How Should Christians Think About Frozen Embryos?

[00:00:00] You're listening to Thatll Preach. We have Paul back in the studio today, my co-host

[00:00:13] doctor Paul Rizcalo, the prestigious scholar athlete, Renaissance man,

[00:00:20] B-Boxer, rapper, break dancer and sous chef. Paul, it's good to have you back

[00:00:29] here in town again. I feel like you visit every couple months and then we get to crank out

[00:00:33] a bunch of episodes, talking about whatever is on our minds and it's a lot of fun.

[00:00:39] Glad you're here with us Paul. It's good to be back. I always feel weird when

[00:00:42] you give me that lofty introduction. Like I feel unworthy. You are. Thank you. But

[00:00:49] that's why people tune in. Sometimes I'll have interviews with people who are really

[00:00:54] real scholars and then on the offseason, I go to the Walmart version, the off brand

[00:01:02] scholar, the bottom of the draft which is you. Yeah exactly. You're the bottom draft. No

[00:01:07] but you are a scholar in your own respect. You are somebody who thinks a lot about issues,

[00:01:12] ethical issues, bioethics. It's what you're studying over there in Waco, the land of Waco,

[00:01:17] Texas, Aila University, shout out to the bears. Sick of bears? There you go. Oh that's

[00:01:24] pretty violent. That's what we say. Well, we wanted to do this podcast because we had

[00:01:31] a bunch of things that in our personal conversation, some interesting conversations we've had

[00:01:35] between each other, some of the things that you're studying and thinking about. And the

[00:01:41] issue of frozen embryos, specifically as it relates to IVF and vitro fertilization and

[00:01:49] reproductive technologies. That whole controversial subject, controversial and Christian circles

[00:01:55] as well is seemingly all over the news. Obviously there was some laws passed. And it's raised

[00:02:03] the question about what's the moral permissibility of freezing embryos. Embrose. Embrose. Embrose

[00:02:10] and we said envios. Embrose during the process of IVF or rather as a result of IVF. Yeah.

[00:02:18] Freezing fertilized eggs. And so if you're a Christian with a Christian world view, you

[00:02:22] view life begins at conception. So fertilize egg is a human being. I think that should be

[00:02:28] uncontroversial among Christians. Let's just start there so we don't want to eliminate eggs

[00:02:34] who are the product of IVF. You don't want to kill human life that would be inconsistent.

[00:02:39] But the issue of freezing them, little more dicey, more controversial and just fill us in on why

[00:02:47] this is now public news. Why this is something that is taking up the airwaves so to speak for

[00:02:55] the Instagram waves, talking about IVF and specifically the issue of freezing eggs.

[00:03:02] Or freezing fertilized eggs. Embrose. Yeah. I can't speak to the Instagram social media stuff,

[00:03:08] probably not dominating people's insta feeds. But Alabama recently changed its designation for

[00:03:16] frozen embryos from property to persons. So previously if you had frozen embryos, they were

[00:03:22] considered your property. They'd be stored in cryogenic tanks and clinics. And if something

[00:03:28] were to happen to one of them, it would be like some of your property was destroyed. And so you'd

[00:03:33] be compensated for loss of property. You'd have to take out insurance for property. But now that

[00:03:40] an Alabama court has decided, well, actually these are persons and they cited actually scripture

[00:03:45] and Christian ethical teaching that every human is made in the image of God from natural conception

[00:03:52] to natural death. Then that means these embryos have a human dignity. And so we should respect

[00:03:58] the embryos as such. And so it leaves, it leaves us in a bit of a problem not just in Alabama,

[00:04:04] but how do we think about frozen embryos more generally? And so for those who are unfamiliar,

[00:04:11] the process of in vitro fertilization uses gametes from both male and female and creates embryos

[00:04:20] outside of the uterus. Oftentimes what happens is couples who are seeking to, they've gotten fertility

[00:04:30] issues or trying to have a baby or trying to have a kid. They will create the embryos outside

[00:04:36] of the womb and then try to successfully re-implant. What happens is either by choice or by necessity

[00:04:44] there are extra embryos. And so the question is what do you do with these embryos?

[00:04:50] And some people opt for just destroying them, just getting rid of them. A lot of people will save

[00:04:56] them and freeze them. And so that that's, there's about 1.5 million frozen embryos just in the US

[00:05:03] today not to mention the millions more frozen embryos across the world. And so there's an interesting

[00:05:10] question now, what's the status of these embryos? And if you're a Christian you have to

[00:05:16] well, okay, we've got the image of God from natural conception to natural death. What is the best

[00:05:22] way to respect human life? So I guess there's a couple of ethical questions that arise. Once you have

[00:05:28] these frozen embryos, what should you do with them? What should we do to respect their dignity?

[00:05:34] But also should we freeze embryos in the first place as a question that we can ask? And what

[00:05:40] respects human dignity? And so yeah, those two distinct questions. And if you're a Christian,

[00:05:46] you should have, there's a stake, there's a need, the stakes for huge for this debate because

[00:05:51] we're not just dealing with clumps of cells, we're dealing with the image of God.

[00:05:56] So this could be an obviously a sensitive issue, but just because it's sensitive doesn't mean

[00:06:02] we should not talk about it. And this is something that's, again, in the current cultural discourse

[00:06:09] people are now talking about this and I think the church should be able to think through this

[00:06:13] and the implications of it. And I think it's hard not to have an emotional tie to the conversation

[00:06:19] because you're dealing with things like infertility or dealing things with

[00:06:23] giving birth and life and procreation and sex and all these types of things. But we do have to be

[00:06:30] able to think clearly about it and think with hopefully the scriptures and divine

[00:06:38] revelations are guide and understanding of how all this works. And but specifically, that's

[00:06:45] true. We have to establish if we're going to say that fertilized egg is a human being,

[00:06:49] the embryo is a human being, then there's implications with that that we cannot avoid.

[00:06:58] Even if it's a sensitive topic, even if it could say that yeah, maybe actions people have

[00:07:05] done are wrong. I mean you have to be mature and old enough to say yeah, like if we can't have

[00:07:10] that conversation then we're going to be severely stunted in our ability to have moral discernment.

[00:07:16] Now what's interesting though is so Roman Catholics have had a tradition of being saying,

[00:07:24] contraception is impermissible. IVF is impermissible that you don't want to separate the act of sex

[00:07:30] from the end appropriation. Now we're not going to spend this time debating that fact. But just

[00:07:38] what's interesting is within Catholics there's a little bit of a debate about what to do with the

[00:07:44] embryos once they're there. Right, so maybe we could start off by saying one, is it ethical to

[00:07:51] freeze embryos? And then two, what's the debate among Roman Catholics about that and why that's an

[00:07:59] interesting debate for Protestants kind of listening to? Yeah, because I think Roman Catholics would say

[00:08:04] no freezing embryos. Right, that's right. And I do think that makes sense. But then from that

[00:08:10] it's okay, well once you decide not to freeze the embryos what do you do? And that's a very

[00:08:16] interesting discussion. But maybe that first part, how would you make the moral case

[00:08:20] not to freeze embryos? I think most Christians this day we don't want to destroy them but that's

[00:08:24] right. Freezing is not killing. It's not as morally bad, but yeah, what's your take on that? Yeah,

[00:08:31] so there's a couple of thoughts here and just from the outset, there's no knockdown argument.

[00:08:37] But I also want to reiterate the sentiment that you started with here that these issues are really

[00:08:42] live issues for people that they're dealing with. And when you look at in scripture and even just

[00:08:48] in human history, one of the perennial problems for women and couples is infertility, like not having

[00:08:53] a child when Hannah doesn't have a child in the Old Testament she's weeping and it really is

[00:08:59] we're not we're not downplaying that. If anything, it shows us how great of a good children are

[00:09:07] and when the gift of children is not there how painful that can be. And so we want to take that

[00:09:11] really seriously but we don't also want to sort of the ends justifies the means. And we don't

[00:09:18] want to say that technology can be the answer to all of our problems. And so there are some cultural

[00:09:25] instincts that I think Christianity can push back on that helps us further affirm the dignity of

[00:09:31] human persons and also not outsource all of our problems to technological solutions. So I think

[00:09:36] that's sort of that's where I'm coming from and I want to think about this through a distinctly

[00:09:40] Christian lens. And one thing I think that's really important and we were talking about this earlier

[00:09:45] that when we think about what it is for a for a parent to have a child, that relationship there,

[00:09:52] we think about the relationship between the father and the son when we say the

[00:09:56] the nice and creed, when we talk about Jesus as the only begotten son of God the gospel of John

[00:10:02] uses that language. That language of begetting is a really distinct kind of

[00:10:07] relationship that illustrates a really tight union or tight connection

[00:10:13] that from the beginning in Genesis like begets like that creatures beget

[00:10:21] similar versions of themselves and it shows a kind of continuity of kind. And there's something about

[00:10:30] outsourcing that the process to technology that undermines a little bit of that and

[00:10:39] so when you have these these embryos that are frozen and left over those are human beings. Those

[00:10:47] are people that deserve human respect. And there's a kind of instrumentalization of those

[00:10:55] individuals by sort of well, I'm that's on my time or I'm just going to I want to have children

[00:11:03] so badly that if there are extra embryos then we're just going to store them and leave them

[00:11:07] and maybe we'll get to them later. But there's like even just the way in describing that it feels

[00:11:13] it feels a little bit like that's not what you do with a child, you don't you don't make a child

[00:11:18] and then cryogenically freeze them. That's a human person. There's something almost weirdly

[00:11:23] dystopian about that and if that's hard to hear then I want to affirm the instinct that says

[00:11:32] like these these art children we should look at it through that lens first and foremost rather than

[00:11:38] you know this is if it's something that I've done or if something that I've participated in the past

[00:11:42] like fundamentally these are human persons and that should shape all of our discourse on this.

[00:11:47] What do I do when I've got human beings and I've outsourced them to a clinic and just left them

[00:11:52] to be cryogenically frozen? That is that's a really serious moral issue. And it's one that I think

[00:11:58] Protestants can't affirm the same sorts of values that the Roman Catholics are operating on.

[00:12:03] It's not it's not anything from like the extramiblical books. It's not like something from a

[00:12:07] papal decree. It's just look at the dignity of human persons and look at the sanctity of the

[00:12:11] marriage act and look at the goodness of children as a gift from God, not as a product of our

[00:12:19] technique or technology. So all the sorts of issues I think they get at we don't we don't want to

[00:12:27] outsource the natural process of having kids and beginning kids to a technological mechanism.

[00:12:37] But even if that's the case, having leftovers and sort of treating these extra humans as leftovers or

[00:12:44] they're at my disposal. I have a kind of like well I get to decide what to do with them on my timing

[00:12:49] and my convenience. It like it reifies all of these cultural instincts about it's all about me

[00:12:55] and it's myself and it's my timing and it's my but what if it's not about you? What if

[00:13:00] what if children really are a gift from God and every embryo is a human being worthy of respect

[00:13:07] because they're bears of the image of God. And so the question is, is that a way to respect the

[00:13:12] image of God by cryogenically freezing a human being? It's a good distinction because again this

[00:13:18] is not even getting into the ethics of whether the process of IVF is permissible. I think it's an

[00:13:23] important conversation to be had. But specifically let's just even say we'll put that aside. Let's say

[00:13:29] it can be permissible. Even then, we still have to deal with okay we know for a fact we don't want

[00:13:34] to destroy embryos. But then the freezing of them what you're saying is what ethic is at revealing

[00:13:40] that we get to choose when this child comes. Even if you plan for a child, it's still up to the

[00:13:48] providence of God whether that actually happens. How much can you really plan?

[00:13:53] But for this, you can actually dictate the timing of everything. Now it doesn't mean that everything's

[00:13:59] going to be successful. But there is a sense in which are we adopting a mindset in which

[00:14:09] this is about convenience. So I guess you could say would you freeze a human being?

[00:14:20] Like if you decided that you have a newborn and you're like well it's not really busy,

[00:14:27] I'm going to freeze them and then wait till I have a little more money or a little more time

[00:14:31] and then I'll unfreeze them and start raising them. Is that an inaccurate analogy?

[00:14:36] Something deep personalizing about that. Yeah, where you're making it about your convenience again.

[00:14:43] It's contributing to a greater culture that's already suffering from death by convenience.

[00:14:49] That everything is at our fingertips and this is yet one like the greatest human good arguably

[00:14:56] that is marriage in procreation and child rearing. These are some of the greatest goals

[00:15:00] that God has called us to. That even those we've sort of subjected to convenience constraints

[00:15:07] and we're willing to perhaps put human dignity at risk in this freezing, in these clinics

[00:15:14] that it almost feels distoken like imagine walking into a clinic and just thinking there are thousands

[00:15:20] of frozen tiny human beings in this clinic. It's almost like a scene out of the matrix or like a

[00:15:25] post-apocalyptic world. There's something that seems contrary to God's good design about that

[00:15:30] and is that really respecting these people? Well the difficulty is sometimes it doesn't seem

[00:15:34] that way. Yeah, I think that this difficult thing here is that just because it doesn't feel like

[00:15:42] something wrong is happening. It doesn't mean something wrong isn't happening.

[00:15:48] I do think and I think I've said this before that when it comes to

[00:15:53] embryos, when it comes to abortion and all these things in our society,

[00:15:58] the dirty secret is we don't feel like intuitively these are human beings. We feel like there are

[00:16:04] clump of cells and I think that's until we see an image of like a or we hear the heartbeat or

[00:16:10] we see it like we're visual creatures, we're audit to it like we need to sense it and then we start

[00:16:14] going oh my gosh, it's human being. And I think it's difficult because these embryos,

[00:16:21] it's kind of like you can feel the eye roll come on. It's not the same thing as a three year old.

[00:16:26] But it's like but logically and that's what matters. Yeah, if it is, even if it's sensitive,

[00:16:31] even if it doesn't feel like it, we have to be able to just deal with the reality and the facts

[00:16:37] and recognize that our intuitions are going to deceive us in this area. And so you have to stick

[00:16:42] with principle over even just your intuition. But I do think there probably is, if you frame

[00:16:48] it that way which is true, there's a bunch of frozen human beings waiting for their parents to decide

[00:16:54] when they can come into the world or whether they can fully develop because they're in the world,

[00:16:59] they're just their development is halted. They're halted development just because it's uncomfortable

[00:17:05] just because it feels not intuitive perhaps doesn't mean that we, you know, the conclusions are

[00:17:11] the conclusions whether you like them or not whether they're comfortable or not, whether it makes you

[00:17:17] uneasy or not. And but we have to have, we have to be able to have these conversations.

[00:17:21] And so, okay, so talk about this. So then you're saying we wouldn't if we knew that there were

[00:17:26] human beings and they are it would be unethical to stunt their development for the sake of

[00:17:32] convenience. And you could even say if you get triplets that could be harmful for the mother to give

[00:17:37] birth them all at once which then is like, okay, but then should you do, should you risk that?

[00:17:44] Should you do, you know, that's an uncomfortable conversation. Yeah. And you certainly don't want to put

[00:17:49] there, you know, I mean, what would you say to somebody if it's like, okay, well, we have

[00:17:54] three fertilized eggs. If we have them all to put my wife at risk at dying in childbirth,

[00:17:58] yeah, giving birth to triplets. And how do you handle that? I mean, I think it pushes back against the

[00:18:03] whole process to begin with and this is, it's my view personally that I think that the outsourcing

[00:18:10] of procreation to technological means is just it's not the right way to think about procreation.

[00:18:17] And so if the idea of frozen embryos makes you uncomfortable, I could

[00:18:21] should. I think that also puts pressure on the whole industry of IVF. Now it is possible to

[00:18:28] to make a distinction between things say, well, I think IVF is okay, but I'm just not going to

[00:18:32] freeze the embryos because it's convinced by the arguments. I think it's disrespecting the

[00:18:35] persons, but we really want to have a child that's, you know, biologically related and genetically

[00:18:41] related. I think that's a consistent position to take, but I do think that the uncomfortable

[00:18:46] ability with frozen embryos puts pressure on the whole enterprise that is technologically producing

[00:18:54] kits. And I think it's important if you think through IVF, you're going to think through all of the

[00:19:01] consequences or what's going to happen out of it. And I think it's morally informative to say,

[00:19:06] even though it's permissible, let's say it's permissible to do IVF, here are things to consider. You

[00:19:10] can't kill the embryos. And also, you can't freeze them. And so with that in mind, what do you think now?

[00:19:19] Yeah. And again, might be uncomfortable. Might not like that, but that does not change the moral

[00:19:29] realities. So I think people need to be able to think through this, think through these difficult

[00:19:35] things and the church needs to be able to do this with sensitivity, with compassion, but also it's

[00:19:40] like we can't act like there's not a moral anthem. We can't leave these things simply just

[00:19:46] floating the air just to based on what we feel, you know? And this is, I mean, it goes to a deeper

[00:19:51] problem that we've talked about before, just every technology comes with a consequence and you might

[00:19:56] not feel it in the moment. Like the appeal of technology is always in the immediate convenience it

[00:20:01] gives you, but we don't always ask the question of downstream, what's what am I going to have to deal

[00:20:07] with morally speaking? So even something as innocuous as the car, like the first generation to

[00:20:13] jump on getting cars, there were going to be repercussions. I mean, there's going to change,

[00:20:18] it might make infidelity easier. It might make your communities fractured. It might make it, you know,

[00:20:24] you're more likely to commute further for work and so it destroys family, like all those things are

[00:20:29] always downstream from technology. And one of the lessons here that I think we're just learning

[00:20:34] over and over and over again is that let's not be quick to jump on the technology. Like let's stop

[00:20:40] and think and reflect a little bit. Let's be reflective people who are bringing the Christian

[00:20:45] worldview to bear on technology instead of rushing headfirst into it. And then 10 or 20 years

[00:20:51] down the line going, oh shoot, we've got millions of frozen embryos. How did we get here? What do we do

[00:20:57] with this? That I mean, that's the instinct that I think we should try to push. Well you're not

[00:21:01] saying we shouldn't have cars. No, no, but I'm just saying let's be reflective before we jump

[00:21:05] headfirst and at least be going to a clear ride and know the cost, count the costs. Is it worth

[00:21:10] adopting this technology instead of realizing on the back end actually, oh shoot, I've got these

[00:21:16] frozen embryos now. What do I do? Because we weren't being reflective in the process to begin with.

[00:21:22] And this isn't to be judgmental or to cast aspersions on people's characters, but these are

[00:21:30] important issues that I do think if we really want to live with a Christian worldview, then that

[00:21:34] means it's going to permeate everything, every facet of our lives. And we want to glorify God even

[00:21:40] if it means recognizing that perhaps we were unwise in some of our decisions or how we thought about

[00:21:45] certain things and being willing to say that, cultivating tendency or normalizing being okay

[00:21:52] with saying I was wrong about this or maybe we should rethink this so we don't make the same errors

[00:21:59] going forward. I just, that's those sorts of conversations that I think the church needs to be

[00:22:03] doing better. The Roman Catholics do that, they've got their whole teams of ethicists and

[00:22:08] theologians and their writing documents and some are good, some are bad like I think we're going

[00:22:12] to talk about, but at least having that culture where we're reflecting on technology and we're not

[00:22:19] sort of just leaving it up to individual private judgment that maybe there is a way that God actually

[00:22:23] wants to live our lives. And so let's discover that communally and not just leave it to individual

[00:22:28] private judgment. Well, let's talk about the Catholic discourse. Yeah. So you talk about there are

[00:22:32] some discussions once you establish we shouldn't freeze embryos. There's a debate about what you do

[00:22:39] with those embryos after they're unfrozened. Yeah. So what's the debate? So I mean it's really interesting.

[00:22:48] I didn't even know that Roman Catholics disagreed about this but some Roman Catholics because there

[00:22:55] two documents written by the Roman Catholic Church, Donum Vitae and Dignitas Persone that basically say

[00:23:04] you cannot take one frozen embryo and put it into a wound that's not the natural mothers. It is just

[00:23:13] you can never do that. So frozen embryo adoption is impermissible even if it means rescuing

[00:23:20] that frozen embryo from a cryogenic chamber. You just can't do that because it is a violation of

[00:23:27] the woman's womb. It's a violation. It's not the natural home of that embryo because that embryo

[00:23:33] is somebody else's genetic material was conceived outside the womb and so it's a heterologous embryo.

[00:23:40] It's someone else's and so they think that this is a violation of natural law. It's a violation

[00:23:46] of the woman's womb to use that womb to to gestate another fetus that wasn't conceived naturally there

[00:23:53] and that I think it's insane. I feel like I'm trying to be charitable but for if you're pro-life,

[00:24:03] if you really think these are human beings, if you think they care the image of God,

[00:24:09] I just I can't see how you can come to the conclusion that some of these writers will say well

[00:24:15] what we should do is we should just thaw all of the frozen embryos, let them all die and then have

[00:24:20] a day of mourning. It does a way to respect them. Now I respect the consistency of that but

[00:24:27] is that really the best thing to do? Is that consistent though? Well, I mean they want to say that okay

[00:24:32] it's because they're not conceived naturally. They're like sort of these products of technology

[00:24:37] that therefore we shouldn't implant them back in the womb. It's a it's a violation of the reproductive

[00:24:42] faculty, the generative faculty, the gestative faculty and so there's there's a kind of like

[00:24:47] unnaturalness to that and so we shouldn't re-implant but I think that's just it's not the way to respect

[00:24:53] these. Think of it as a rescue case right? So we adopt kids all the time. We think that that's

[00:24:59] noble in heroic and a great thing to do. This is another case of adoption. It's a rescue case

[00:25:05] like these are these are less developed humans that need a womb to be their natural home for a few

[00:25:12] months so that they can be five months out of the womb like that's what they need and if people

[00:25:17] who are infertile want to take those frozen embryos because they want kids right? They want to adopt

[00:25:23] their own embryos. Any embryos I think that should be permissible. I think that's so. Yeah,

[00:25:28] anyone can take anyone else's embryos. Like let's say that like basic surrogacy. Not

[00:25:32] well not not surrogacy in that like you're not being paid to use your surrogacy is when someone

[00:25:37] is paying you to use your womb temporarily. Okay, so this would just be a case of adoption but think

[00:25:44] of it as it's a frozen embryo adoption it's not a post birth adoption. So it could be another

[00:25:48] it could be the mother's child. Imagine the the initial mother dies right and so now this embryo

[00:25:54] is just frozen and there's another infertile couple that goes along says you know we'll adopt

[00:25:59] that frozen embryo we've got we can't conceive naturally right let's adopt the first let's implant

[00:26:04] and then just a animal heart. These Roman Catholic biodesists say no that is a violation of

[00:26:09] natural law and I think that's that's inconsistent with the pro-life ethic and I think it almost

[00:26:16] it elevates a kind of there's so confident in the in the application of this natural law principle

[00:26:23] that they're willing to risk the lives of 1.5 million. What is the natural law principle?

[00:26:28] that it's impermissible to use your womb to gestate someone else's fetus.

[00:26:35] But you can't so they would be fine if you if it was your own embryo yes some will say yes

[00:26:42] yeah but there's even debate about that okay so it's not about whether the mother can be like okay

[00:26:46] I realize I shouldn't have frozen this embryo I'm going to now immediately implant it

[00:26:51] it's my own child they wouldn't up debate that they see that's fine some of them would but there's

[00:26:55] more more consensus that that's permissible what's what's like what more people think is impermissible

[00:27:01] is what's called heterologous embryo transfer which is someone else's embryo so if there's a bunch

[00:27:06] of people you cannot adopt you cannot adopt an embryo okay so there's a bunch of people going

[00:27:10] there's all these frozen embryos I don't think that's right the mom does not want to have them

[00:27:15] I will have them as an adoption yeah I will give birth to them right and these two Catholic

[00:27:19] documents say no because it's wrong to place a foreign embryo into another yes interesting yeah

[00:27:26] and the only issue with surrogacy is the exchange of money yeah that it's exploitative

[00:27:32] sorry and they're not she's not going to raise the child that's right okay so a lot of

[00:27:38] Christian bioethicist likened surrogacy to prostitution they're not the same thing obviously

[00:27:44] but it's paying someone for their body rather than for a skill or a service so it's not like an

[00:27:51] employee relationship it's you're literally just paying somebody for the use of their body for

[00:27:56] certain amount of time and a lot of Christian bioethics think that is it's exploitative and it's

[00:28:02] not respecting the dignity of the human person to pay them for their body to use them as an instrument

[00:28:09] in this sort of way even if it's financially compensated and then there's worries of okay well

[00:28:14] who are the women who are going to be jumping to the front of the line for these surrogacy

[00:28:17] think it's poor women women who need the money women who so it it is exploitative in that way as

[00:28:23] well too it's like you can think of all these power and balances and rich people who want to have

[00:28:29] kids but I don't want to go through nine months of morning sickness and all this so I'll just hire

[00:28:33] poor woman and give her my fetus and have her and so it creates all these sorts of issues that again

[00:28:39] come back to this it's not always about your convenience it's not always about you and our

[00:28:46] instinct to outsource when it's difficult is more a reflection of our desire for convenience than

[00:28:53] it is you know meeting or fulfilling the healthy desires that God has put on us okay but to the person

[00:28:59] who's more hardcore than you yeah of saying you know because it's wrong to place someone

[00:29:07] else's fetus or rather embryo for an embryo because that's wrong it's better to just let the embryos

[00:29:16] die yeah and you're saying that's insane because what are they missing and their argument they they're

[00:29:24] they're not fully grasping that these are human beings what they do they say that's why they

[00:29:29] warn over it like they're easily savable right and there are lots of infertile couples that can't

[00:29:35] conceive naturally and if you're going to allow adoption right you might worry that this position

[00:29:41] actually condemns adoption too like what's did this is a case of a foreign child coming into a home

[00:29:48] that's not their natural home but we think that's beautiful we think that that's that's our

[00:29:52] relationship to God yeah God adopts us into the divine family we are now ears with Christ when we

[00:29:57] weren't initially so that picture if you think adoption is okay it doesn't automatically mean

[00:30:03] that frozen embryo adoption is okay but there's a kind of like parallel there and I worry that if

[00:30:07] you if you make too much of well it's not the natural home of this embryo it's not the natural home

[00:30:13] well but I mean the child who's adopted after birth that's not their natural home either so how would

[00:30:17] they respond to that it seems pretty reasonable well ultimately they think it falls back on these

[00:30:25] natural law principles and I think there is I'm trying to be as terrible as I can but I do think

[00:30:29] this argument is insane but they'll say that it offends the institution of marriage it offends

[00:30:35] the act of procreation it offends the woman's womb or the woman's generative faculties or

[00:30:41] but I just I don't see that that's the case like those are you know what constitutes a perversion

[00:30:47] or what constitutes a violation or all these sorts of things and even if it is like

[00:30:54] is it the sort of thing that are we more confident that gestating a foreign embryo

[00:31:00] is a violation of a woman's generative faculty then we are that it is a good thing that these 1.5

[00:31:07] million frozen embryos can be raised to term and then be given homes like what's how it just seems

[00:31:13] like we're we're we're placing far too much confidence on an application of a natural

[00:31:18] up principle that we should not be that confident in its application when there's 1.5 million frozen

[00:31:25] embryos at stake so dignitous persona I think that's how you say the origin of human life has

[00:31:31] authentic context and marriage and in the family where it is generated through an act which expresses

[00:31:36] the reciprocal love between a man and a woman procreation which is truly responsible vis-a-vis the

[00:31:41] child to be born must be the fruit of marriage so it's you have done these embryos of disservice by

[00:31:48] conceiving them outside the act of sex yes but it's not just the act of sex but sex within marriage

[00:31:56] so could that is there some spillover to children born out of wedlock well they're not born

[00:32:05] or the fruit of a marriage yeah even though they're born of sex yes is there some kind of this is

[00:32:11] effect that as well I mean it is that is not ideal and then if you think what's the ideal it's

[00:32:17] that a married couple through procreation that act of sexual expression a child has begun like that

[00:32:23] that is the natural ideal process and you to the extent that you mess with that process to that

[00:32:29] extent you're moving away from the ideal so if you get rid of the marriage condition and it's well

[00:32:33] it's two people they're you know expression of sexual whatever union and they have the child

[00:32:38] there's something good in that yeah but it's not ideal because it's missing the marriage component

[00:32:43] and then they'll say okay well you've got two married people but it's not through the sexual act

[00:32:46] it's through a technological process that's also that's a child that's valuable and has the image

[00:32:51] of God and all that stuff but again there's something not ideal and then you have a child who is

[00:32:56] conceived outside the womb and it's someone else's child and it's implanted into your

[00:33:03] uterus a foreign woman's uterus they'd say again not ideal there's something that went wrong in

[00:33:09] that not ideal and wrong whereas I would say not ideal and permissible if it's you're doing it because

[00:33:16] I'm saving the child but okay but you are you don't think IVF is permissible I don't yeah I don't

[00:33:23] so you've those three categories one you have unmarried couple um sex child yeah

[00:33:33] married couple no sex child and then you have married couple no sex someone else's child

[00:33:45] now three permissible yes but not ideal yeah two impermissible impermissible not ideal one

[00:33:54] not ideal but permissible well I mean we're not gonna like you don't because I'm wondering if

[00:33:59] you'll the child but it's it's right you should not do it like you've committed sin in having sex

[00:34:05] outside of marriage like that's the sin right okay but you don't it doesn't affect the status of

[00:34:11] the child is like having the image of God sure of course okay so it would be an issue in category one

[00:34:17] unmarried yeah natural sex child is that they did the right act in the wrong context sure

[00:34:24] and then the second one would be they did the right they had the right context with the wrong act

[00:34:31] sure yeah okay yeah and the third one but the third one's a little bit of a different

[00:34:35] it's a different case together okay I see you you've got someone else is frozen embryo and

[00:34:40] you're trying to adopt that in some Roman Catholic biopsy say no but a lot of them do agree with me

[00:34:46] they think that actually yes so there is debate within Roman Catholic circles about this

[00:34:52] and the questions they will ask are these two documents are they actually binding what level of

[00:34:57] authority do they have or also are we interpreting them correctly so some people actually disagree

[00:35:01] about the interpretation of these two documents and say they're only extending to IVF they don't

[00:35:07] actually talk about frozen embryos I don't know like that that's really in the weeds of this Catholic

[00:35:12] theology but the point I want to make is I think it's it is permissible and healthy to rescue a foreign

[00:35:20] frozen embryo into a womb especially when you think about like infertility and you think about

[00:35:25] people who want to adopt and you think about again going back to what we said at the start of the

[00:35:30] episode all of these embryos are human beings may have the image of God so you have to ask the

[00:35:36] question how do we respect them we either leave them there forever and we just like use millions

[00:35:42] of millions of dollars of resources and eventually it's gonna run out and they will thaw they will

[00:35:46] thaw it eventually or do we intentionally thaw them out let them die and have a day of mourning

[00:35:51] or do we allow for frozen embryo adoption now for the frozen embryo adoption it would be via

[00:35:57] in vitro fertilization or not fertilization but well I mean they already fertilize they're there like

[00:36:01] the embryos are there they're frozen you just implant and that act is not wrong and well if

[00:36:08] if you're one of these Roman Catholic biologists you say yeah you say that that act is wrong because

[00:36:13] that child is not your naturally concerned child gotcha yeah so it wouldn't be like saying

[00:36:19] the method of IVF is okay if you're trying to save a life no no no no this is once so assume we

[00:36:25] like assume IVF is illegal no one's doing it but we still have all these frozen embryos

[00:36:29] yeah question is is it permissible and these two Roman Catholic documents seem to say no

[00:36:35] it's not permissible right to implant someone else's frozen embryo into a woman

[00:36:41] and you're saying that if you do that that's sort of like saying it's

[00:36:44] impromised to welcome another child who's not genetically related to you into your home

[00:36:48] yeah I think there's a structural similarity there and and and if your point really is well

[00:36:53] it's unnatural to take this foreign embryo and gestate and raise it then you're I mean what's

[00:36:59] stopping the move from well okay this child who's already outside the womb and needs a they're

[00:37:05] living in an orphanage right forget like a cryogenic clinic they're living in an orphanage

[00:37:09] in horrible conditions that their natural home is not your home but it's still good to rescue them

[00:37:16] and bring them into your family and I think there's a there's a I mean I do think they're analogous

[00:37:20] obviously there's some disanalogies you're not gestating in one but you're gestating in the other

[00:37:25] but I do think that if you think of it as a rescue case like what do you do I mean I can't I

[00:37:31] can't rescue these embryos I don't have a womb but for women who do have wounds and you can

[00:37:35] rescue these embryos and you you know that should be permissible at least in principle

[00:37:40] what I want to push back on is this Roman Catholic line of arguing that says it is

[00:37:44] in principle impermissible you just can never do it and that that seems seems wrong

[00:37:50] it seems like another reason to not be a Roman Catholic

[00:37:54] well this is great because the touchier subjects and especially when you think of something so

[00:38:01] personal and fraught with sensitivities and all these kinds of things that's actually the point

[00:38:06] in which you need the most clarity absolutely it's those are actually points where you need the

[00:38:09] most instruction and thoughtfulness about it when you have to have the painful conversations about

[00:38:14] that because I do think people are going to ask you know this is a question about ethics

[00:38:22] it's a question about the Christian faith what does God think about this yeah I mean like that

[00:38:27] matters and if we can't have conversations to think hard about this it is on the church I think

[00:38:34] to give instruction about this to its people and if we haven't thought it through yet well we

[00:38:39] need to start doing that yeah and be consistent with our answers and and have this discussion not

[00:38:45] that it's an easy conversation not there isn't no one's not that you can't disagree on these things

[00:38:48] but we can't just act like everyone just do what they want we have to really think about this

[00:38:54] and people are going to suffer and the church will suffer if we don't take that seriously so I

[00:39:02] like I like when you said it's about figuring out what God thinks it's not just when you tell people

[00:39:07] this is ethical and ethical that sounds kind of abstract and sterile and just right well who cares

[00:39:11] like what happens like it's just this is what an ethics textbook says but that's not what we're

[00:39:15] asking we're asking what is actually good for us as human beings and what's part of God's could

[00:39:19] design for us what does God think we should do because he's the one who created us with our bodies

[00:39:25] and so he knows what it means to thrive and flourish and what it is to live languishing and

[00:39:30] poorly as a human being and we want to discover how to live well and this is just another question

[00:39:36] that we have to answer to you know point us are we is doing this enabling us to live well

[00:39:41] is it in accordance with God's good design for our bodies or is it not?

[00:39:45] Hmm.

[00:39:46] Fasting discussion we'll have to have to think more about it but it does raise a lot of questions I

[00:39:54] mean we can't say well the Bible doesn't know about reproductive technology so it doesn't speak on

[00:40:00] it's like well but that's a lot of people use that for abortion oh that's true yeah yeah

[00:40:05] I will never talk about abortion so therefore you just go ahead and have an abortion right but

[00:40:08] there are good and there's like like the Westminster Confession good and necessary consequence

[00:40:12] that we take the principles and we have to work them out with wisdom and thoughtfulness yeah

[00:40:16] and it's it honestly we can't just punt and say well there's no verse about you know freezing

[00:40:23] embryos and it's like that you know that we're trying to cut corners there we're avoiding a

[00:40:29] conversation right and and we can't do that and so again hopefully that's what I hope with this

[00:40:35] podcast we we have this conversational style so that we can have people listen in on things we're

[00:40:39] talking about as we're wrestling through it so we're talking through it so we're sharpening or

[00:40:42] thinking but hopefully this can be a a a surrogate conversation for you you know a conversation can

[00:40:49] happen through us so you can think through it and and hopefully can help you wrestle through these

[00:40:56] issues on your own or you and your church and all these types of things but definitely need to keep

[00:41:00] thinking through it and maybe we'll do some more podcast episodes about this yeah even more

[00:41:03] controversial sure but to you know look all the grace in the world just as low to this conversation

[00:41:12] is if we can just try to remove ourselves from the emotional context of it and just think through it

[00:41:19] logically I think that can help bring some clarity to these issues yeah well also understanding

[00:41:25] the immense sensitivity and the tenderness that needs to accompany it but great conversation

[00:41:30] Paul yeah this was fantastic if you guys I appreciate this episode make sure you support us on

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