Ask the Pastors S5 E11: “What is a Biblical stance on IVF?”

(00:07):

Welcome to Ask the pastors a segment of the West Hills Podcast where you have the opportunity to ask your questions and receive biblically grounded, pastorally sensitive answers from our pastoral staff. My name is Brian. I'm your host and one of the pastors. I'm joined by our lead pastor. Will. Hey everyone, pastor Thad. Hey everyone. And Pastor Austin. Hello. Today we have big question from an anonymous question asker. He asks, what is a biblical stance on IVF? It's a given that the discarding of embryos that aren't implanted constitutes murder and goes against the sanctity of life. But what about embryos that are implanted and carried to term?

(00:52):

Appreciate the question. It is a big one, and then can be a pretty, I think polarizing, divisive, contentious, controversial one, and even in Christian even evangelical Christian circles and it's obviously become a more hot topic of conversation here in the past couple months, I think since now President Trump proclaimed himself to be the father of IVF in that debate, which was funny. Still trying to figure out what exactly that meant. I think he thinks that he invented, what was that? Was that like when Al Gore said, remember Al Gore and Trump invented IVF apparently Anyway, yeah. But yeah, that was just, he's trying to walk that line of not being too pro-choice to isolate his base, but IVF is kind of like one of those, oh, this will maybe score me some points with the reproductive rights folks without totally isolating the base. But it gives context to an important question about, yeah, how should we as Christians think about in vitro fertilization? We'll probably want to help define and explain maybe what that is, just in case there are some listeners that are even confused on some of the specifics of it.

(02:32):

I'll just start though by, well, yeah, let's start with a quick, I guess explanation. High level in vitro fertilization is a fertility, a treatment method whereby a physician will extract an egg or usually multiple eggs from a woman and sperm from a man and mix 'em together and grow an embryo in a Petri dish and then I say an embryo, usually multiple embryos and then select one or more of those embryos to then reimplant into the woman's womb or a woman's womb, we should say theoretically and grow a baby or multiple babies. So I will tread a little lightly here. Obviously I'm not one usually to tread too lightly. I don't usually soften the biblical argument or stance on things too much, but we do have quite a number, at least three couples that I can think of three or four at the church who I know used IVF to conceive or yeah. And I do think that this is an area where you really have to get into some of the specifics that I know will need to do to really parse apart how we should as Christians view this. Because as the question asker here states that it should be, I think a given that the discarding of human embryos that aren't implanted constitutes murder. And again, I don't want to spend too much time going back over the biblical case for that because

(05:00):

I did so much of that this past Sunday. I think it's helpful, it's a good kind of week for us to be discussing this after I just preached on sanctity of life this past Sunday in the wake of amendment three passing here in Missouri, just given more context to this episode. So just sort of laid out the biblical case for the sanctity of all human life. Human unborn babies and fetuses and embryos and zygotes are all from the moan of conception from a biblical worldview. Our human lives, therefore they have infinite value, dignity worth, and should be treated as such. So all of that I think is behind this person's asking of the question and acknowledging obviously a Christian cannot take part in any sort of fertility process that would just dispassionately discard unused embryos. Because typically what happens with IVF is to maximize your chance of having a healthy baby, they'll juice mom up on lots of hormone boosters that cause her to produce more than just one egg that she would normally ovulate with and then extract multiple eggs, fertilize all of them, look at 'em under the microscope, figure out which one or more are healthiest.

• Read more

  (06:52):

  And then depending on the plan, and maybe depending on some of the philosophical theological views of the couple, but typically more I would say depending on the just sort of medical strategic advice of the doctor who's performing this procedure will typically implant even a couple embryos to see which one sort of takes, and there's usually because they had a higher probability of having twins when you do IVF, if you choose to implant two or even three embryo or something like that, but then again, you typically will harvest and grow. I think on average around 15 is what I saw sometimes as many as two dozen 30 embryos in one round of IVF. And so you got a lot of extra embryos there because we're again, just getting some of the facts out there on this. Doctors create an average of 15 embryos in a single round of IVF.

  (08:25):

  Unfortunately only three to 7% of all created embryos result in the live birth of a child, only 17% when you are only fertilizing one egg. So there are some couples that because of some of the, again, the theologically problematic things associated with IVF, you're creating all these embryos and then what are you going to do with them? Some couples will ask their doctor and choose to only fertilize one egg and only implant that one embryo if it's successful. Again, still only a 17% chance in that case of success is what I've found in my research here. Most IVF doctors won't agree to do that because of the lower success rate. So most of them will want to harvest multiple eggs and grow multiple embryos and have their choice of the healthiest and this and that. And so that bears mentioning too, that if you're a Christian looking into this, trying to pursue this and trying to do it in maybe the most biblical or less problematic way, that can I think become very difficult to actually find doctors who will work with you and do it that way.

  (10:09):

  Just getting a lot, some of those early facts out there. I started to say we've got folks here at the church that I know for whom this is very personal and who have children here in our kids' ministry who were conceived via IVF and children are a blessing, a heritage from the Lord as we know and we shouldn't. Even if the takeaway from this, and I'm not saying it is to jump to a conclusion, but even if we were ultimately going to say by the end of this podcast, IVF is too problematic for the Christian to engage in and shouldn't be done even if obviously I think we would all say that wouldn't impact our view of any children that had been conceived in that way any more than my son who was my adopted son who was the result of his mother's one night stand with a man who we don't even know who his biological father is and praise God for my son, otherwise my son wouldn't be here. So even if that were the case that IVF is sinful and Christian shouldn't do it, praise God for these little miracles that we have

  (11:32):

  Running

  (11:32):

  Around in our kids' ministry now because of it that God is so redemptive he can redeem even things like that. But again, I don't want to just jump to that and assume that I will say, and then I'll say this, I'll share this and then I'll jump in and then we can go back and forth on some of the reasons maybe for against whatever it is personal for us too. Because most folks who've been here long enough to hear stories from sermons and stuff, we pal and I struggle with fertility issues. We try getting pregnant for a little over two years before we had a miscarriage before having Ellery then tried getting pregnant for another three years after her basically and had another miscarriage before eventually deciding to adopt Elijah. And it was in that second sort of bout of things that we, for us very briefly discussed IVF as a possibility.

  (12:47):

  And there's a spectrum of basically of invasiveness of fertility procedures for those who are unaware. So like one option that's short of IVF that just in full disclosure that poly and I did try and IUE intrauterine insemination, basically artificially inseminating your wife with your sperm so they can get your sperm, spin it, find the best swimmers, use syringe, wait until she ovulates and get the sperm right where it needs to be. Depending on the kinds of fertility issues and what they think might be the issue. These things can sometimes be the most helpful in helping your chances of conceiving. So we had tried that when we started researching IVF and again, pros, cons, arguments for against whatever, especially from a Christian standpoint. For us it was too invasive and not just medically invasive in terms of needles and poking and prodding and that, although it was that too, but I mean like theologically, humankind

  (14:28):

  Invading on God's territory, sort of invasive like playing God. And everybody's going to I think have a little bit, and this is why I say I think this for me is somewhat a matter of Christian conscience is involved a lot in this discussion because you got Christian scientists who are going to say all modern medicine is from the devil or whatever, and if you just have enough faith, and so they're going to swear off any kind of medical intervention in anything. And then obviously there are people at the opposite end of the spectrum who you could say have made a God of science and medicine and whatever, and there's no sort of appeal to or recognition of a sovereign God who stands above and all of this. And so there's a lot of, I think deeper conversations here about just how we view and treat and use things like medicine and science in general that have relationships to even other topic podcast topics we will one day get into with things like AI and what does it mean to be

  (15:53):

  Human?

  (15:56):

  And this whole idea of transhumanism and create in our ability now to actually create things that again, put us in the role of God and when does AI become sentient and things like that. But I think some of those conversations are just relevant here when it comes to our role in conception in fertilization, and obviously it's just a very different level of human effort and input and control and manipulation. When you're using Petri dishes and things like that to create a human and you're taking

  (16:45):

  Sperm

  (16:45):

  And an egg and now outside of the womb, you're creating this thing. So that for us was a lot of it. Not to mention the huge, which I think we probably want to spend the most of our time here on, is really this issue of, okay, if a fertilized egg and a conception is the moment of human personhood and a new human person coming into existence, then we believe that these embryos are human beings. If the vast majority of IVF doctors and approaches is going to really strongly encourage or insist on multiple embryos being formed, and then with the understanding that only a few of them are going to be used at least in this first round of IVF, now you've got 10 to 15 embryos, what do you do with them and what is right and wrong and where do you, yeah, we've got a whole now question that would've been just unthinkable to the Bible's authors 2,003,000 years ago about how to treat these unborn people in these Petri dishes that from a biblical worldview, deserve all the same rights and protections as any of us out here walking around.

  (18:21):

  And yet at the very least, if you can only implant one or two at a time, best case scenario, you throw in the rest of 'em in the freezer, which is what happens with IVF is you cryogenically freeze them. And then there's all issues with that where only 70% of embryos will survive thawing. So there's just all these percentages that you have to now think about and be mindful of when it comes to success rate, not only of successfully implanting and growing to live birth, but successfully thawing out of the freezer in the first place to be able to do that. And there's issues of even just eugenics comes into it and eugenics literally meaning good genes most often associated with things like the Nazis who tried to breed Jews out of existence and not just kill 'em in concentration camps, but sterilize 'em in horrible things.

  (19:31):

  And mentioned with Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger, their founder trying to push abortion, especially on the African-American population to get rid of the blacks in this country. So just terrible stuff. But with eugenics, you get into all these questions of, okay, so you've got a doctor who's looking at 20 fertilized eggs now embryos, and who is specifically, I mean, part of just the governing sort of medical approach to IVF is you're going to hand select the couple that are considered the healthiest, and I guess they've got all sorts of metrics of looking at these embryos and see which ones are growing the fastest or the cells are moving or whatever they're looking for to find the healthiest embryos that then those are the ones we're choosing that again, just gets into gender. Yeah, well certainly that too. I mean, this is really starting to blur the lines into those questions because you can, I mean, you can look at the DNA already and tell, oh, this is a baby boy, this is a baby girl, and select for eye color, hair color, height, which ones you can already look at the DNA and see certain diseases or predilection for diseases.

  (21:02):

  Things did just again for us, Polly and I, to bring it back to our personal story, we didn't have to look into it very far before we were like, yeah, this is for us, makes us super uncomfortable theologically, dystopian, playing God, whatever. And we certainly don't want to be in the position of having eight or 12 children in a freezer that we don't know what to do. So even this very recently had a brother come up to me and just asked me for pastoral advice, I'd like to get together with you to get some counsel. We have eight embryos in a freezer that I'm super just grieved by and don't know what to do with and would like to get your pastoral input on that. I'll just quickly answer that one in case he's listening or someone else listening is in that spot.

  (22:09):

  My view on that would be to strongly encourage if they are themselves in a position now where having more kids is no longer an option for them, for one reason or another, she's menopausal or the risk of health risk to her or whatever it might be. My encouragement there would be toward embryo adoption. So you can actually allow other couples who are struggling to get pregnant to adopt those embryos and implant and have your, I know that for a lot of people there's other problematic things there with someone else having your babies would, to me, that's certainly better than any of the other alternatives, letting 'em stay in the freezer

  (22:59):

  Forever

  (23:01):

  Or certainly discarding and killing them. I don't know really what a lot of your other options are. It seems like those are the three real, if you're not going to implant those embryos and try for another child yourself. So those are your three or four options. And again, but I would go beyond that to me, just like adoption itself can be a beautiful picture of the gospel in a way to bless another couple struggling with infertility. I would say embryo adoption can be the same. It makes me think of another couple that we know and are close with that we're the recipients of embryo adoption and who again, couldn't get pregnant, couldn't get pregnant on their own, wanted to have the experience of being pregnant and bearing a child for nine months and then giving birth and not just to adopt a live birthed baby, but to have that pregnancy and all of it carrying to terms.

  (24:08):

  So it was a beautiful thing. Can get into it again, this weird crazy thing where their child, because it was an embryo adoption, had been in the freezer for over a decade I think. And so this particular couple has multiple children, one of whom was adopted as a baby already, and then the other that was adopted as an embryo. And so technically their younger child who was adopted as an embryo is like a decade older than their older child now because that child spent a decade in the freezer. So I mean, just weird mind bending stuff that again for a lot of people is going to feel just too much like the twilight zone and whatever, that they don't want to go near any of it. But again, other people are going to make the argument that God gives modern medicine and gives us technology and the power to do these things in order to be human flourishing and certainly that they're going to make the argument that infertility is a result of the fall and God hates infertility. And I think that's pretty clear biblically and fertility is a blessing and awesome. And so God wants to push back against infertility. And so they're going to look at IVF as, Hey, if this is part of the solution to that, then by all means go for it. So I'll pause there and let you guys jump in and more we can say on it, but

  (25:53):

  Appreciate you doing a lot of the work on even laying out, make sure we're all using understanding in terms in that. And just to reiterate, to be sensitive to this, that Nikki and I have not had this struggle in our own story. We know others who have and just want to care well for people as we think about people who are struggling with fertility and desperately desiring a child and knowing that children are a blessing from the Lord. And to just name that again for us. I do think one other relevant, apart from Trump's comment about being the father of it, which I'm still weird and really threw me off at the beginning, is the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on frozen embryos back in February where there were frozen embryos and someone came in and opened a canister and those embryos then ceased to exist because they were open and thawed out. And so the result,

  (27:07):

  The question was whether or not they could be traffick for murder, for murder of it. Are these fertilized embryos a human person or not?

  (27:17):

  I forget.

  (27:17):

  Well, legally, so federally, I can't remember if the Alabama, so the original Alabama state ruling was, yeah, they're human people, but I'm not sure whether or not that's been overturned or not because federally, they're not, I mean, federally speaking human embryos are not treated and viewed as human people with any rights and privilege. It's actually treated as property, which gets into a whole nother, again, this is where those lines between politics and philosophy and theology and all of this gets really blurry because how can the government not be forced to answer some of these questions? They have to rule and pass laws to determine whether or not you're going to treat this embryo like a human being and treat it as murder or whether you're going to treat it as property and if

  (28:14):

  When does it cease to be property, so to speak?

  (28:15):

  Exactly. Yeah. I mean if it was a sperm bank and it was someone accidentally spilled or thrown away someone's sperm that had been in the freezer, a non fertilized again, yeah, there's just any number of that's property, and yet it's also a living thing, but not a distinct living human. So anyway, all this

  (28:39):

  Gets really, it does, and the crossover between theology and ethics and what is a human being, and for me in thinking through some of it is I think coming to the understanding of what is a human and how it is that we view those embryos as human life. We believe that it begins whether or not it's in a mother's womb or frozen somewhere else in space that that's still creating a human life. And therefore, as I said, treated with dignity, respect, honor, made in the image of God, and I think IVF is, could be considered a way of sidestepping how it is that God has designed the human body to create life through reproductive organs. And again, result of the fall, understanding that, but it seeks to go outside the bounds of what is seemingly natural in a way to create life through the husband and wife becoming one flesh.

  (29:52):

  And I even think with the biblical idea of becoming one flesh, often times I've heard couples refer to, well, my husband's sterile or My wife isn't able to have kids. And I think that's unhelpful in conversations of because they are one flesh it. So we are unable to have children just as a side comment on it of together we cannot versus seeking to place unhelpful blame on our spouse and that which can result in resentment and a burden that they shouldn't have to bear in that. And it comes back to a, well, would I have chosen to marry you if I knew this would've been the result of our life, that we wouldn't be able to have children? A lot of factors playing a role in here. And I do think with IVF, the human dignity factor for me plays a significant role in my understanding of where I kind of fall in it, of what do we make of all of these images of God and embryos being frozen. The last I checked, there's no clear number, but over a million frozen in freezers today, in freezers

  (31:23):

  Today

  (31:24):

  Struggling to wrap my mind around that exists. And although IVF was created in some sense to, hey, it's not taking a life, it's creating life. And yet those are all lives created and existing, and we have in some sense decided those are not worthy to be fully just eyes into human or into full birth potentially. And the risk factor as well has just caused me a lot of struggle in reading through all these different articles. And the more I read, becoming a little bit uncomfortable with that idea of a million embryos just sitting there and waiting. I do think it does pose a real risk. You mentioned statistics, not just of those embryos coming to result in birth, but just the unnatural hormones that are injected into a woman to produce all of these eggs and even just the risk of childbirth that comes along with it. So those are some of my thoughts. I know,

  (32:39):

  Yeah, some of our research on that topic said women given these hormonal medications are at a high risk for cancer, infertility, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome cetera, children, and then there's additional risk to the babies when children born through IVF have a higher likelihood of cancer, autism, cleft palate, congenital heart defects. So yeah, I think you're right. That deserves to be said too is that, I mean, you have to, it's not just

  (33:16):

  The embryo we're talking, we're talking about

  (33:18):

  Later in life and you're talking about health risk, health risk to the mom. So those are all things that would have to be weighed and factored for the couple who's considering this as an option. Again, not just those percentages and risk of the embryonic death and knowing some of the chances and risks there, but even best case scenario you do conceive and all of that, what are the risks down the road from pursuing this kind of an option? So was there something else you wanted to mention?

  (34:02):

  I'll throw it in there. Perhaps less of the theological maybe perhaps more practical is the expense of it without a guarantee of life, single round

  (34:17):

  Iiv of cost between 15 and $30,000 on average, it costs more than $61,000 to achieve either a live birth or to determine that continued rounds will not be likely to succeed. So you're thinking on average it costs more than $61,000.

  (34:36):

  And so it's just someone who's listening and considering that should be a factor in consideration.

  (34:44):

  It's a huge factor again, yeah, not just for you personally and can we afford this, but again, the opportunity cost, what else could we be spending? How many unreached peoples could hear the gospel because of the money that we could otherwise spend on missions? I mean, just any number of things that could be factored into that.

  (35:03):

  And even asking the question behind is having a child potentially seeking to fulfill a deeper need and longing of what are you again trying to be sensitive? What are you seeking to find satisfaction and hope in? And I think perhaps a lot of people outside those who are Christians, part of the reason they have children is to meet some sort of fulfillment, some gap that's in their life. There's even some who've gone outside to, well, I got married, I don't have relationship with someone. I'm going to figure out a way so that I can have a baby for myself and I don't need to follow the natural means to do that, which gets into a little bit other conversations, but you want to jump in Austin?

  (36:01):

  Yeah. I wanted to also look into some argumentation for where it could be morally so to speak. And so in 2019, Wayne Gruden wrote an article for TTC that was his argumentation on why he had some interesting points. This is more like in some parts theological and some parts situational or technological. So for example, fertilization of multiple eggs is not technologically necessary, which is something that I was unclear on. Well, you've made the point though that is often not situationally possible if you can't find a care provider. I'm looking for the situation where someone is, this is their last option. So speak all the fertility treatments. Also the disclaimer, I should just say that personally we didn't really struggle with infertility a little bit with Miriam, but not like the kind of infertility struggles that I know will you've had and many of our people have had. So let me just say that this has not graciously been a problem. I've had to come, a decision I've had to make. How's that? So whether or not you can find a care provider that will actually say, sure, we'll try. We're going to try to fertilize two and implant those two. If they say we're only going to do so many, that becomes a lot harder. So I do feel better in the sense that there is the technological means by which you could fertilize an

  (37:19):

  Egg

  (37:20):

  And as a matter of do we have medical technology of a whole manner to be able to overcome the effects of the fall, yes, that doesn't make all of them. But I do think like we mentioned earlier about how his points, so kind of echoing that has been mentioned that overcoming infertility is pleasing to God is his point number one. The second that modern medicine in general is a divine blessing that's morally good. The one that you mentioned, the point on natural that he has an objection against that I thought was kind of interesting, if I can find it, give you just a moment where he says, someone may object that this isn't the natural process, but such an argument must assume a definition of natural that arbitrarily excludes modern medical means. So he gives the example, decide another analogy. Consider a woman who uses a modern thermometer to take her body temperature each day in order to determine the best time to have intercourse so that she'll be able to conceive, is this an unnatural process? Because she uses a modern medical thermometer in order to know when she's ovulating, surely not. So I think that's an interesting point to consider.

  (38:25):

  It's a spectrum. It is a spectrum. What is natural is a

  (38:28):

  Spectrum. Yeah, sure.

  (38:29):

  Supernatural. We don't do thermometers and there's, I said super, I mean incredibly natural. We don't do thermometers. And then there's, yeah, this is kind of black mirror science fiction kind of stuff where anyway, it doesn't seem natural at all would've been unthinkable to the Bible's authors,

  (38:52):

  But

  (38:53):

  Does that make it inherently wrong? I don't think so. Not inherently So natural doesn't always mean better.

  (39:01):

  Right, right.

  (39:03):

  Yeah. Did you want to read any more of his?

  (39:07):

  No. He gives a couple other examples on this and that he does, of course, obviously say that we should treat an unborn child as a human person from the moment of conception, and that there's an objection to those that would be in high affirmation of IVF about the whole freezer thing.

  (39:23):

  That's what I was going to, because I read his article too, and that when he had that as a section header, we must treat fertilized embryos as human person from the moment of conception. And I had to laugh because here he's writing this article in sort of defensive IVF, and I thought, well, I don't know how many of us would throw our kid in the freezer.

  (39:43):

  Yeah, that's the point is a matter of is pausing development intentionally. I do find problematic, or at least lemme rephrase that, risky, because it's not to say that it cannot be resuspended, but if you don't have a plan to press the play button after you press the pause button, that

  (40:04):

  Is well, and knowing that even in at least in current technological degree of development, 70% chance of even thawing and surviving thaw. So that alone should be deeply problematic, I think. But yeah, I mean even just ideologically knowing, okay, I'm creating a person to put a number of them in the freezer, and

  (40:34):

  Joe Carter makes the argument on his article more pointing out some of the problems with IVF saying that, yeah, one of the things we have to say in this argument is that because they're humans, they must be afforded two unquestionable natural rights, the right to continue living and the right to continue unimpeded development in the next stage of biological development. So he says, most people believe a child has a natural right to progress from one stage of life to the next, such as childhood to adolescence. If a physician was able to completely inhibit that change, such as through puberty blockers, most people considered extremely immoral action. Even if the parents consented. I mean, you can fathom a situation where, I mean, this happens all the time. Parents infantalize their kids, they want 'em to stay young forever, don't grow up. They've got their own parental thing. If I can as a parent, give my child a puberty blocker, keep my kids little somehow and juvenile forever,

  (41:42):

  Most

  (41:43):

  Of us would say that's abuse. Again, some of that has even gotten question and blurred with the transgender stuff. We'll give our kids all kinds of crazy stuff in the name of whatever, but for most of us we'd say, no, you got some issues as a parent. No, you can't stop a child from developing naturally. And so I don't think it's an unfair comparison here to say you are choosing as the parent, you're playing God and choosing to intentionally stunt the growth and development of your child, of this human in the freezer.

  (42:21):

  If there's no intent to move towards that child coming to birth

  (42:27):

  Well, especially if there's no intent,

  (42:29):

  I would say period. I would say even if I was giving the kid the puberty blockers because I want to keep 'em little and sweet a little bit longer and maybe 10 years from now I'll take 'em off the puberty blockers and they'll grow up as a human. I would say that's problematic. That's still is not right, that's immoral. I would say the same thing with putting 'em in the freezer. For me personally, I'm just going to go on record as saying I think it is ethically problematic to put your kids in a freezer. For me, I think if there was a way that you had a plan ahead of time to say, we're going to harvest eight eggs, fertilize, we're going to implant two of 'em, but we've already got donors lined up for the other three donors up lined up that are going to take two each, which is going to be very hard to do by the way, because the embryo adoption is very rare. It just doesn't happen very often. And so that's again, practically going to be very problematic to make any other sort of arrangements other than the freezer.

  (43:37):

  Yeah, that's where some of this comes down to theologically, can we trek through the woods and find a way where we can make this work? Yeah. I think there's some in terms of at least conscience, but in practice, it sounds like there's also some things that make it challenging, like you mentioned, well, earlier on, you have to do so many that is harder.

  (43:55):

  Well, and I think there also needs to be just more things we can add is factors that need to be weighed. Even when you take part in this practice with the best of intentions and best of, we're going to do it this way. Other people might harvest 20 eggs and put their kids in the freezer, but we're just going to do one or two, and we're going to do it this way because of our, you also just can't get past the acknowledgement that we are now a part of an industry. IVF is a growing industry globally valued at 35,000,000,002 years ago. Now it's estimated close to 50 billion probably. So are a part of, I mean, this is big business again, you mentioned, yeah, technologically we're doing it for life, but it causes death as a byproduct. I would say the motivation behind it is truly for most people, again, the people developing the technology, I mean, it's scientist, and so they don't care about life or death.

  (45:07):

  They care about, this is exciting, this is groundbreaking stuff. I can get published. I'm a part of something. So it's that. And it's also business. I mean, it is big business. This is billions of dollars we're talking about. And so even if you're not the one putting your kid in the freezer, you are keeping in business the doctors that are doing that for other people. So you got to know that and you got to factor that. Now, that said, there are, like you said, Austin, are there options if you were going to really be thoughtful about it and do it in a way that was least problematic? So I didn't know this until I started researching. There's a variation sometimes called natural IVF or mini stem IVF. And here's what Emma Waters who wrote another article on all this, how she describes it, given the minimum ethical moral concerns, inherent, IVF, many couples use this alternative course treatment natural IVF mini stem IVF.

  (46:09):

  In this case, doctors only create one embryo at a time, avoid the use of harsh hormones. They work with a woman's natural cycle to reimplant the embryo when she's naturally fertile. Many avoid testing the embryo for its genetic and physical traits. So you don't know, is this a boy girl going to have down syndrome or not? Do not freeze, do not destroy embryos either mini stem I vf similarly uses fewer harsh hormones in extracting fewer eggs, et cetera, et cetera. So they try and try and answer for all those variables and those problems that we talked about. Again, I think my last caution there at the end about taking part in the industry would still stand and certainly the cost thing still stands and opportunity cost. How else could we be spending that money? There are other, it's, I mean, not a harsh whatever, but a lot of people, we rescued our dog Bentley and who rescue a dog have the bumper sticker. Why buy these designer dogs when they're puppies out there that need a good home? I can't remember what the pithy rhyming slogan is on the bumper sticker. But

  (47:21):

  Anyway,

  (47:22):

  That's what it was for us with rescue. It's like, Hey, here's the dog needs a home, and adoption is a beautiful option. That's not controversial at all. I mean, it is a beautiful picture of the gospel, and we were blessed to be able to adopt our son and would love to see, love to see other Christian couples be blessed in that same way and see other birth moms blessed to not have to feel pressured into something like an abortion because they know that there are good, great couples in line waiting to adopt their baby. And again, IVF is certainly, certainly throws a wrench in that whole industry and for a lot of folks. So yeah, final words, final world end of the day for me, as I said from the start, for us personally, I can't get on board with IVF. I can respect brothers and sisters in Christ who have a different conviction about it. Again, provided they are accounting for all those variables and then with the other variables that can't be factored for with supporting the industry and the cost and all of some of those other things. I think that's where I think some of those are just gray areas that are matters of conscience, that if they want to do the natural IVF, the mini stem IVF and then that is their Christian freedom to do so.

  (49:11):

  That's it for this week's episode of Ask the Pastors. Remember that you can submit your questions by visiting the info bar at West Hills by asking them online through our website at www.westhillsstl.org. And if you enjoyed this week's episode, hit that like button, subscribe and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you next week.