bit. There might be some things I need to think through, but if I had a congregant church member who is, you know, considering abortion and murdering one of their children,

I would, after everything that they've heard in our church in terms of teaching that subject, they would have no excuse.

You know, I'm just sort of assuming that in most cases they won't be familiar with what

IVF is, and there'd be some education there. But yeah, I think if they're unrepentant after all of that, that may be something that would be legitimate to do.

You know, here's a more controversial question following up on that, a question of my own.

Churches, even the most right -leaning, conservative,

Bible -believing churches, fellowships, denominations, have frequently elevated the right to vote for anyone whom you please.

It has been elevated to a status of being sacred, the whole concept of going into that voting booth and closing the curtain, voting for whoever you want to vote for.

The church has typically, no matter how conservative it is, has taken a position in general that we don't want to know who you're voting for.

That's none of our business. You're completely free to vote for anybody you want. But if somebody is knowledgeably voting to further the authority and power of somebody who is enthusiastically and excitedly and giddily promoting infanticide, promoting the sexual mutilation of children by doctors, sometimes at the approval of the parents, perhaps sometimes not, through schools keeping it private or whatever, but the sexual mutilation of children who are viewed as so -called transgendered, which we know is a fiction, but just because the person is not doing it themselves, they very often likely feel emboldened to say, well,

I could still vote for somebody who is enthusiastically keeping those things legal because I like their economic policy.

You know, the old liberal saying when they've been confronted about abortion, like Jesse Jackson was, who used to be openly anti -abortion, he changed when he was running for president, and he would answer the question, oh,

I care about unborn life, but I care about life after it's born, too, and making the insinuation that those against abortion have no concern over children growing up in the inner city in the ghetto and all that.

But what do you think about that? Is that right for churches to just allow people to vote for anyone whom they please?

Not that you would necessarily say you must vote for this conservative, because even opting out of voting altogether,

I think, is a valid thing to do when both of your options may be horrendous, or even saying you must, you know, vote for this specific conservative.

I'm not saying that. But to actually actively vote for somebody who's involved in the murder of children, maybe not with their own hands, but through their policies, should that be viewed as sin, and should it be a matter of discipline?

Well, one thing I think about in regards to discipline is the biblical standard, you know, two or three witnesses.

And so in order to even bring the charge, and it would also apply to IVF, you'd have to have two or three witnesses to the fact that they had done it, even to be able to really do church discipline properly.

Well, they might be bragging about it. That's what I mean. I mean, that could—and that does happen, doesn't it?

And so— People might even bring up IFV in a prayer meeting. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And so, in those cases, you had the witnesses— IVF, I'm sorry, I misspoke.

I think you could—if they were going around the church talking about how they support this guy, or whoever, this politician, whoever, that's rabidly supporting.

Here's where it gets really interesting. So then, considering what former President Trump said yesterday regarding abortion, which has a whole pro -life world like in the tither right now.

So what do you say about that then? You know, like, he's supposedly a good guy, you know, a

Republican, and he's supporting that, then why not also church discipline them?

I mean, here in Texas, we've got a pro -life hero,

Stephanie Click, running against David Lowe for a state house position.

She killed the bill to abolish abortion in Texas, but she championed the heartbeat bill, which still allows for the death of children before the age of six weeks and doesn't provide

IVF embryos with any protection. So, you know, I'm of the opinion that if I had a pro -life politician in my church that did something like that, that they would be church -disciplined.

So if I had that opinion about the politician, and they've been properly educated, and they've been given all the information, and they're still doing this thing,

I think there's at least the element—church discipline isn't just throwing somebody out of the church. Church discipline is that one -to -one confrontation, you know, that confrontation with witnesses, and in most cases, that kind of church discipline ends after the first or second step, and it never goes before the church, because people do repent if they're

Christians. So, yeah, I don't know. It's a tough one to say, but I think we ought to have these conversations, and we ought to ask ourselves, you know, is this stuff really sin or isn't it?

And if it is, then, you know, that's how we're supposed to deal with it. I guess there—and perhaps you disagree with me—but in regard to viewing a person as openly in sin, for even if they have a strategy in their minds that is not in agreement with you, that this politician will be used of God to make sure that less babies are murdered in this world or in this country.

And, you know, so I want to make sure that in spite of all his horrible flaws and views on abortion, he is definitely—Donald

Trump, for instance, or whoever the person may be running for office—this person is going to be obviously used of God to at least keep more babies alive than the other person.

So to view that person as openly in sin when you disagree with the strategy that's in their mind is a little bit more difficult than somebody who is saying, my personal financial comfort is more important than babies being murdered, or more important than children being sexually mutilated under the banner of transgenderism.

You know, that's a different story. As it pertains to, you know, abortion, part of the problem is, you know, people will say, okay, this particular policy or strategy will result in less abortions.

But the issue is, you actually have to be able to prove that. And if you actually look at the numbers, like since the overturn of Roe, you know, abortion has actually increased nationwide since the abortion, or since Roe was overturned.

It's been, I think the increase has been somewhere around $125 ,000, $150 ,000 across the

United States. And the issue is that they say these things, but because abortion has become so accessible at home, people can do self -managed abortions at home.

Those numbers aren't being even reported. The chemical abortions that happened in the first trimester, people don't even have any idea really how many abortions are taking place in this country.

And so I think there's sort of a pro -life narrative that's been out there for a long time that gives this idea, well, we got to take what we can get.

And if we take what we can get, we can slowly turn the ship around, but the numbers aren't bearing that out.

After 50 years, it's really evident that this whole strategy has failed. And I'm obviously talking about the

United States. It's not worked at all. The numbers are going up and now abortion's more accessible than it's ever been.

I just heard there's about 70 different companies that are selling abortion pills to be sold to people, you know, at home.

And like in the state of Texas where surgical abortion has been made illegal for the abortionist, the mom is still under protection of law and she can still order those things and do them at home.

And so that's why I'm an abolitionist. I don't make any bones about like where I stand. I don't call myself pro -life.

I call myself an abolitionist because it's more consistent. And partiality is a sin.

You know, when we say a lot of these laws, like a heartbeat bill, say, well, you can kill the baby up until five or six weeks, depending on the state that you're in with a heartbeat bill.

Saying that you can kill that baby, but you can't kill the babies after six weeks is sinful partiality.

It's unequal weights and measures. And we don't have biblical warrant to do that.

That's actually a sinful thing to do by itself. And so that's something, you know, that just isn't being honestly considered in these sorts of discussions,

I don't think. Yes. And one of the things

I want to make sure that both of you do before we run out of time, I want to make sure,

Laura and then John, that you bring up things that you most wanted to highlight during this very important discussion.

Because someone like me, who's the host, who is as ignorant as I am over in vitro fertilization, may have forgotten to ask something.

And perhaps our audience member have overlooked vital questions that you want to address as well.

So, Laura, is there anything specifically that should be highlighted today before we go to our final commercial break?

Sure. Well, I can think of two things. One thing, and I have people who are upset about me, you know, basically exposing

IVF, and they assume that I am saying that children created through IVF are not as worthy or not as good as other people.

That seems to be like a knee -jerk reaction comment that I get, especially from mothers who have done

IVF. And I just want to say that that is not at all what I think, or what

I am trying to say, you know. All human beings are created in the image of God. And so a child, it doesn't matter if they were created through rape.

It doesn't matter if they were created through IVF, or incest, or however it happened.

They are an equal human being. So, that's one thing, and thank you for the opportunity to say that.

And then the second thing is this whole really exposing of IVF came out of our series that we're doing called

Exposed. And this was the second episode, and this is kind of what blew up the whole

IVF discussion quite recently, which has been awesome.

And so I just want to encourage people to check out our video, Build a Baby. It's on our website in our video sections, but also to be watching for our next episode that we're making, which is on a topic that I can say is even more controversial than this.

It is. And we're not releasing what that topic is yet, because when you see it, you'll know why.

But we're worried about it getting shut down before it ever gets released. So I just would like to encourage people to go and check out more information on this series, and yeah, that would be awesome.

And John? Yeah, I just think in light of what

I'm saying about church discipline and all this stuff, I feel like it's also important to say that when you have people who've done

IVF in the past, and either they were not aware of all these things, or maybe they did just sort of find ways to justify what they were doing, it's like any other sin.

There are times when I'm sinning, and I don't realize that I'm sinning, like it's an attitude or thought or something, pridefulness sometimes you're not aware of, those sorts of things.

But when the Spirit of God brings conviction over those things, then the way to respond at that moment isn't more justification and more self -defense over it, but just humble recognition that, yeah,

I didn't do what was right in that situation. I repent for those things, for these actions, in the

IVF in that case, for these children that have been sacrificed.

I repent over that. We all sin, we all need grace, we need the gospel of Christ to forgive us of our sins, and so we need to go there and just call it that.

And then, you know, repent would mean, if you've got embryos in frozen storage, doing everything you can to transfer them and have these children, or at least find a way to have those embryos adopted out to a family who's looking to have children.

Fertile or infertile, you know, there's people that are willing to adopt these embryos. You can just go directly to the clinic and do it that way.

I actually encourage that rather than going through, like, a snowflake adoption thing. But at any rate, all

I'm trying to say is that there is, you know, there's grace for people who sin, and we need to look at it the same way as we would any other.

05 Okay. We have Blair in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York. And by the way, I don't know if Blair knows this, but Cold Spring Harbor, New York, was the headquarters of the eugenics laboratory in the

United States, which actually inspired, tragically, Adolf Hitler to annihilate the

Jews and other non -Aryan folks because of the view that they were inferior, intrinsically inferior.

And that laboratory still exists, although no longer promoting the racism that it once stood for.

But anyway, that's not what Blair is asking. Blair says,

I saw that Jon Speed was going to be featured in an interview today.

I hope that he is going to say something about Babies Are Murdered here, which I know he has involvement in.

06 Yeah. Well, back, I guess it was 2014, we released Babies Are Murdered here, and Jeff Durbin over at Apologia Church saw it, and some other things happened, and that gave the impetus for End Abortion Now.

And then the sequel, Babies Are Still Murdered Here, which was released in 2019.

And so you can see both on YouTube for free, but babiesaremurderedhere .com.

You can watch. I think the sequel is there. There's probably a link to the original there as well.

07 Great. Well, we're going to our final break right now. And if you do have questions of your own, and you'd like to join the conversation, please send in your question immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

08 James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to the Radio Ministry of John MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

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Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcroft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards and Dr.

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and book Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. We have Noble in Ranger, Indiana, who says this question is specifically for John Speed, but Laura may answer as well.

I was wondering, to your knowledge, of all of the the—I'm sorry, the grammar here is not really correct—but all of the anti -abortion ministries that you are working with, are all of them up to speed on the fact that in vitro fertilization is just as evil as abortion?

They are, I would just use some examples here, like the abolitionists, generally like abolitionists rising, they were actually doing things on IVF long ago.

OSA, like Operation Save America, I'm not—I think so, but I don't really know. You know, abortion is available, is involved with, right?

Yeah, I'm not sure. I've talked to people from over there, and I've seen some things they've done recently that tell me that they do understand it, but I haven't had a formal conversation with them.

I'm not sure about all of them, honestly. It's just hard to know exactly without having those specific conversations, so I don't want to say too much about ones that I'm not really sure about.

I do know that Jeff Durbin and Brian Gunter both very enthusiastically promoted

Jason Storms in a recent debate that I featured with Jason and Scott Klusendorf.

I can say that. Yeah, I'm just saying regarding IVF, I don't know. I'm just saying regarding IVF, I'm not sure.

I think it's something that we're all sort of waking up to, and, you know, it was easier for me because in Texas, I was going out to the abortion clinics, but when those shut down,

I needed something else to do with that energy, and so—but

I hadn't thought about it seriously until Build -A -Baby, and I think Build -A -Baby is helping a lot of people think about this more consistently.

Anything to add, Laura? No, no, that pretty much sums it up. Well, I'd like you to summarize in about a minute what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today, and I'd like John to do the same when you're finished.

Oh, I guess just the idea of finding out what

IVF is, go look into it for yourself, and hold a consistent position.

If you believe that life begins at fertilization, then that's what it all comes down to, and if you do believe that, then you cannot support

IVF. Okay, and John? Yeah, I would just say to remember that the gospel—this is a gospel issue in the sense that, you know, when we're sacrificing children, it's a sin issue, and so we have to think of it in those terms, whether we're talking about our own history of involvement or whether we're talking about how we speak to people who are thinking about doing it or going through it now.

We live in a culture that doesn't want to confront anything, and we have to be willing to take unpopular stands on things, even if it costs us something, and so I'd encourage people to think about that and to do that.

Well, I want to thank both of you for doing such an excellent job today, and I want to repeat all of the websites and contact information that our listeners need to know.

First of all, the website for the ministry where both my guests serve is choice42 .com.

choice42 .com. You can also look up the aforementioned babiesaremurderedhere .com,

babiesaremurderedhere .com, endabortionnow .com, endabortionnow .com,

and of course, let's not forget about By the Word Baptist Church in Azle, Texas, which can be found at bytheword .org,

bytheword .org. I hope that the two of you will be interested in returning to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

I'd love to do another interview with you and multiple interviews with you in the future.

Just let me know the next time you have something burdening your heart and mind that you want to have a platform to make that public, and the

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