Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 876 ｜ How LGBTQ Activists Are Redefining Infertility ｜ Guest： Katy Faust (Part One)

00:00:00.000 California and other blue states are trying to redefine infertility to include gay couples that cannot have a child biologically so that insurance companies would then be forced to cover things like surrogacy for two men who want a child.

00:00:20.940 What's the problem with this? What's the problem of not just redefining infertility but redefining parenthood, redefining marriage, redefining the family? What are the problems that exist within surrogacy and third-party egg and sperm donation? Are we really thinking about the needs of the child?

00:00:40.320 To answer these very complex and controversial questions, we have Katie Faust. She is the founder and director of Them Before Us, which is a global movement defending children's right to their mother and father. I've had her on several times before. We'll link those past episodes, which I highly recommend.

00:00:58.040 This is a two-part conversation. We will be getting into all of your very pressing questions about IVF, about surrogacy, about embryo adoption, about adoption in general in part one and part two of this conversation.

00:01:13.920 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.

00:01:28.040 Thank you.

00:01:58.040 Thank you.

00:02:28.040 Thank you.

00:02:58.040 California is pushing right now on one of their bills. This whole idea of we need reproductive justice, and that means that we should be able to form families any way we want. That's what NARAL tweeted on the 8th anniversary of Obergefell.

00:03:10.480 We're not really going to be equal unless we can create the families however and whenever we want. Of course, in the context of gay marriage, however we want means we have to employ these third parties and cut children off from their mother or father so we can be truly equal. 0.98

00:03:27.500 So I think that we've been asleep at the wheel on the left, right, this is just the next stop on the family redefinition train and it was brought to us by the redefinition of marriage and the passing of gay marriage. 0.84

00:03:40.360 So to me, like, it makes sense that this is now kind of popping up in everybody's newsfeed.

00:03:45.660 Yeah. You know, I want to stop, take a pit stop at something that you said. You mentioned this California bill that aims to redefine same-sex couples is unable to get pregnant as infertile.

00:03:57.660 So that's the redefining infertile. So that's the redefining infertility that you were just talking about. As we are talking right now, I believe it's still just a bill that hasn't been turned into law.

00:04:07.700 I see no reason why there would be any breaks on this, just looking at past legislation that has been easily passed and signed into law by California.

00:04:17.820 But can you tell us a little bit more about this? So this is in an effort to get insurance companies to pay for things like,

00:04:27.660 uh, surrogacy for two men who want to create a child.

00:04:33.180 Yeah. And they're not the only state to have tried this. Like we battled this back in Minnesota. We were, um, worked on that. And thankfully, um, that bill didn't go through in Minnesota.

00:04:41.340 We testified against a similar bill here in Washington state. And thankfully that died right now it's in committee in California.

00:04:49.200 But what they're trying to do is in essence, say, look at all these heterosexual couples who, if they're declared infertile,

00:04:55.560 which the medical definition of infertility is unprotected heterosexual sex for 12 months, doesn't result in a pregnancy or live birth.

00:05:04.560 And now what they're saying is, well, we, no matter how much unprotected sex, the same sex couple has, they are never going to be able to produce a child.

00:05:12.880 And so this is what they've always done right in the family redefinition game is what they want is an impossibility from a biological standpoint.

00:05:21.800 And so what biology cannot accomplish, the law needs to provide.

00:05:26.680 So they did this in same sex marriage, right? Where they've started to redefine parenthood. 0.81

00:05:31.160 According to biology, two adults of the same sex can never be the parents of a child. 0.67

00:05:36.180 And so they have redefined with the word parenthood. No longer is it just a connection by biology or going through an adoption process.

00:05:44.840 Now your intent to parent makes you a parent. So if two men intend to parent a child, now the adult says, ding, your parents.

00:05:53.880 So they're trying to do the same thing with infertility, right?

00:05:56.500 They will never medically be able to be diagnosed as infertile because they're not participating in the activity that would lead doctors to conclude that infertility is the problem.

00:06:07.640 And yet they want the same kind of access and they want the same insurance coverage so that they also can create a child in a laboratory, right?

00:06:16.200 And so that is what these bills are aimed at doing in the name of equality, because in their perspective, it's unequal, right?

00:06:23.120 It's discriminatory for heterosexual couples to be able to be designated as infertile and then receive coverage from their insurance companies.

00:06:31.700 And so what do we have to do? We have to redefine what infertility means.

00:06:35.920 And so now the California bill and similar other bills across the country are seeking to define infertility as not a medical status, but really a relational status, right?

00:06:46.540 I'm infertile because of the relationship I'm in or infertile because I'm not in a relationship at all.

00:06:51.620 Some of these bills also cover IVF coverage for single adults.

00:07:07.740 Tell me about some of the consequences of this, because some people may be listening and they're like, well, yeah, I mean, that kind of makes that kind of makes sense.

00:07:15.960 Why? Why should we discriminate against two men who want to have a child?

00:07:19.720 Why shouldn't they be covered by insurance?

00:07:21.940 Who cares if it's two men, a man and a woman? 1.00

00:07:24.600 But what are some of the repercussions of greenlighting a bill like this?

00:07:30.080 Well, from the pro-life perspective, one of the things that the California bill specifically said is insurance companies can't discontinue services.

00:07:38.780 And there was, in essence, unlimited supply of IVF transfers.

00:07:44.460 And we already have a situation in this country where we've got one million frozen embryos in storage right now.

00:07:51.000 And oftentimes the only thing that keeps that in check is cost.

00:07:55.060 And so right now we are talking about insurance funded IVF transfers, which means why limit the number of embryos that you're going to create?

00:08:03.640 I mean, create dozens, right, you know, hundreds, how many retrievals do you want to go through?

00:08:08.760 Because you're going to have unlimited opportunities to transfer those babies. 0.99

00:08:13.060 And so, number one, it is only going to increase the amount of children who are suffering indefinitely in a freezer or who are going to perish in the gauntlet that children have to undergo between freezer and implantation and then ultimately birth.

00:08:28.360 It is going to massively increase the number of children that are screened for sex or for, you know, potential genetic markers that don't seem as desirable to the adults.

00:08:39.560 In essence, it is going to contribute to the increased commodification of children where they are fought and discarded, donated to research or spend their life forever in a freezer.

00:08:49.600 And so it further reinforces the idea that children are a commodity that exists for adults.

00:08:55.740 And that is honestly a problem for married couples, heterosexual couples, people who are medically infertile as well.

00:09:03.440 So really, that is where bills like this, you know, allow equal opportunity for the damage to children's rights because heterosexual couples can do it, gay couples can do it, and now single adults can do it. 0.54

00:09:15.240 But what this bill does, in essence, in the name of equality, right, for LGBT adults, is says, we also are going to say that you can have access and we may pay for a third party to contribute their sperm or their egg or their womb.

00:09:32.180 And what does that mean?

00:09:33.780 That means the child will always be missing one biological parent in their life, at least one, and one adult to whom they have a natural right.

00:09:43.120 Now, that is a big deal for children for three reasons.

00:09:47.180 Number one, that biological parent is the only person that grants children access to their biological identity.

00:09:54.380 And we have surveys from children created through sperm and egg donation who say, that adult matters to me.

00:09:59.700 That is not just some donor stranger out there.

00:10:02.160 That is my biological father.

00:10:04.060 Many of these children will go on protracted internet searches after they discover their donor conceived through a 23andMe test or whatever,

00:10:11.360 and desperately long to know this person that gave them life.

00:10:14.740 Why?

00:10:15.740 Because this is a question that every human child asks.

00:10:18.640 It's very hard to answer the question, who am I?

00:10:22.360 If you cannot answer the question, whose am I?

00:10:25.840 So we are denying children access to one of the two adults that can give them the answer to the question, who am I?

00:10:32.460 Number two, the reason why this matters so much is, especially for people that are concerned about the well-being of children,

00:10:39.320 is statistically, a child's own biological mother and father are the most connected to, invested in, and protective of them.

00:10:46.620 And we go through this extensively in our book, Them Before Us, Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement.

00:10:53.160 Unrelated adults invest less time, resources, money.

00:10:55.920 Children are drastically more likely to be abused and neglected in the home of an unrelated adult.

00:11:02.900 And what this is, what, you know, California's bill and similar bills are seeking to do is, in essence,

00:11:08.540 incentivize and pay for children to be raised in a home where they're always going to be parented by an unrelated adult.

00:11:14.840 And finally, of course, we're always going to be starving these children, if it's a same-sex couple or a single, 0.98

00:11:23.120 of the maternal love or the paternal love that children crave, that they long for, and that maximizes their development.

00:11:31.840 And so when we hear about these bills, right, oh, you know, we need to, in the name of non-discrimination,

00:11:37.920 in the name of equality, insurance companies need to treat same-sex couples or singles the way that they would treat infertile heterosexual couples, 0.86

00:11:46.300 the alarm bell should be ringing for you.

00:11:48.280 What you're talking about is the creation of the fatherless children that especially Christians are mandated to protect. 1.00

00:11:55.620 Yeah, absolutely.

00:11:57.740 It seems like the plight of children or the rights of children or what children are entitled to or deserve 1.00

00:12:05.200 is constantly placed on the altar of whether it's so-called non-discrimination, so-called fight for equality,

00:12:12.460 but really just the sexual revolution, really just progressivism in general,

00:12:16.460 even if you're talking about, like, COVID policies and things like that.

00:12:20.040 Even their rights and their well-being constantly being sacrificed for the desires of adults.

00:12:27.340 And, you know, I understand kind of from a secular progressive perspective why this mentality exists

00:12:35.320 in the name of liberation especially, just tearing down anything, any edifice that has been constructed

00:12:41.480 or institution that has been built for our protection, just kind of lay waste to all of these protections

00:12:48.820 and in order to build some kind of utopia in which everyone achieves, I don't know,

00:12:53.740 some kind of newfangled definition of equity.

00:12:55.780 But what I'm constantly surprised by is even the Christian conservative kind of inability to push back 0.99

00:13:03.680 against arguments in the name of equality, arguments in the name of love, arguments in the name of empathy

00:13:09.540 that are kind of pushed by the left to say, well, you know, these people, you know, two men, two women,

00:13:16.620 or whatever, a couple, they want a child.

00:13:20.640 So why not surrogacy?

00:13:23.000 Why not IVF?

00:13:24.520 Why not egg and sperm selling?

00:13:27.500 If they want a child, and as you said, we do love babies, then who are you to stand in the way of happiness?

00:13:36.220 What really gets me is the Christian conservative seeming inability, not among everyone, of course, 0.91

00:13:43.460 but among a large portion of the right, just their lack of comprehension of the issue,

00:13:50.460 but also their inability to see through the arguments and respond to them?

00:13:55.760 Yeah, what we really need to do is properly identify the victims.

00:13:59.220 We get these questions wrong when we misidentify the victims.

00:14:02.600 And, you know, we can see that very clearly in the pro-life world,

00:14:05.540 where people see that women with unplanned pregnancies are the victims.

00:14:09.820 And in many ways, they're seriously suffering, significantly suffering, and we never want to diminish that.

00:14:15.360 However, when we get questions about whether or not a child has a right to life, wrong,

00:14:20.320 whether we get questions about abortion policy, wrong, it is very clear that the child is the victim.

00:14:26.420 And it is the same thing with questions of things like who wants to get married and who is infertile

00:14:31.620 and what do we do with infertility, when we get these questions wrong, when we misidentify the victims,

00:14:36.400 when we say, this couple that would be incredible parents, they desperately want a baby.

00:14:42.540 And if they can't have a baby, then they're victims, right?

00:14:46.260 No, we need to properly identify the victim.

00:14:49.100 The children who lose their life through a eugenics process of IVF is the victim. 0.91

00:14:54.000 The child who spends eternity in a freezer is the victim.

00:14:57.000 The child who is starved of a relationship with their mother or father because somebody used a third party is the victim.

00:15:03.540 No, the child that loses a relationship with the only person they know on the day that they are born,

00:15:08.500 their mother is the victim.

00:15:10.400 So we have some work to do, especially on our side, to properly contextualize these arguments

00:15:15.580 and center the conversation on the real victim, which, like you said,

00:15:19.600 especially when it comes to sex, is always the kids,

00:15:22.820 whether you're talking about premarital sex or cohabitation or just sexual liberation in general.

00:15:28.200 Who always pays the price in the name of adult liberation?

00:15:32.000 It is always the kids.

00:15:34.420 And so I think that the pro-life world has done a very good job

00:15:37.680 of properly centering the conversation around the child, the rights of the child, right?

00:15:42.940 And we say, no matter how you're suffering, your unplanned pregnancy, your scary diagnosis,

00:15:47.920 whatever it is, we have to have this hedge of protection around the child.

00:15:51.480 And it's the same thing with conversations about marriage and family or infertility.

00:15:55.480 We say, I understand that you're suffering and you long for a baby.

00:15:59.200 I understand that you experience same-sex attraction and would be an amazing dad or an amazing mom.

00:16:04.440 I understand that you're single and you desperately want to meet Mr. Right or Mrs. Right.

00:16:08.920 And your biological clock is ticking and you feel like the only way you can solve that is to have a donor.

00:16:14.120 That is such a hard place to be.

00:16:17.020 None of that justifies violating children's right to life or right to their mother and father.

00:16:21.480 And you will victimize children, right?

00:16:24.700 If you choose to move forward in a way where you use a third party, right?

00:16:28.520 Or you're creating disposable babies. 1.00

00:16:30.760 And so that is where I think the children's rights perspective offers incredible clarity.

00:16:35.900 And also it's a bit of a seamless garment.

00:16:38.260 We are going to put kids first, regardless of how adults are longing, suffering, yearning.

00:16:43.520 No, we are going to empathize with you, especially on a friendship level.

00:16:48.680 But in matters of policy, it is justice for children that is going to dictate our actions and behavior.

00:16:53.980 I want to kind of get into specifically what I get the most pushback on and just ask some questions that I receive a lot.

00:17:13.100 When it comes to my Christian conservative audience, those pro-life people who love babies and they want to have children, they want their friends to have children.

00:17:21.880 And so their kind of mentality so far has been pretty much any means possible.

00:17:27.340 So they might agree with us, agree with you when you say children deserve a mother and father.

00:17:33.160 Yes, they are against two men or two women using a third party, all of that.

00:17:38.440 They're on board with you when it comes to that.

00:17:41.120 But what I receive a lot is, but, and you kind of just answered this, but I want you more specifically to talk about it.

00:17:48.600 But what if I want a child?

00:17:52.120 And don't talk about this is what I hear unless you've walked through infertility.

00:17:57.180 This is nuanced.

00:17:58.340 This is gray.

00:17:59.440 It's not so binary.

00:18:00.560 It's not so black and white.

00:18:01.780 It's not right or wrong.

00:18:02.980 You know, I even got this message saying, you know, God deals with us all relationally and individually.

00:18:09.140 You can't say that God hasn't called someone to be a surrogate or use a surrogate or use IVF.

00:18:14.740 Or I get, well, my children were born from IVF.

00:18:18.360 And so you're, you know, basically telling me I'm a bad mom.

00:18:22.780 And so to me, it's a conflation of desire and God's will.

00:18:26.740 But like, how, how do you respond to that?

00:18:29.220 I'm talking about the heterosexual Christian couple who feels that they were called by God to use some of these technologies.

00:18:36.800 And they say, because I desire this so strongly, God must have given me this desire.

00:18:41.420 And he gave me the scientific means by which I can have a child.

00:18:45.800 How dare you?

00:18:47.080 How dare you even question that?

00:18:49.240 What's your response?

00:18:51.800 I don't want to question you and I don't want to wreck the relationship.

00:18:54.580 Do you understand, though, that protecting children is an absolute imperative for every Christian?

00:18:58.540 We don't get to decide whether or not we crusade on their behalf.

00:19:02.000 It is literally a mandate.

00:19:03.980 And we are all in serious, serious jeopardy if we cause a little one to stumble.

00:19:09.040 And I don't, I can't understand people that are going through infertility.

00:19:13.160 My friends who experience it would say, Katie, kind of like having the worst breakup you've ever experienced.

00:19:19.580 But that just happens month after month after month.

00:19:22.420 And some of those friends have a very hard time focusing on anything else because their longing to be a mom is so strong.

00:19:28.860 And it's so good.

00:19:30.600 It's so good to long to be a mom.

00:19:33.180 The challenge for people dealing with infertility or any of these other legitimate challenges that adults experience is what you cannot do is allow your longing and your loss to be transferred onto the shoulders of a child.

00:19:47.000 And that is the no-go zone for Christians. 0.98

00:19:50.100 So talk about the couple that says, well, you know, I want to use IVF.

00:19:54.580 And the truth is that there are ways to use IVF that don't violate the rights of children.

00:20:00.400 And I have met people that have done it, but they have fought against the industry and their own doctor at every step of the way.

00:20:06.900 If they are never going to discard any embryo, if they're going to implant every single one, if they're not going to freeze any or have surplus or excess or whatever it is, that's a much more expensive process.

00:20:17.960 And many doctors won't do it because it's going to damage their success rates and their implantation rates.

00:20:24.400 So you can try to use these technologies in a way that don't violate any child's right to life or any child's right to their mother and father.

00:20:30.980 And you will be traveling that road alone.

00:20:34.900 The reality is that fertility companies are banking on you creating multiple embryos, storing, freezing, discarding, selecting.

00:20:43.820 And we know that by the numbers, only about 7% of children created through IVF are going to be born alive, right?

00:20:51.300 In our mind, we think IVF is just about babies, but it's not.

00:20:54.880 It's about on-demand designer babies that you can discard if you need to.

00:21:00.280 And that's how the industry sees it.

00:21:03.140 And for those of you guys who are pro-lifers who suddenly went, wait a second, what are you talking about?

00:21:07.060 Are you serious?

00:21:08.200 Yes.

00:21:08.960 Right after Dobbs passed, what did we have?

00:21:11.400 We had fertility clinics in red states absolutely panicking over the fact that that state might define life as beginning at conception because it would wreck their business model. 0.88

00:21:23.440 They spend quite a lot of time grading and selecting and discarding and freezing embryos after they have developed for a couple days, you know, up to a week.

00:21:33.780 And if they are not allowed to dispose of that embryonic life, they can't do business in a red state. 0.93

00:21:39.620 So by the numbers, the baby making industry, the fertility industry takes more embryonic life per year than the baby taking industry, the abortion industry.

00:21:51.460 So first of all, we need to understand that if you're participating, if you're choosing to go the IVF route, you will be the vast minority of people who are seeking to do it without violating the rights of children.

00:22:02.860 So let's talk a little bit about, well, what about surrogacy?

00:22:06.380 Like maybe God has called me to be a surrogate or maybe God has said we can use a surrogate.

00:22:11.800 So it's very interesting to me.

00:22:13.840 We've had a couple celebrities in the last few weeks that have talked about their surrogate pregnancy.

00:22:20.020 One of them is Khloe Kardashian.

00:22:22.180 And she, you know, honestly good for her because what she said is, I'm having a really hard time bonding with my surrogate born son.

00:22:30.780 Like, I just don't feel close to him.

00:22:33.020 I feel guilty that I took him away from his birth mother right the minute that he was born.

00:22:39.440 And I am struggling to connect to him.

00:22:42.480 And I think that people looked at that and said, well, that makes sense.

00:22:45.520 You know, that makes sense.

00:22:46.540 Like the baby was not growing inside of you.

00:22:49.020 And we can empathize and understand where Khloe Kardashian is coming from.

00:22:53.500 I would now like people to look at things from the child's perspective.

00:22:56.760 And Khloe has dozens of other relationships, dozens of other close relationships, people that she's connected to that love her.

00:23:04.400 And she was struggling to connect with this one person.

00:23:07.920 So now think of it from the child's perspective.

00:23:10.860 They have one relationship.

00:23:13.100 The only, not just person, the only thing that they know is their birth mother.

00:23:17.920 The woman within whose womb they are growing inside. 0.99

00:23:21.920 And do you think that you can then take the child away from that only person, the one relationship they have, and the child won't mourn, right?

00:23:31.480 And then we saw it again with Chrissy Teigen.

00:23:34.920 Forgive me.

00:23:35.680 Like, I don't know.

00:23:36.340 I've read it.

00:23:36.860 Haven't heard it a whole lot.

00:23:38.240 But, you know, she talked about how she just welcomed another child through surrogacy.

00:23:41.760 And because why?

00:23:44.640 She had, and she was afraid to, right?

00:23:46.300 Because she had just experienced a really devastating pregnancy loss.

00:23:51.060 And it affected her so much that she wasn't sure if she could even try to get pregnant again.

00:23:56.680 Why did it affect her?

00:23:58.180 Why was she so devastated over a baby that she only gestated for, I think, like 24 weeks?

00:24:04.380 Because she was already attached to that child.

00:24:07.100 Because she already loved that child.

00:24:09.060 Because she already had a relationship with that child.

00:24:11.360 Even though she had dozens of other relationships with other adults.

00:24:14.600 Do you think the child was attached to her?

00:24:17.280 Yes.

00:24:18.200 Yes.

00:24:18.700 It was the child's only relationship.

00:24:20.980 So when we think about surrogacy, what we're really talking about is we are talking about intentionally severing the relationship that the baby has with the only person they know on the planet.

00:24:33.460 And handing it over to people that, from the child's perspective, are complete strangers.

00:24:40.540 It is the surrogate's body. 0.99

00:24:42.520 It's her voice.

00:24:43.740 It's her smell.

00:24:45.240 That statistically, by the data, lowers the baby's stress levels, lowers their cortisol levels.

00:24:52.420 We don't put infants on the chest of random adults so they can form a bond.

00:24:57.460 We put babies on their mother's chest because they have an existing bond.

00:25:01.020 And that is the world that soothes the child.

00:25:04.180 So it's just all of these situations are really adults insisting that adults sacrifice something so that they can have what they want.

00:25:15.120 Even if it's a noble want.

00:25:16.700 Even if it's a God-given ingrained want.

00:25:19.200 We are not allowed, as Christians especially, to insist that kids sacrifice for us.

00:25:26.900 It is an absolute inversion of our entire worldview that said the greatest among us became the least on our behalf.

00:25:36.000 Right?

00:25:36.600 The strong always sacrifice for the weak in the Christian world. 0.97

00:25:39.880 It's never the other way around.

00:25:40.840 I remember when my oldest was born and it was a C-section and they, you know, they put her on the little cart where they weigh, but they also measure their oxygen.

00:26:04.800 And they said, oh, her oxygen is not great.

00:26:07.600 It's not 100%.

00:26:08.340 I hadn't even had the chance to see her or hold her or anything.

00:26:12.120 And they said, we're going to have to take her to the NICU.

00:26:14.480 And so someone comes in with a separate cart to take her to the NICU.

00:26:17.020 And I was just begging.

00:26:18.160 I was like, please just let me hold her.

00:26:19.720 Just let me hold her for a second.

00:26:20.860 And so I got to hold her and they put her on my chest with her little hat on. 0.82

00:26:25.260 And they said, okay, we got to, let's, you know, we got to lay her back down. 0.81

00:26:28.620 They laid her back down.

00:26:29.580 Her oxygen was 100%.

00:26:31.240 And so I'm not saying that that's always what happens.

00:26:34.080 But in that case, like, she needed her mom.

00:26:37.180 She just needed her mom.

00:26:38.880 Who knows?

00:26:39.300 I don't know everything that was going on physiologically in that moment.

00:26:43.200 But, of course, my guess is that there was some stress there.

00:26:45.940 She had just been, you know, taken out surgically and laid on this table.

00:26:51.880 And she didn't have the only thing that she had ever known.

00:26:55.640 And then when she got that, everything was fine.

00:26:57.700 And praise God, she never had to go to the NICU or anything like that.

00:27:00.420 But I just think about the separation that happens there, that there may be, not always,

00:27:06.080 but there may be physical consequences to that.

00:27:08.420 But certainly there are emotional consequences.

00:27:10.640 And it seems like people justify it by saying, well, they'll be fine.

00:27:14.500 Or they're never able to articulate that pain.

00:27:18.040 They can't talk about that maybe primal wound that occurred there.

00:27:21.680 And, of course, they love their parents.

00:27:23.480 They love the people who raised them.

00:27:24.780 And so they're not going to say, you know, who are you?

00:27:27.420 Why are you raising me?

00:27:28.660 My birth experience was bad.

00:27:30.780 But as you said, just because a child can't speak up for themselves or doesn't have the

00:27:36.500 ability to articulate the pain that was caused there doesn't justify it.

00:27:41.000 It doesn't mean the wound didn't happen.

00:27:42.540 And it doesn't mean that we have an excuse to create that wound.

00:27:46.440 So you use the word primal wound.

00:27:49.500 And that is not, you know, I use the word too.

00:27:52.160 It's not a Katie original.

00:27:53.400 It's actually the term that adoptees have used to describe the pain that took place at

00:28:00.680 birth when they had to be separated from their mother at birth, the only person that they

00:28:04.820 knew.

00:28:05.140 Many of these kids were adopted by loving heterosexual couples that statistically are more highly

00:28:11.720 educated, spend more money, and spend more time with them than even intact biological families.

00:28:18.840 Because adoptive parents go through extreme screening and vetting, they tend to be even

00:28:24.020 better positioned to invest in their children.

00:28:26.060 And yet, adoptees disproportionately struggle academically.

00:28:31.960 They have higher rates of depression and anxiety, externalizing disorders.

00:28:37.260 And many of them would say, it is because I lost a relationship with my mother the day

00:28:42.260 that I was born.

00:28:43.340 Because I had to start from scratch when all the other babies had a nine and a half month

00:28:48.160 head start on me.

00:28:49.200 I had to start at ground zero on the day that I was born.

00:28:53.000 And not just that, but I warned, right?

00:28:55.800 The only way that a baby can process the loss of the mother is to process it as a death.

00:29:03.360 And so there is a book called The Primal Wound, and it is called The Adoptee's Bible, because

00:29:07.420 so many adoptives have said, this explains so much of what I've struggled with in life.

00:29:12.360 So of course, your listeners will rightly say, wait a second, are you against adoption, right?

00:29:19.340 And I can tell you, indeed, I am not against adoption.

00:29:23.480 I used to be the assistant director at the largest Chinese adoption agency in the world.

00:29:28.240 I have walked orphanage floors where kids are crammed two to three per crib.

00:29:33.720 I have seen the children who were left behind, who have fingertips in the shape of light bulbs

00:29:40.380 with blue at the end, because they have holes in their heart, and they don't have enough

00:29:45.800 circulation, and nobody came to get them.

00:29:49.140 And I can tell you that adoption is an institution centered around the well-being of children.

00:29:54.940 It is a just society's response to children who, for whatever reason, have lost their parents.

00:30:01.360 And we can acknowledge that adoption is redemptive without minimizing or papering over the kind

00:30:08.960 of loss the child had to experience to find their forever family.

00:30:13.660 So the best way to understand not just the surrogacy adoption contrast, but really every

00:30:19.560 issue that has to do with sex, marriage, family, parenthood, reproductive technologies,

00:30:25.100 is to ask the question, who's doing the hard thing?

00:30:29.320 Are the adults doing the hard thing?

00:30:31.480 Or are the children doing the hard thing?

00:30:33.500 In surrogacy and sperm donation and egg donation and most IVF, the children are doing the hard

00:30:39.980 thing.

00:30:40.480 They are losing their life.

00:30:42.080 They are losing their mother.

00:30:43.180 They are losing their father.

00:30:44.240 They are losing a relationship with their birth mother so that adults can have what they want.

00:30:48.600 In adoption, the adults are doing the hard thing.

00:30:52.200 They are reordering their life, going through the screening, vetting, background checks, training,

00:30:56.400 home studies, post-placement reports to bring in a child who has experienced a wound, right?

00:31:01.820 In adoption, the adults are seeking to mend the wound.

00:31:06.140 In reproductive technologies, especially third-party reproduction, the adults are inflicting the wound. 0.82

00:31:12.740 So that is sort of the metric that we use in all them-before-us work of them, the children,

00:31:18.700 need to come before us adults.

00:31:20.200 That means we, the adults, have to do the hard thing so that kids don't have to.

00:31:24.860 Yeah.

00:31:26.460 Adoption, because people ask me that a lot.

00:31:29.400 What's the difference between, if there's a wound there, the separation exists both in adoption

00:31:34.740 and in surrogacy.

00:31:37.320 I mean, what's the difference, as you said, are you against adoption too?

00:31:41.440 And how I have kind of said it is, well, adoption redeems an already existing broken situation.

00:31:52.480 Surrogacy brings a broken situation into existence.

00:31:57.980 You're creating a child to then detach them, sometimes from the third-party biological mother, 0.98

00:32:04.640 who is the person who is selling her eggs, and the woman who gestated. 0.70

00:32:09.060 If you're talking about two men using this process, those are two different women. 0.97

00:32:13.820 Or even if it's the egg and the sperm of the biological parents being implanted into the

00:32:20.320 surrogate, you're creating a broken situation there.

00:32:24.380 Whereas in adoption, the baby has already been created.

00:32:27.400 And so you are, you're redeeming a situation that is broken, and that's really the difference.

00:32:34.180 Now, speaking of that, bringing those two things together.

00:32:38.340 Well, gosh, there's so much that I want to say.

00:32:40.020 Number one, okay, let me go back to something that you said that I almost, I almost said

00:32:44.960 something about then, so people are just going to have to remember.

00:32:47.620 When you were talking about IVF and the potentially ethical ways that you can do IVF, that is a

00:32:54.320 lot more difficult, a lot harder to find, basically only implanting the number of, you know, the

00:33:02.380 embryo that you actually want to develop and raise and all of that, not putting them on

00:33:07.200 ice, they're even in that.

00:33:10.120 I still think that any time you take conception outside of sex, there's going to be a potential

00:33:17.140 consequence.

00:33:18.300 I was reading the other day, one of Live Action's posts, a statistic that they cited is that 75%

00:33:23.560 of babies created via IVF do not make it to implantation or birth.

00:33:27.300 There's a very high attrition rate when it comes to creating children outside of conception.

00:33:33.940 So even that, even with the most ethical method possible for creating a child via IVF, you

00:33:41.900 still are asking a child to take a risk.

00:33:44.460 Of course, there's a risk of miscarriage all the time, you know, even in natural conception,

00:33:50.920 but you are asking a child to take a heightened risk with their own life by conceiving that

00:33:56.600 child via IVF.

00:33:57.540 And I know that's really hard for people to hear, and I don't, you know, I don't mean

00:34:01.820 to offend, but still, again, this is just another example that our desire should not

00:34:08.820 be conflated necessarily with God's will, or our ability to do something shouldn't be

00:34:13.500 conflated with should.

00:34:15.680 Right.

00:34:16.340 And for the children that do make it through that gauntlet of risks, we do have emerging

00:34:23.080 data on health impacts for children created through IVF.

00:34:26.440 If you go to our website, thembeforeus.com and search IVF harms, right, we have compiled

00:34:33.100 probably five pages of all the different studies that we have and data that we have on children

00:34:38.920 who were created in a laboratory.

00:34:41.420 And what we know, which isn't everything, but it's something about the cognitive challenges

00:34:46.360 they have, some of the disabilities, physical and developmental, that they are more at risk

00:34:52.040 for, we have a lot more learning that we need to do.

00:34:55.240 But yes, you're right.

00:34:57.040 Even if you don't violate any child's right to life, even if you don't violate the child's

00:35:01.340 right to their mother and father, genetic mother and father, even if you don't separate

00:35:05.440 them from their birth mother, it looks like having a technician direct the conception of the

00:35:12.040 child instead of the loving embrace of a mother and father works against kids, even if they

00:35:18.880 are able to be born alive and raised by their mom and dad.

00:35:22.040 All right.

00:35:26.320 That was part one of our two-part conversation.

00:35:29.900 Next time, we will be talking about what policy should look like.

00:35:34.440 What about Italy's Georgia Maloney, who is making it a lot harder for two men or two women 1.00

00:35:41.360 to claim to be the parents of children?

00:35:44.740 What do pro-family policies look like?

00:35:46.560 Also, things like embryo adoption.

00:35:48.740 What really should be the Christian stance and the Christian's role in this madness that 1.00

00:35:53.460 has been created by reproductive technology?

00:35:56.760 We will get into all of that, trying our best to speak the truth and love to something that

00:36:02.300 I know is a very, very sensitive, understandably sensitive topic.

00:36:06.200 We'll get into all of that tomorrow.

00:36:08.740 Thanks for joining.

00:36:09.800 We'll see you soon.

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Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 20, 2023

Ep 876 ｜ How LGBTQ Activists Are Redefining Infertility ｜ Guest： Katy Faust (Part One)

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