Ep 976 ｜ Birth Control： What the Media Won’t Tell You
Episode Stats
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Summary
The Washington Post wants you back on birth control pills. Also, a very disturbing story of two men buying a baby via surrogacy reminds us why this terrible practice needs to be banned. We ve got all that and more on today s episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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The Washington Post wants you back on those birth control pills.
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Also, a very disturbing story of two men buying a baby via surrogacy reminds us why this terrible
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We've got all of that and more on today's episode of Relatable.
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Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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We are going into Easter weekend, Resurrection Sunday.
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I was at In-N-Out the other day and they had these little signs saying,
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You know, I've thought about this before with In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A and a few other businesses
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that are Christian run, how they're not just outspoken about being Christian In-N-Out more
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so than Chick-fil-A now, but they also just run better than everything else because Christians
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That's not always true across the board, but Christians have historically built really
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They cease to be excellent when they cease being Christian.
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Look at a lot of the hospitals that started out Christian.
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Then when they abandoned their original mission, it's interesting that the quality also fades.
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So that's just a little random aside that I was thinking about.
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Thank you for proclaiming the truth about Jesus that he was raised from the dead three days
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I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend this weekend as you are celebrating that reality
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On Monday, we've got a great episode coming out that's going to be a little bit about just
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the truth of the resurrection and what that means, but also about apologetics and answering
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some of your biggest apologetics questions, how to defend the faith.
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It's going to be a great episode, so be on the lookout for that.
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Unfortunately, today we've got to talk about a couple of dark things.
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It's not going to be exclusively dark and depraved, but as you know, sometimes we have
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to wade into the darkness and depravity, remind ourselves of the light and the truth and the
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hope that's coming in Christ, but we have to realize the pain, the sorrow, and the sadness
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and the sickness that's happening here because part of why we're here is to do something
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about it, to actually shine light on it so that we can make sure that we are doing what
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we are called to do and being an advocate and a refuge for the most vulnerable, namely
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So the theme of this episode, in some ways, the theme is really kind of like the consequences
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of reproductive technology and messing with that, but also children are always what?
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The unconsenting subjects of progressive social experiments.
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Children are the unconsenting subjects of progressive social experiments, and we've talked most about
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this in the past few years in relation to surrogacy, in relation to IVF, in relation to sperm
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and egg selling, and I've got an especially egregious example of what baby selling in the United
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States can look like and the repercussions of having basically a wild west of reproductive
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technology in the United States where it's basically unregulated, where anyone, if they want to buy a
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child via surrogacy, via sperm and egg selling, they can, without a background check.
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If you've got the money for it, you can buy an egg, you can rent a womb, you can take that child
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away both from her biological mother and the mother who gestated her for nine months, and you can raise
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It's really disturbing, really disgusting that that is legal at all in the United States.
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It's also, as I said, very unregulated, and here's an example of the repercussions of that.
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Chicago-area veterinarian Adam Stafford King arrested Friday on child pornography charges
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and accused of chatting about planning to sexually assault—this is dark, I'm just preparing you for it—sexually
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assault his newborn son, federal prosecutors announced on Monday.
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He's a veterinary ophthalmologist from Elburn who has also judged national dog shows, and he's not
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He is specifically a judge for national dog shows where the owner, the trainer of the dogs,
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King is well-known in the dog-showing community.
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According to the charges against him, the FBI began investigating King in October as part of a
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I typically say child sex abuse material because child pornography implies that there is
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actual sex being had or there is consent there, and a child can never consent to sexual relations.
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And so anytime there is a sexual interaction between an adult and a child, it is always abuse.
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So agents learned a subject in the New York case had been chatting with King using the
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dating app Scruff and the messaging app Telegram, and King had sent that person several videos
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After that person was arrested, the FBI agents posed as him online, so basically took on his
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During those chats, King used the handle pervchiguy, so like Chicago, and wrote that he prefers children
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In one message, King wrote, zero to nine years old, my fave, boy and girl, though prefer
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King also claimed he had drugged and sexually abused his nieces and nephews using Benadryl.
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He also claimed that he and his husband, so-called, were expecting the birth of a child by surrogate
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on March 29, and that he planned to sexually assault the child after it is born.
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In a message he thought was to another pedophile, he wrote,
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Might have to come and visit my boy when he's born.
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King was arrested on Friday, days before he was scheduled to fly to California to visit
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the surrogate mother ahead of his son's expected birth.
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Later this week at King's initial court appearance on Friday, prosecutors asked him to be held
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in custody without bond, according to court records.
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He had posted pictures of his future son's onesie on these chat rooms with people who ended
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up being federal agents who he thought was pedophiles, and oh my gosh, I've got so much to say about this.
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I know that we talk a lot about the corruption in the intelligence community and the FBI and the CIA.
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I am so thankful they did what they had to do to ensure that this person was locked up and that
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nothing happened to this poor baby that he was about to buy from this woman in California that
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We've talked about several cases of men buying babies, purchasing children, either via adoption
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or surrogacy, and pimping them out in this way.
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It's really disgusting, and it's really tough to even think about that this is happening,
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but we have to think about it because if there are children that have to endure it,
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there are adults that at least have to think about it and at least have to talk about it
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because it is going to require our voices and our political power to ensure that baby buying
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through surrogacy in the United States is illegal and that when it comes to adoption, there's
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a lot of conversations that we can have about that, about who should be able to adopt, but
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at the very least, there needs to be a lot more thorough investigations.
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However, there's not because in the name of inclusion and love and empathy and tolerance,
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no one dares question a man or two men purchasing children.
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You're not allowed to do that because we're all inclusive, and we all have to just assume
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that this is all normal and good, that children don't need a mother and father,
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that there are no red flags here, so you're not allowed to ask questions.
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Obviously, I know there are some background checks that come with adoption,
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and that could be a difficult process for a lot of people, but there's not enough,
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and there are no regulations when it comes to surrogacy.
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They were going to forcibly take that child away both from the biological mother, which
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is the egg seller, and this gestational carrier, the surrogate, with whom this boy had been
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bonding for the last nine months, who smell and feel in heartbeat, he knows, rip him from her chest
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at the point of birth, crueler treatment than we give to puppies and kittens, take him away,
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only to sexually assault him and pimp him out to his friends.
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That's what was going to happen in this case, and it almost happened.
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If these FBI agents had not realized that this was happening in these chat rooms.
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I am not saying that all men or all couples who use surrogacy are doing this.
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I am not making a blanket statement about gay couples.
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I'm not making a blanket statement about everyone who uses surrogacy.
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I'm not making a blanket statement about what their motives are and what they end up doing
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I'm saying that it is enough of a problem that we need to care about it.
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I'm saying if it happens at all, then that should sound some alarms in our head, and
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we should say, hmm, how are we going to stop this from happening?
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And I think no matter who you are, no matter why you are using surrogacy or egg or sperm
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I don't think that we should be buying children.
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I don't think that you should be able to take a child away from their biological
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parents, the egg or sperm seller, and put them in an incubator that they will never know.
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Again, that's worse treatment than we give puppies or kittens.
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By law, we have to keep them with their mother for at least, what, six to 12 weeks?
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And we don't do that with babies who are purchased in this way?
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I mean, how many of these cases, these extreme awful cases, have actually come to fruition because
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But this is a form of trafficking, of legalized trafficking in the United States that in some
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cases, like in this one, can turn into sex trafficking.
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And you're telling me there's nothing that we should do about it in the name of love,
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inclusion, and empathy, and just, oh, well, they want to be a parent, so I guess that we
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Like, we should probably ask the question, what's going to happen to this child now?
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What's going to happen to this child now that the father, or at least one of the men who
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is going to raise him, is going to be in prison?
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Is this mother going to have to abort the baby?
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Is the baby going to be able to live with the other man who probably might have the same
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Or at least is married to someone who has those issues.
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You're not, you can't tell me that that's a safe environment for that child.
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And these are all the kinds of questions that should be asked before we say okay to legalizing
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She was carrying a baby for two men, for two gay men, and it ended up that she was diagnosed
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with cancer, and they were afraid that something was going to happen to the baby, and she was
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going to have to deliver this baby early because of her diagnosis, but the baby was going to
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They were going to wait as long as they could to make sure that even though he was premature,
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that he was going to be healthy and get all the medical care that he needed.
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They didn't want a baby with special needs, and so they pressured this woman to abort.
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That happens many times a year in this country, and it is perfectly, totally legal.
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It's advocated for by the same people who say, my body, my choice.
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So you believe in her body, her choice, unless she's a surrogate, then she has no rights over
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I don't think that we have even begun to scratch the surface of the evil that is underneath
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the surrogacy, the reproductive technology industry.
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All of it requires the sacrifice of children, the literal sacrifice of children in their
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Like when we talk about, or when we think about the embryos that are discarded, the millions
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and millions of embryos that are discarded through a eugenics process every year in the
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And when we talk about the sacrifice of the rights of these children, the right of these
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children to have a mother and a father, we have to start thinking about all reproductive
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technology through the lens of the rights and the well-being and the needs of the child,
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And that is not just true when it comes to a gay couple.
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We have to start thinking when we're talking about reproduction, about what is best for
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the child, what is least risky for this child, not, well, what do the parents want?
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And unfortunately, even Christians, I think, mess this up a lot.
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Well, being a parent is a great desire, so we should just be able to fulfill it.
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Well, something could be a great desire that doesn't justify an any means necessary approach
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And I just pray that law enforcement always catches evil people like this.
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And I personally believe that the production of child sex abuse material should get you
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I mean, I think that the death penalty should only be reserved for the most heinous crimes.
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That's why in the state of Florida, they passed the law that says that you can be eligible for
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the death penalty if you raped a minor under the age of 12.
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That's going to have to make its way to the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court has already
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ruled that that's unconstitutional, which is ridiculous.
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But if it does make its way to the Supreme Court and that case is overturned, well, then
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that could open up the door to other states passing the same law that you should be eligible
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for the death penalty if you commit that kind of crime against a minor.
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I promise you the prevalence of child sex abuse would go down if we consistently applied
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Like, try to explain to me the downside of that.
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So death penalty for child sex abusers, ban all surrogacy.
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Oh, if those two, if those two things just happened, maybe that would be, if I were running
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for president, those two things would be at the top of my list.
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We would probably save a lot of children's lives, a lot of children's lives because of
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Church, we have always been a refuge for children.
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We have always advocated on behalf of children.
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We have always been the voice for the voiceless and the power for the powerless, especially
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these adolescents who do not have the mental or the physical capacity to defend themselves.
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That has been the history of the church, and it must still be our calling now.
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And that includes not just speaking up for the orphan in the orphanage or the poor child
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in Africa who is starving, but the fatherless and the motherless here who are forced into
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a purposely fatherless home, forced into a purposely motherless home in the name of love
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and inclusion and tolerance and LGBTQ equality.
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These things still matter, even if they're unpopular and inconvenient.
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Just wanted to give you another reminder of why surrogacy needs to go away forever and ever
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You can go back and listen to some previous episodes we have on that.
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If you're curious as to why I have such a hardline stance on that.
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I know that y'all probably saw this Washington Post story.
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Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion by Lauren Weber.
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Weber, not sure how to pronounce her last name.
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Birth control is something that we've been talking about on this show since 2019 or maybe
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What birth control is, hormonal birth control, what it does to your body, how there is an
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There is the possibility always of birth control actually making your uterus inhospitable to an already
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fertilized egg, which is ethically and morally problematic for those of us who believe that
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And so I think a lot of women have started to think more thoroughly about hormonal birth
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control, whether they ethically align with it and what it's actually been doing to their
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And the Washington Post, of course, is very upset about this.
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A search for birth control on TikTok or Instagram and a cascade of misleading videos vilifying
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Young women blaming their weight gain on the pill.
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Right-wing commentators claiming that some birth control can lead to infertility.
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Testimonials complaining of depression and anxiety.
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Physicians say they're seeing an explosion of birth control misinformation online targeting
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People in their teens and early 20s who are more likely to believe that what they see on
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their phones because of algorithms that feed them a stream of videos reinforcing messages
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Of course, one of the doctors that they're talking about or that they're talking to about
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all of this misinformation will put his picture up on YouTube.
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And you can tell me, women, whether you would trust this person with your body.
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Do you trust this person to tell you about birth control?
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Well, he's got this little sign that says, facts are important.
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And I guarantee you, he probably has his pronouns in his profile.
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He's got a little rainbow flag there waving behind him.
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I mean, just stare deep into this person's soul and tell me whether or not you give a flying
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rip about what he's got to say about what birth control does for your body.
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He says, people are putting themselves out there as experts on birth control and speaking
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I am seeing the direct failures of this misinformation.
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Say little data is available about the scale of this new phenomenon.
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But anecdotally, more patients are coming in with misconceptions about birth control fueled
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I will just say, like, I was totally snubbed here.
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I was totally snubbed that I was not included in this article because we were way ahead of
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the curve when it talks when it's when it comes to who was talking about birth control and
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Prominent conservative commentators have seized upon mistrust of medical professionals.
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So in misinformation as a way to discourage the use of use of birth control, Brett Cooper
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gives an example of the Daily Wire, a media commentator says that argued in a viral TikTok
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clip that birth control can impact fertility, cause women to gain weight and even alter whom
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They list other people like Candace Owens, Brittany Martinez, founder of Evie magazine.
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And Brittany said women have been silenced and shamed by legacy media, the pharmaceutical
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industry, and in many cases by their own doctors who have gaslit them.
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And so this person is discrediting all of this, saying that this is just viral misinformation.
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This is all just manipulation tactics to I don't even know what the intent would be.
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What would the intent behind this be to try to get women to accidentally get pregnant?
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I guess they're trying to say that, I don't know, these influencers really believe what
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they're saying, but it's just the wrong information.
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And unfortunately, they're convincing other people of their lies.
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All forms of medication, including hormonal birth control, can have side effects.
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This is exactly what these influencers are saying.
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Birth control pills that contain estrogen can lead to blood clots and strokes.
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And then the article described this 24-year-old who was surprisingly diagnosed with blood clots
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in her leg and both lungs caused by her birth control.
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The Food and Drug Administration points out that the risk of developing blood clots from
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using birth control pills remains lower than the risk of developing blood clots in pregnancy
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I guess you're trying to say, look, this is better than getting pregnant because your
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likelihood of having blood clots is actually lower than that.
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And many women are put on birth control not because they're having sex, not because they're
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Women are put on birth control basically like they're given Tic Tacs, told this will clear
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It doesn't regulate your period because you don't have a period on birth control.
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And so your body isn't going through the cycle that God made it to go through every month.
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Of course, there are going to be effects on your mind, on your body when you mess with
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Now, I understand there are also some benefits that some people say that they get from birth
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They say that it helps with your endometriosis symptoms.
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But it is not going to get to the root cause of your pre-existing problems.
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They talk about the effects that this has had via social media.
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Talks about, you know, women who are having unplanned pregnancies because of this.
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But they don't actually discredit anything that any of these commentators are saying.
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In fact, they admit that some of these side effects are real.
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They might say that they're rare, but they are, in fact, real.
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This is a tactic that you see a lot in the media to say there's no evidence saying that.
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But saying there's no evidence of something does not mean that there's evidence proving
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So they might say there's no evidence to show that birth control can cause depression.
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But say that there aren't studies done by that.
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That just means that that study hasn't gotten the funding.
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Big Pharma probably doesn't want a study like that being out there.
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That doesn't mean that there is evidence discrediting that.
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I mean, when enough women say this, and this was so common when I was in college, women
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saying, oh, my birth control pill is making me crazy.
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Or my dermatologist put me on a birth control pill and I'm just getting used to it.
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Or, oh, my gosh, well, I can't lose weight right now because I just switched birth control
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I mean, this happened to so many of my friends when a doctor in high school who probably just
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assumed that everyone was having sex secretly and wanted to make sure that they didn't get
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pregnant at 16, just put them on birth control, really for no health reasons.
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She would say, oh, yeah, it's to regulate your period because, I don't know, at the age of 15,
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So she would use that as an excuse to put people on the birth control pill.
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And it caused, in some cases, years of problems for these girls who were still developing at this
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time to mess with the natural cycle, to mess with hormones, especially when a young woman is still
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developing just because you think that you're being a hero and possibly preventing an unwanted
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So it is a great thing that women are waking up to this, that women are realizing that what we put
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It actually makes a big difference and that it can be detrimental to us, even though we have been
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gaslit by our doctors for so many years into believing that it has no negative effects whatsoever.
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And the people at The Washington Post who probably have a pretty cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical
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Studies have shown that the pill does, in fact, change the pheromones emitted by a woman's body.
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It can influence how partners are chosen, according to a 2018 study published in the National Library
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We have talked about how women who are on the birth control pill are actually more likely
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to have bisexual feelings and to be attracted to more effeminate men than women who are not
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A 2008 study also found a correlation between birth control and women's taste in men.
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A 2013 study from Psychoneuroendocrinology found initiation of birth control pill use significantly
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decreased women's preferences for male facial masculinity, but did not influence preferences
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According to the Mayo Clinic, weight gain, breakthrough, bleeding, headaches, nausea, elevated
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blood pressure, and bloating are common side effects of combination birth control pills,
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The pill can also increase the risk of blood clots, heart attacks, and other health issues.
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Of course, it increases, you can find this anywhere, increases the likelihood of breast cancer
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And these are all things that most women are not told by their doctors.
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They're not told, okay, you should be careful about this.
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They're just given the pill saying, you know, this will clear up your acne.
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So the Washington Post made no mention of the psychological effects on birth control that,
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But a 2016 study published in JAMA Psychiatry looked at over a million Danish women over age
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14 and found all forms of hormonal contraception were associated with an increased risk of developing
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depression, with higher risks associated with the progesterone-only depression forms, including
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This risk was higher in teens ages 15 to 19, and especially for non-oral forms of birth control,
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Dr. Sarah Hill, a professor of social psychology at TCU, wrote a book,
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How the Pill Changes Everything, Your Brain on Birth Control.
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She said she's not against it, but that her research has shown that birth control has had a huge impact
00:30:17.100
on women's relationships and sexual affection, as well as stress responses.
00:30:21.480
She describes how the pill affects women's brains.
00:30:24.400
The pill works by mimicking the second half of a woman's monthly ovulatory cycle using artificial
00:30:30.020
progesterone, which shuts down the brain signal and prompts egg development.
00:30:35.220
This also means the ovaries aren't producing estrogen, the hormone that dominates the first
00:30:39.720
half of a woman's natural cycle and contributes to a woman's feeling of libido and energy.
00:30:45.840
While most pills use some synthetic estrogen primarily to offset progestin's unpleasant side
00:30:53.920
She did an interview in 2019 on the Today Show where she said pill use prior to the finalization
00:30:59.740
of brain development influences women's brain health long-term.
00:31:03.400
So these doctors that are putting these teenagers on birth control pills because they think that
00:31:10.020
they're doing something valiant, you are actually messing them up for the rest of their lives.
00:31:14.960
Like I told you about my friends and I, who all happened to see the same doctor, none of
00:31:22.180
And yet for all different reasons, for a missed period, for acne, for cramps, she would just
00:31:34.600
And were we told, were our parents told about any of these side effects?
00:31:38.220
And that was back in the day where you just listened to your doctor and you kind of have
00:31:43.120
white coat syndrome and you just assume that they're always right.
00:31:47.380
Now, thank the Lord, I realized very early on that I didn't want to do this anymore, that
00:31:53.920
there was no reason for me to be on birth control.
00:31:56.440
And so after a few years, I stopped and I was like, I don't need that.
00:32:00.160
I remember being afraid that I was going to get acne, that like everything, I don't know.
00:32:05.140
I just thought that everything was going to be horrible, but I got off birth control and
00:32:11.320
Some women get off birth control when they're married, they're ready to have kids, and then
00:32:14.840
it takes them forever to get pregnant or they can't get pregnant at all.
00:32:17.660
Their body doesn't even know how to have a natural cycle anymore.
00:32:20.240
And so it's got to learn for several months how to do that again.
00:32:29.180
I remember also when I was in high school and I started this, I just remembered this.
00:32:38.140
I remember I would wake up in the middle of the night so sad, scared, and it was just
00:32:45.120
I'm remembering that because I remember talking to my mom about that.
00:32:48.920
And I remember this girl in college who was on my hall freshman year who told me, oh, I'm
00:32:54.180
on this new form of birth control and I just can't stop crying.
00:32:57.620
I keep getting in fights with my boyfriend about it, about her moodiness, her mood swings.
00:33:02.520
This is ruining people's lives, ruining people's lives.
00:33:17.040
It's so interesting that these same people who say my body, my choice and bodily autonomy
00:33:21.500
and women's rights and women taking charge, they are against women taking charge of their
00:33:28.080
bodies when it comes to understanding the negative effects of the hormonal birth control
00:33:40.500
Now I know I'm going to hear from some of you who say it changed your life because you
00:33:48.880
I would just say, I would suggest as a non-medical professional that you go to a functional medicine
00:33:54.480
doctor and you get to the root cause of those issues.
00:33:59.920
What is causing the symptoms that you are having?
00:34:02.280
Because again, the birth control might be masking those symptoms, but they are not fixing
00:34:08.940
And so I know that we're not allowed to talk about root causes.
00:34:11.680
We're not allowed to talk about alternative medicine.
00:34:14.340
We're not allowed to talk about anything other than what the pharmaceutical companies
00:34:20.920
But if we care about our body, if we care about our long-term health, if we care about our
00:34:25.520
daughters, if we care about our ability to have children, all of those things that we
00:34:30.000
have to care, of course, with what is going into our bodies.
00:34:33.920
And of course, we didn't even discuss that much.
00:34:40.420
If you are married and you're having regular sex and you're on this birth control pill,
00:34:44.920
there is a possibility that that birth control pill is causing an abortion.
00:34:49.660
And so it's just, it's something to, I think, correct in your life.
00:34:57.320
And there's lots of conversations I know that we haven't had yet really on this podcast about
00:35:05.700
Biblically, when is it okay to stop having children?
00:35:08.380
I get this question a lot, what I think about vasectomies and all of that.
00:35:11.940
And we'll have to do an episode dedicated to that specifically, because that's a little
00:35:20.000
It's a complex topic, but it's also a sensitive topic.
00:35:23.060
So I want to make sure that I approach that with care.
00:35:34.240
Politico, not surprisingly, wants to make sure that Christians no longer believe that
00:35:45.480
He is an ex-evangelical, a former evangelical minister.
00:35:49.980
He is the author of Preparing for War, the Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism.
00:35:55.840
He is the co-host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast.
00:36:04.820
In 2004, this article says he debated whether to vote for John Kerry or George W. Bush, but
00:36:10.820
he came back to the idea that had been ingrained in him as a youth pastor at a Southern California
00:36:18.380
And so that's what was making him lean towards George W. Bush.
00:36:22.260
And he says the belief that abortion is murder founded on the premise that life begins at
00:36:26.680
The premise drove my evangelical politics as a zealous young convert, and it continues
00:36:32.200
to motivate millions of Americans when they go to vote in local, state, and national elections.
00:36:36.760
It's easy to think that the premise that life begins at conception is a timeless theological
00:36:42.880
He writes that the Protestant forefathers like Cotton Mather, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards
00:36:47.380
were more likely to believe that abortion, while inadvisable, was not murder until the quickening
00:36:51.380
of the child when the mother feels it move, somewhere near 18 weeks of pregnancy.
00:37:01.360
So they weren't able to see that beating heart at six to eight weeks gestation.
00:37:12.280
This idea that we just became against abortion in the 1970s is just not true.
00:37:19.140
Look back to the 1500s, so the time of the Protestant Reformation, you did see the Reformers,
00:37:26.340
and of course many of the early church fathers too, but if we fast forward a bit to the Reformers,
00:37:31.620
we do see an absolute condemnation of abortion.
00:37:36.340
For example, Martin Luther, when he was talking about Genesis 25, 1 through 4, he said,
00:37:41.920
God wanted to teach in a task that the beginning of children is wonderfully pleasing to him,
00:37:46.660
in order that we might realize that he upholds and defends his word when he says,
00:37:53.840
How great, therefore, the wickedness of human nature is.
00:37:56.760
How many girls there are who prevent conception and kill and expel tender fetuses,
00:38:05.300
In 1542, Luther wrote a pamphlet he distinguished between women who suffer miscarriages through
00:38:12.860
no fault of their own and those who, quote, females who resent being pregnant deliberately
00:38:18.240
neglect their child or go so far as to strangle or destroy it.
00:38:22.340
Also in a letter that he wrote in 1544, Luther strongly condemned a woman who had been a guest
00:38:28.180
in his house for asking his maid to jump on her body to kill the baby.
00:38:33.540
And so he was obviously condemning abortion from the very early stages.
00:38:41.820
He says, the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being,
00:38:47.040
and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of the life that it has not yet begun to enjoy.
00:38:53.920
If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field because a man's house
00:38:59.460
is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy
00:39:04.760
a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.
00:39:08.460
And so what this author of the Politico article is trying to get you to think is that all throughout
00:39:14.640
church history that Christians really have thought about abortion being okay until about
00:39:24.160
It does have a complex history within the church with some people believing that it's
00:39:32.100
But again, even then, they did not have the science to know what was really happening inside
00:39:37.760
And even those who also didn't have that science in the 16th century, there were many of them
00:39:43.980
who did believe that abortion from any stage in pregnancy was murder and was wrong.
00:39:49.700
Of course, what he's trying to say, as he goes on to argue in this article, that in the
00:39:55.740
1960s and 70s, Southern Baptists and other historically conservative Protestant denominations held that
00:40:00.380
abortion was not only permissible, but also should be left to individual choice.
00:40:06.080
And then in 1968, a group of evangelical leaders wrote a Protestant affirmation on the control
00:40:13.860
But then, of course, he argues that all of that changed in the name of wanting political
00:40:17.540
power and Southern Baptists and evangelicals changed their position on abortion just in
00:40:22.500
order to secure their Republican vote for their own purposes.
00:40:29.940
There is a widespread and nuanced theological debate about the beginning of life in the
00:40:34.620
The idea that life begins at conception is far from a universally agreed upon matter of
00:40:40.020
When viewed in the long history of the Christian tradition, it is actually a minority opinion.
00:40:45.700
Since the fall of Roe, it is clear that the logic of the movement is headed in a direction
00:40:50.000
that will cause problems both theologically and politically.
00:40:52.720
Once they understand the implications for IVF, birth control, and even on abortions and extenuating
00:40:57.700
circumstances, many Protestants, including evangelical and charismatics, might want to reconsider
00:41:03.560
whether they really want to make the theological case for extending personhood to embryos.
00:41:09.880
All right, we just have to think about it for a second.
00:41:11.840
If life doesn't start at conception, then when does it start?
00:41:15.720
If personhood isn't granted to a human when they become a human, then when is it granted
00:41:22.080
If you become a person any time after you become a human, then it becomes really arbitrary.
00:41:32.060
Shouldn't we make sure that we are advocating for the most life-saving position possible?
00:41:38.040
I don't really care what Jonathan Edwards has to say about abortion.
00:41:43.260
And when he thinks life begins, there are other things that I disagree with Jonathan Edwards
00:41:47.760
on when it comes to the value of human life, too.
00:41:50.200
Like, why is that going to make me take the completely incongruent position that some magical
00:41:57.800
time, arbitrary time after conception, suddenly that human being becomes a person with rights?
00:42:08.820
In my mind, the only logically and morally and theologically consistent place to say that
00:42:14.780
a human becomes a person is when a human becomes a human, which is the point of fertilization.
00:42:20.960
At that point, they've got their own unique DNA, their eye color, their hair color, everything
00:42:27.580
That little person from the earliest stage of development is made in the image of God.
00:42:32.520
And therefore, of course, I believe that it is wrong to kill that person.
00:42:35.660
And yes, it has implications on IVF and on birth control.
00:42:43.640
Not everyone understands that, but we're getting there.
00:42:46.840
And just because it might be politically inconvenient to advocate for those little lives
00:42:54.680
Doesn't mean that it's theologically incorrect in any way.
00:43:02.860
They're not coming to a conclusion in this article except for, well, this is so nuanced.
00:43:07.040
It's really too complicated for you to have a firm position on.
00:43:09.980
And so you should just vote for the party that unapologetically celebrates abortion through
00:43:40.880
And we still did not get through everything that we wanted to talk about.
00:43:43.960
I know that we didn't discuss Nickelodeon this week.
00:43:47.740
And I said that we would discuss the Nickelodeon documentary.
00:43:54.400
We weren't foreseeing the whole Candace Owens, Christ is King subject,
00:44:05.500
Although you just never know what's going to happen, the demands of the news cycle and
00:44:09.220
what goes on and what you guys want me to talk about.
00:44:11.420
They keep us really busy and keep the episodes really full.
00:44:15.940
So just remember, Monday we're having an apologetics conversation with Dr. Jeremiah Johnston.
00:44:21.900
If you've got any questions, any apologetics questions, like how do I answer this?
00:44:29.620
You can DM me on Instagram and we will go through those on Monday.