When I first read this article, the first thing I thought about was animal farm, where all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others. So in this situation, though we're talking about a certain type of animal, are some humans more equal than others? Steven Well, Doctor Carl R.
Truman of Grove City College wants us to consider if children born via IVF and surrogacy are actually human, which he says, yes, of course, but as certain that a society in general can not say the same. Yes. This doctor of church history feels that a society that values means of procreation, such as in vitual fertilization and surrogacy, cannot value the resulting human. After all, IVF routinely sees multiple eggs fertilized during the procedure, and those extra eggs
are discarded as waste. So how can the one lucky fertilized egg be considered more than the others? How can a society that views a fertilized egg nine months later as more than a commodity which was bought and paid for. This story was published by The Christian Post on November twentieth, twenty twenty four.
Thanks Steven, Now I've got to say that. Obviously, I don't come from the same position Truman does. I think IVF is an absolutely wonderful thing, and we should be encouraging people who want to be parents to be parents. But what do you think, Stephen about this idea of him equating fertilized eggs which fully developed humans.
Well, I think it's just like a new shade of lipstick on a very old, tired pig.
The fact that a wonderful picture, Steven, you very welcome.
Yeah, it's the same old idea that you'll as soon as that egg is fertilized, it must be a human being that is, you know, equal in every regard to a fully formed, fully developed human that is outside of
the bomb. Which is just this common talking point that we keep on getting bludgeoned on the head over and over again, and like it's discouraging that not only like that, people like Truman aren't content with controlling women's bodies and what goes on inside of them, but now they want to also control the means by which women can conceive or are are forced to conceive. It's just this, Yeah, it's this the same circus that goes on and on
and on and it's so discouraging. It's so, it's so, it's so dishonest for someone especially because he tries to like pull this gotcha in the article where he says, like, should a human that's conceived this way be considered a human? Well, of course, but those other people over there, they can't
consider that, they can't think that. Like, it's so it's so dishonest to be trying to take straw Man and the opposition and just like paint their position for them, and especially when that isn't what people on the side
of the issue would think at all. And it's it's deeply disturbing that this professor, that this doctor of church history, who should know that the Christian view of life beginning at conception, which is only like one hundred and fifty years old, for the vast majority of the Church's history, this has not been their view, and yet now he needs to be a champion of it.
You know, if there's anything the Catholic Church, our churches in general, I should say in this situation probably should avoid anything that has to do with kids. They should probably just keep silent, especially when you start talking about things like ethics. Now a j speaking ethics he'd be brought up a lot of what he called ethical concerns about artificial conception. Could you give us a little more detail on how this relates to IVS and sergusing.
This specific article was written by someone who's a Christian. Clearly the website is a Christian websites, so you can see the bias on it, okay, And I think that I get the sentiment out of the core message of the article, But I found so many things that he says problematic that it was hard to focus on the main idea. So let's let's start with that so that
it doesn't get lost. It seems to me that he was worried about the future ethical implications of artificial conception because he asked whether in the future parents may choose designer babies, so to speak, where they get to choose, you know, the features that they want. And I'm quoting him here. He said that what of the children who make it to term but do not meet the specifications of the parents who paid good money for a particular outcome.
I think Steven mentioned that earlier. He said, are those obligations defined by legal contracts such that perhaps they can simply return them to the manufacturer on their warranty for a refund. I think I understand that concern, and I think is valid, but it's one that we have already been looking at thoroughly as far as edicts of these procedures. So they have nothing to do with IVF for surrogacy and helping people who truly want to be comparents but
they're facing infertility issues. He's just trying to mix ethics with his individual religious faith, and we don't need to do that, you know.
I think that there'll be plenty of time between now and if when that type of situation of designing your children is actually a scientific possibility, and there's going to be a lot of court cases in between. We've already had court cases regarding IV. One in Alabama kind of turned up set the Apple cord a while back, so we see these things. So I think it's getting ahead of himself for dishonest reasons. And I wanted to switch over to you, Scott, because I wanted to touch on that.
Do you feel like this is kind of a pain switch technique where this is less about IV and maybe more about something else you feel strongly about, like abortion.
Well, I wouldn't say it's not about IVF, but I think he's definitely trying to make a transition to I think he's trying It seemed like he was trying to set up an argument for against abortion rights. And it starts right from the get go. And I think this is very ironic. And that's a word I've been using
a lot this week. It's ironic that he bemoans the fact of what he describes as and this is a quote the child in the womb is treated not as a person but as a thing, not as a subject, but as an object, not as intrinsically valuable, but as having value only as instrumental to some other end. Excuse me. But at the same time, the entire purpose of his post is to dehumanize pro choice people or people that
support this IVF option. And so while he's pointing out how these people are dehumanizing what he calls human beings, his very active doing that is dehumanizing them. He wants to put them in the case of being the other. And it has to do with some of the language that he's using too, this bait and switch. The title talks about quote children born by IVF, hinting that he's talking about living independent children. You know this this first
grader is that? Is that who we're talking about? Is this is this child, this first grader that was born via IVF is is this a real human being? But then he suddenly and and gradually shifts the attention over to to the unborn, to a fetus, to an embryo,
to a fertilized egg and so. And in addition to that language that he used in the in the title, he specifically started out the article talking about parents of children that would come up to him after his talks and say, do you think my child is a human being? And so he's putting this context of children in our mind and then using the same terminology to talk about a fetus or an embryo or a z eegot or whatever anything post conception. Uh, you know, he's using that
same terminology. So it's it's yes, it's a it's a and switch. It's a subtle switch, but it's still there. And yes, I know that he considers an embryo to be a child, and so when he sees using that word appropriate in that circumstance, But it can't be a mistake that that there's just so much that he is just clearly, clearly at the beginning of the article he's talking about born children, and clearly later in the article
he's not talking about born children. So whether or not he still considers them to be children, he definitely was changing his tune throughout the throughout that article, and so I think that kind of leads into the emotional play he's playing on our emotional love for children, For our children, we want to protect our children, we want to take care of our children, we want to stand up for our children, and he's trying to kind of push those feelings onto, you know, onto a fertilized egg, and it's
really underhanded. I would think that if there, if there was a good argument to be had there, he would use it. But he's not. So, you know, what does that tell you?
I'm completely with you, there's Scott. I think that it's clear that Truman has no idea about biology, or maybe, as many Christians do, he gets his biology and human anatomy education straight from the Bible. Because he is either making up definitions towards that much his opinion, or mixing up abortion, reproductive girl embryos, babies, surrogacy, and ideas all
in the same bag. He claims that because modern humans now have all of these options, embryos have gone from being considered humans to being considered things or items or commodities. First of all, a clump of cells who was never considered a for human being, and it's not in the same sense that we consider one who is full term or already born, as you said, So that's what we call the membryos. And secondly, he's attempting to use, as you also mentioned, the appeal to motion fallacy to defend
his misinformation to and his misinformed positions. Rather but add it is it's just a bunch of anti scientific bullshit that my brain is just having a hard time processing.
Yeah, I think that both of you are very rude and noticing that switch because you weren't supposed to You're supposed to be all weepy and involved in this story. And then he just slips a Zye Goode in there, and before you know it, you know he's going to want you to pay child support on it and put it into its college fund, because that's really what he's doing. He's equating those two when come on, that's not even close to what we're talking about But Stephen, I wanted
to bring you in on this. I know I've talked about the argument he made about IVF. I think you touched on the patriarchal aspect. But what does he have to say about couples who can't conceive? In what his traditional hole in the sheet wagh is? What should they do?
What does he think? Like tied to your question. One one thought that went through my head when reading this article is my inn assumption because I don't I haven't I haven't gone for Thanksgiving dinner with this guy. I don't know anything about his family. What are the odds? What are the odds that this motherfucker has had any
difficulty conceiving children? Does he have the slightest clue of what the pain that goes through a couple's relationship when they can't conceive, when that's something that is so desperately and especially in their frecking Christian context, where like this is the blessing of God and that if you aren't able to conceive, then oh maybe there's something wrong with you that you aren't able to receive God's blessed way. What are the odds that he has a fucking clue
about what it is that he's talking about. I don't know. I'm going to guess zero. I imagine that he has never had issues in this department. And so it seems like, what what would his stance be if he had to go through that trauma, if he had to go through that hell, would he still be so adamant about this or is this just based out of his own entitlement and his own privilege. Yeah, so he believes that people who struggle to conceive should not conceive outside of a
miracle of God. And of course the woman who is pregnant and doesn't want to be pregnant, she should remain pregnant at any cost. And it's just this entitled bullshit
that we just hear constantly. I'm so I feel I feel I feel a little bit of cognitant cognitive dissidence when I say that, I'm just tired of hearing, you know, old white guy's opinions on abortion and women's bodies, like, and yet here I am, as you know, a cis white guy saying, hey, shouldn't we should stop giving so many fucks about what happens in women's bodies, And yet we have to talk out about this kind of stuff like can we just can we just put women in
the center of these conversations? Why why that's so dangerous?
Yeah?
Well, number one, women should keep silent in the church. So when you have that type of mentality, of course white men should because I mean it, really it really does need to be white men. White men need to make these decisions. So does these lesser qualified women know what to do? And I say that thoroughly tongue in cheak, But when they say that, with their actions and activities, they're not being tongue in cheek at all, as you know.
And unfortunately that's why people like you, Steven, and myself and Scott have to sit in time and again talk about issues that the truth is, we shouldn't need to have an opinion on, because as I talked to someone recently about actually was ray is that because they're talking about a story we did recently about how they felt abortion to be discussed at school in sex sech or education classes. And I'm like, well, really it starts out like this abortion exists, okay in a story, because you
can't pretend it doesn't. But they want to pretend it doesn't. And as long as they do that. Unfortunately we're stuck doing this and sorry about that. I wasn't mad at you, Scott. I'm just annoyed too, because I mean, Steven, because it's just as annoying to me now.
I said this on another show recently. I think it was actually under nonprofits that I appreciate people like you, guys men that speak up about these topics and the reason why it shouldn't be this way. But the reason why is because the type of people that are coming up with these ideologies like in the article are generally white males, and they are not going to listen to women. So the fact that there are men that are speaking of about this means that they are more likely to
listen to that. So I appreciate you, guys.
Scott about this comparison to IVF and commodity and the context we talked about Catholic charities and adopt to Gauge's adoption agencies. What does that say about the idea of childbearing already being a commercial endeavor. I mean, adoption is big business, So I don't know what he's talking about trying to pretend.
That for sure.
For sure, he kept I mean throughout the article he uses words that are specifically intended to pull to mind this sterile environment, this hospital environment. That he uses words like commodity, he uses words like transaction, he uses he talks about the money exchanging hands and so forth. And so I looked at the This is from the Catholic Charities website. Quote what is the average cost of adopting a child? The cost depends on the type of adoption.
There are several variables that contribute to the cost. Typically, a private domestic adoption is between twelve thousand to forty thousand dollars. However, please do not be intimidated by the cost. There are several budgeting options to financing your adoption, such as employer benefits, adoption tax credit grants, and special fundraising. That doesn't sound at all like a commercial financial exchange of money for goods and services at all, right, I mean,
you couldn't get more. I mean, that's exactly the kind of thing that he's railing against. And it's not just Catholic Charities either. According to HHS, they're more than eight thousand faith based child placement agencies in the US. In addition to that, according to a BARNA group, five percent of practicing Christians in the United States have adopted children, which is more than twice the rate of all US adults. And they put that forward as a kind of a brag.
You know, our people adopt more children. That's a transaction of flesh for money. You pay somebody to get this to get have this child with you, and so, you know, it seems a little bit hypocritical.
I guess that.
Means Christians are really the main group of flesh pedlars in the US. And you know, I'll check back on his bloglets next week because I'm sure he's going to be talking about that next week.
Not well, Steve and I I something you said earlier that sort of the touch on that. Yeah, I think that the odds of him having to deal with infertility and anywhere in his family are maybe slightly above zero, but statistically zero. This this is somebody talking completely out of their ass. Now do you find that Truman's language reflects a larger issue of dehumanization and moral authority? Do you see that what he's trying to perpetrate here? Why and why do you think he's doing that?
Like, yeah, why is he appealing using moral authority? Because it's the only it's the only rationale he can cling to. Yeah, it's only through through this kind of moralization of how of controlling how people get pregnant. It's like, what other, what other tactic does he have other than to appeal to his own sense of morality, as if, as if other of as of other people aren't entitled to a different perspective on the moral ethics of conceiving Like how what?
What an incredibly personal and private matter for him to try to stick his orient.
I think it's definitely about control, Like it's just said. You know, there was a quote in the article that I found rely ironic. He said, well, live in a time where having children is increasingly regarded as dangerous, And I thought to myself, well, who the fuck exactly is making it dangerous for women to consider pregnancy dangerous? Like people like him? Exactly, people like him Christian nationalists that
want to micro manage women's bodies. They want to take away the reproductive care, They want to take away access to abortion, and at the same time that takes away or bodily autonomy. They want to choose when we're why how and went home? We get to have children? And then later he has the nerve to say that the absence of such desire to have children should sorely be
a cause for concern. I mean, people like him are a major cause of our lack of desire to have children, okay, and because they just want to micro manage every single step of it. And now he also wants to manage our desires. So if we don't have specific desires, suddenly we are seeing a watch out for that cat lady, you know. So it seems like they just ultimately want to dominate and control women. They want to go back to the biblical times where women were the property of their husbands.
Maybe maybe we'd be more excited about having kids if there wasn't this great risk of them getting gunned down at school.
Yeah, you know, you mentioned that. And also there's the fact that when we start talking about wealth disparity and the consolidation of wealth and the top percent, you know, one percent, want to know why people don't want to have kids, because one reason is they can't afford them. And so now we're talking about the ones that are trying to and it seems odd that they're trying to
create a stumbling block for this. Now Scott was going to wrap things up, but I wanted to know if it's anything you wanted to cover before before I do.
So I just to tag on to what AJ was talking about. There's a strong inverse correlation between the health of delivering mothers and the religiosity both worldwide. If you count country back country, the more religious country is, the lower the life expectancy and lower the health outcomes of pregnancy, and the lower the religiosity leads to safety, longer life, longer,
healthier lives for the mothers and for the children. And it's not just worldwide country to country, it's also within the United States state distate, and so there's plenty of evidence to show that they are in fact harming you know, the American community and the worldwide community. And so it's that that I see. I think we see why Stephen was saying that that's all they got. You know, they have these emotional appeals and you know, that's it there.
He's the man's a hammer and he sees everything as a nail.
And speaking of the harm that they're doing, we just had another case of a woman dying from being refused emergency care during a miscarage here in Texas. It was a teenager, just a few days ago, eighteen years old. They are killing women trying to save these clumps of cells based on a two thousand year old sex manual, incredibly harmful teachings.
And then they dare call themselves pro life, get the fuck out of here.
But only it's only their life before it is born.
It's pro forced birth. Because when they tell me their pro life if I'm like, oh, sports support, universal weldcare, healthcare, you're on a basic living wage? What about housing? How do you feel?
No?
No, no, no, I don't know. No, I think women should have babies. Oh, okay, you're not pro life, you're something else.