I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast. The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand the test of scrutiny. As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people in the right direction.

In this episode, we continue on with the Magodeo series and once again Dr. Chang and I discuss issues related to the conception of life, this time something a bit more practical and close to home. In this episode, we dig into the particulars of IVF. So before you listen, let me say that we both understand that this is an incredibly sensitive subject.

Not only is it sensitive, it's heartbreaking, it's deeply personal. Nobody is here to kick anyone while they're down or judge people for being in circumstances they never thought that they would be in. At the same time, you could understand to not dive into this subject when so much is at stake would only be to compound tragedy upon tragedy.

So my hope, my prayer for this episode and for this series is that it serves to edify and not tear down the body. Alright, as stated, I am joined by Dr. Jeremiah Chang and we are going to do this. We're going to talk about a subject that is rightfully deeply personal and intimate.

A subject that has caused a lot of heartache and rightly so, infertility is not an easy issue to talk about and yet we in a sense must because life is just that precious and a lot of people have utilized IVF and are considering using IVF or have questions about it and I think that with respect to the technology that is out there, we do need to have just a firmer grasp of how that technology relates with our biblical principles.

And Jeremiah and I, I asked him to call in this episode because we've had many talks about this issue especially after Bible study and him having his medical degree but also not just his medical degree but just the amount of research that has gone into this. I think it would help shed light on this.

So Jeremiah, with that said, let's start off by, I want to ask you this question, what is IVF? What is it? Yeah, so IVF is a procedure in vitro fertilization. So normally fertilization, as most probably know, is when egg and sperm meet, usually in the fallopian tube, and that's the point of conception, the point when life begins.

So in vitro, in vitro in glass, that's what it means, just really is referred to as outside of the uterus, the fallopian tube environment, that's when fertilization takes place. So usually that happens in a lab and the process involves many steps but you would harvest eggs from the woman and then collect sperm from the male and then you would fertilize them.

There are different methods of fertilization but the end result is the production of children and that's in a short what IVF is, it's simply the creation of children outside the womb. And you and I would agree that scripture is clear on this issue, that before an egg and a sperm meet, because I think you used the word fertilized egg, a fertilized egg is just when a sperm meets with the egg, right?

And so life begins when that happens, when the sperm actually goes into the egg. Before that sperm by itself is not life, an egg by itself is not life, but when they meet and when an egg is fertilized by that sperm, you have a human being at that point.

Exactly, yes. So in the medical world we call a sperm and egg haploid cells, meaning they contain one set of DNA and then when they combine, we call that cell, a fertilized egg is essentially a zygote. It's the combination of DNA, it's a diploid cell. So at that point when a zygote has its unique DNA, it's separate from the sperm and the egg.

It's the combination of it that creates the zygote which is the child. So at that point when that happens, everything that is needed for that child to grow, all the genetic information is already there, is that correct? That's correct, yes. And this is a person that has never existed before.

Yes, exactly. And we were all there, every single live person started just like that diploid cell way. Exactly, yes. There's no other way that life can begin, that is the way that God has created it to be. Yes. So when we talk about IVF, it's different from just traditional child production in the sense that, like you mentioned, it happens outside the womb.

A lot of people will typically seek in vitro fertilization because there's something that is not working. I don't want to say the word working, but something has gone wrong where the couple cannot conceive naturally. And so it could be the male, it could be the female. And so in that sense, they'll go to an IVF clinic to seek assistance.

The issue is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Jeremiah, I don't know of an IVF clinic that believes life begins at conception. Yes, I would say nearly always, almost always, yes. That's correct. I mean, the only exception, of course, are maybe the few that are involved in embryo adoption specifically, and they are fertility doctors that are involved in IVF in the sense of helping families with embryo adoption.

So I would say, like you said, nearly all of them do not hold the same worldview that life begins at conception. And that, of course, plays out in the way that they discuss the procedure, in the way they encourage certain procedures to happen, in all the decisions that a couple has to make through the IVF process.

All of that gets shaped in a specific way by the doctor because of their worldview. Yeah, and so I think it's a fair summation to say, unless you're going to go through embryonic adoption, which we talked about in the previous episode, any IVF clinic that you just Google, that clinic is not going to share a biblical worldview.

And we share that because you kind of investigated what goes on in IVF clinics. You know the questions they ask you and the procedures they kind of push. And so they push these procedures and they push these recommendations because to them, they're not thinking life begins at conception. And so if something were to happen to, let's say, one out of 10 embryos, it's not a life that is lost.

It's an embryo. It's something less than life that is lost. That's going to really affect what they say to the patron, to the person who's undergoing the procedure. But that also means that if you do decide to go to an IVF clinic to undergo IVF, particularly as Christians, that there are some things that we need to kind of be aware of.

Is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. And I think probably the most obvious way that gets manifested is the encouragement of fertility doctors to basically encourage the maximal creation of children, numerically, in quantity. I mean, and there's a lot of reasons for that because again, their end goal is to provide what they believe most of their patrons want, which is a "healthy, genetically normal child".

And so if that's the end goal, then to maximize the chances of that happening, they want to create as many children so that they can select for the ones that have the greatest probability of eventually manifesting into a born, genetically normal child. Yeah. So let's kind of put this, I want to circle back a little bit because this is a good point.

So a person goes into the IVF clinic and they speak to the doctor and the doctor says, "We're going to pull out 10 eggs from the female." And then 10 eggs are pulled and then they'll ask for the sperm from the male and then they'll fertilize. So typically, if you don't put a stop to it, typically they just fertilize all 10 eggs.

And for those who do not know, you can't implant 10 fertilized eggs at one time. It's not something you can do. Typically it may be somewhere between one and three. Is that correct? Yeah. So you can go more than three, of course. But it's not recommended? It's not recommended.

There used to be something called selective reduction, which I don't believe they practice now, but that practice involves implanting a large amount of children, typically more than three, maybe four, five, six. And then what they would do is they would see which later on, they would see which child is acting "normal," acting like a genetically normal child would throughout the pregnancy.

And then they would selectively reduce them, meaning basically abort the ones that aren't. Or if a couple wanted to have twins and then decided they do no longer want to have twins, they wanted just one child, selective reduction would involve aborting a child. So that practice has since, I think, gone to the wayside.

I don't think it's practiced as much now, but yes, like typically, yes, you would only implant one to two, even three is sort of not conventional. And there's been a huge push within the IVF industry, especially since the advent of genetic testing, to only implant one. I remember when Carrie went to see a fertility doctor because we have to get some monitoring here in California and send it over to NEDC in Knoxville, Tennessee.

So we did meet an IVF doctor. And NEDC is the Embryo Donation Center. Yes, yes, that's the agency that we adopted our children from. So this fertility doctor, of course, does not share the same worldview, and so he assumed the whole time he was doing the ultrasound that we had only implanted one.

And then he was like, "Okay, so let's look at this child and see how this child's doing." And when Carrie had told him that we implanted three, he jumped out of his chair and he was so shocked and he couldn't believe it. And so that just kind of shows that the culture of IVF is generally to implant one.

Yeah, and so the next logical question is, if you let's say implant one, because that's a suggestion to implant one or two, but let's say one, right? You implant one, and then let's say that child goes to term. You have nine left, if there are 10. And let's say you implant one or two more, right?

Let's just give the benefit of doubt and say you plant two initially, implant two. And let's say you have one child, and then you have eight left. You plant another two, let's say you have one child. Well, now you have six left. So the question then becomes, what are you going to do with the six?

But let's say the numbers are different. Let's say you start with 10, and then you implant one doesn't survive, one doesn't survive. And you do it again, I mean, you might end up with three, right? But there's still three human beings. Exactly. That's the point. And typically, when you're left with three human beings, because it's pretty common that people have leftover embryos, that's a very common occurrence.

Same thing happens to these embryos. Exactly, yeah. So there are essentially four options for embryos that the genetic parents no longer want to transfer. So you can, again, what the community calls discarding embryos, you can discard them, which we as Christians, I think, would affirm that that's killing the child.

You can, again, what they call donate to science, again, that's probably more accurately described as just human experimentation, and almost inevitably results in the death of the child. You can keep them frozen, which is what a lot of families do now. They can freeze them for all sorts of reasons, you know, to save the children for a later date when they may want to transfer them.

And so that's an option. And then the last option would be to place them for adoption, which is unfortunately not the majority of children, the majority by number is discarding or the killing of unborn children. But adoption is a possibility. Yeah. And that's exactly how you adopt your children.

Exactly. Yeah. So some family, you know, we don't, we have no relationship with the genetic parents of our children. So we don't know what caused them to choose this route. But certainly we're thankful that they did. And, you know, there's a lot of reasons why they might choose adoption.

But it is available. And I think, again, going back to worldview is not every IVF doctor will even present adoption as a possibility, as a viable option for the remaining children. Some don't even offer. In fact, if I recall correctly, Carrie had mentioned, I mean, this doctor that she saw for her checkups here, he didn't really know anything about embryo adoption.

And I don't think that's that's not an uncommon response from IVF doctors. Many are not aware of embryo adoption. Yeah. And, you know, it's a consequence of your worldview. If, if there, if embryos are not people, then then why would you even, you know, take the steps to to to investigate embryonic adoption?

Or why would you even see if there's anything for these embryos, because they're not people anyway. Exactly. Why not just discard them? Right. And that's, again, it's a consequence of your your starting point of what you believe about where life begins. If you believe life begins at conception, then there's going to be consequences to how you react to these embryos.

Right. So that's a that's a great point. Thanks for thanks for adding that. You know, one thing I also wanted to ask you was, we mentioned, Jeremiah, that these IVF clinics do not share a biblical worldview. One of the consequences being that they'll push you to create more embryos to have to create more people than might be, I don't use the word necessary, but they'll just push you to make as many as possible.

Not really thinking about the consequences of any leftover embryos slash people. Right. So what are some other consequences that naturally occur because of their worldview? Yes, well, the the other issue would be freezing, you know, when they when they freeze embryos, they typically will, they'll typically grade them before and grading is not an objective standard.

They look at how the child looks under a microscope, and they sort of give a letter scoring to them. And, you know, there's debate whether that predicts anything about the chance of survival, the chance of implantation. But typically, it's it's known that if if a child is poorly graded, they typically don't do well with the freezing.

And interesting. So again, the consequence of the worldview is that because again, the end goal of the doctor is to hopefully have a born child for the couple. That's it. That's it. They just want a couple to have a child that's born in that, you know, you genetically normal.

So the consequence of that would be that when they look at an embryo, and they see this child, they grade it and it's poorly graded. That doesn't incentivize them to implant that child. So inevitably, they would always suggest, okay, let's implant higher grade children, because they have a higher, the theoretical higher chance of surviving and successfully implanting.

The problem is that these children that are poorly graded, they don't have a good chance of surviving the freezing process and the thawing process. So every time a child is frozen, you know, if you want that child to be transferred to a mother again, they have to be thawed, otherwise, you know, that that's the only way, otherwise they left, they are essentially frozen indefinitely.

So these children that are poorly graded, it's well known that they do not do well as well, at least with the thawing process, and a lot of them don't survive. So you can kind of see how it plays out, you know, so it would seem more reasonable if you believe that life begins at conception, every child is precious, that the ones that may not survive the freezing thawing process should really be transferred to the mother first, they should be given the priority.

Because otherwise, then you subject them to the freezing and thawing and they tend not to survive as well. But that's certainly not the culture, right? That culture is to, again, just implant the highest grade to give the couple the best chance of having a born genetically normal child. Yeah, and you know, it touches on this idea of the commodifying of children, we can't get it get too deep into in this episode.

But there's this tension where it's not ungodly to desire children, God has built that in us. How could that desire for wanting children lead to the dehumanization of the children itself by commodifying yet, right? And that's that, I know, we've talked about this subject before, which is why I bring it up.

But I know, that's heavy on your heart, this idea of the commodification of children, kind of kind of breaks you. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you see it all over the IVF process. These clinics, they do not see embryos as children, they do not. They see embryos as a means to an end.

And the way the whole process is played out, you can tell, they treat children as just medical objects or medical waste, right? I mean, you look at the way we even have the way terms are used and euphemisms, right? I mean, we talked about discarding, donating, right? You don't discard people, we would never use that term, right?

And we would never say you donate people, right? I mean, I say, and many others as well with me say, place for adoption, right? You place your frozen children for adoption. But the more generally accepted terminology within the IVF is you donate your children for adoption, right? And again, it goes to show you how they commodify these children.

These children are simply goods for service. They're not people. Otherwise, we wouldn't use the same terms as we're using now. Yeah, no, that's really good. I mean, if you think about how powerful languages, how powerful these terms are, you know, and I'm certainly guilty of framing it that way.

And so I'm really glad that you brought it up, that we want to be deliberate with the way, with our wording, because that communicates something as well. I want to circle back real quick to something you mentioned, but we go back to the scenario where a couple has 10 eggs, and all 10 are fertilized.

And let's say, you know, six or seven are used, let's just say, I know, a lot of times it won't even get to six or seven, but let's just say six or seven are used. Well, we got to do something with the three to four, right, we have to do something with the three to four fertilized eggs.

And let's say you freeze them, you know, you want to maybe have children in a year or two. But this is the thing, is that you can freeze them. But it is not guaranteed that once you freeze them, and when you thaw them, that they're going to survive. It is somewhere between, you tell me 60 to 75%.

Yeah, so the problem is there really aren't, there isn't good data to give a good number for that. It certainly is not 100%, everyone knows that. A lot of clinics will self-report upwards of 90% survival, but that is likely an overestimation, because many probably do not include the poorly grade embryos, because oftentimes they just get killed even before the freezing process, because, you know, they're just not even considered, right, so they'll just be killed.

And so that, and no clinic will ever give a detailed analysis of how they came up with their numbers. So it's just, you go on their website, and they'll just tell you 97%. Because they don't need to, am I right? Exactly, yes. There's no regulatory agency. Exactly, there is no regulation on this at all.

There's no accountability. Exactly. Because we don't view embryos as life. Exactly. Yeah. And then, you know, and so 90 plus percent is what most clinics would report. So, but if you look at the National Embryo Adoption Donation Center, they report about a 75% chance, which is likely an underestimation.

And the reason why is because they are receiving all of the children created that's left over from the genetic family. So typically, those tend to be lower grade, generally speaking. So, you know, the way I thought about it was just, well, if you take, you know, if you assume slight overestimation of IVF self-reported data, you assume slight underestimation from the National Embryo Donation Center, you get about 75, 95% range.

And it's, the reality is it's probably somewhere between there. Sure. The problem is no one knows. But I think we can all accept that those aren't the greatest numbers when we consider what's at stake. Right. So what you're saying is essentially, I mean, the embryo, the child has an 80%, 85% chance of living, but conversely, a 15% chance of dying.

So I mean, I can't imagine like, would anyone allow their child to go outside and walk across the street at night, knowing that there's a 15% chance that they're going to die? Nobody would do that. Nobody, I mean, you know, we're not talking about I have a 15% chance of losing the candy bar.

I have a 15% chance of a child not surviving that I mean, 15% chance might seem small, but it really depends on what's at stake. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, if I had a 15% chance of, you know, losing my right arm, that 15% chance looks awfully big, right? And an embryo is worth much more than my right arm because an embryo is a person.

So that, that's the other thing is that I think, you know, when we, when we go through this, when someone goes through this process, the doctor is not telling them about these things or not warning them about these things. They're just like you stated earlier, they, their goal is to just get a genetically normal child to pop out.

Exactly. Yeah. And a lot of times the unfortunate reality is that these couples deal with the ramifications of the decisions alone, apart from the doctor, right? Even though the doctor is somewhat culpable in the way they, they shape, you know, the information. And so a lot of Christian families where convictions might change, they have to deal with it.

So, you know, the best thing is to be prepared before you even enter the process about what are some of the things to think about, if you were so to decide on IVF, right? And one of them is the freezing and the thawing process that it does pose a significant risk to every child.

Yeah. And that's certainly something to consider before, you know, you engage, engage in IVF. Yeah. You know, and there are other like issues related to IVF that are, that are more nuanced and specific. I know, Jeremiah, again, you've, you've written about this, you've blogged about this. And a lot of it is, you know, dealing with minutiae.

We could get into it. I might, I might circle back around in a different episode, but kind of want to segue here, kind of make a right turn at this point. Now what I want to talk about, Jeremiah, is given everything we know about IVF, the question then becomes, is it from, from a Christian biblical standpoint, is it morally permissible for Christians to utilize IVF?

That's the question. That's a, and that's a big, that's a big question, you know, and that is a big one. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a big question. And I know already, you know, we're at the 26 minute mark, I believe, in this episode or maybe a little further, but I want to tackle that with Jeremiah.

And before we kind of get into that part, I want to say that this is changing as, as, as the years go on, this is changing as, as, and as we learn more and more, not only about the science, but what the science actually does. And I think people will have strong opinions one way or the other.

I think dialogue is important and I think it is important to respect one another's opinions, but they are going to be strong opinions because life is at stake. So yeah, with that said, let's, let's, let's jump into this, Jeremiah. Would you say as Christians, well, not, not you personally, some Christians have said that there is a morally permissible way, and some notable Christian theologians have said there is a morally permissible way, but in this morally permissible way, even in that permissible way, you cannot engage in the willful destruction of embryos.

Would you agree with that? Yes. That's probably the most common evangelical stance, I would, I would say, is that IVF is morally permissible. Some would even encourage it as a treatment to overcome infertility, as sort of just viewing it as like another medical intervention one would do when they're sick.

And so, but I think we would all affirm that the Bible is clear about life when life begins. And so if destroying embryos is murder, it's killing children, and that definitely is prohibited. So that I think that would probably be the most common stance we see within the evangelical circle.

Yeah. And you know, there's a dearth of, there hasn't been a lot written on this subject, so I'm glad that Jeremiah and I are having this conversation because I know personally, just the scouring that that Jeremiah had to do to find information on this issue, I know how much he's just all the rocks he's looked under to, to find something that someone has written that's of value and so that's, you know, there's not a lot there, but, but we can say with full conviction that if you do decide to undergo IVF, you have to keep in mind the destruction of embryos.

If you willfully engage in conduct that leads to the slaughter of children, I know that's harsh, but that's, that's also what it is, the discarding of embryos, aka also known as the slaughter of children, that is not something that is okay, in the biblical worldview. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely, yes. I think it's very clear, you know, and I would agree with what you say, I would just add on something else as well, for specifically for those who are thinking about doing IVF, it's not necessary for those who have already done it, have already created children and maybe their convictions have changed, that's a little different, but for those who are going through it and have an opportunity to choose the number of children to create, I would just say that the idea of placing your own child for adoption also is maybe not universally in all circumstances, but generally not the expressed will of God.

Generally the pattern of scripture is that if you are the genetic parents, you should parent your own child, and I don't think that, I think that there are certainly some that might disagree, and again I'm not speaking for those who have already created children and their convictions might have changed, you know, I'm speaking more towards those who can choose how many children to create, I would just advise to be thoughtful about the number of children you create, not in the sense that you wouldn't, even if you choose not to kill those children because you don't want to transfer them, but even the idea of placing those children for adoption, that generally speaking is sort of against the expressed will of God.

Yeah, I mean, to put it in other words, don't just think, well I'm going to create, I'm going to just create the maximum amount and I'll just give up the rest for adoption, so then it's all gravy, because I can just give up the rest for adoption and my Christian conscience is clear.

Well, there's about a million embryos, so even if you give them up for adoption, they might not ever be adopted, and they're not going to remain in cryopreservation forever, I mean, something's got to happen at some point, right, and again, there's no guarantee that there's not going to be a power outage or whatever else, so it's not like some locked vault somewhere, right?

So I think, thank you for sharing that, that's good that, you know, someone doesn't just hear this podcast and just go, well, okay, I'll just do IVF and I'll just give up the rest and I followed God's standards. That is not what, that is not the line of thinking we should be engaging in as Christians.

There's also a whole host of Christians that believe that Christians should never engage in IVF, and Jeremiah and I have talked about this worldview, this argument, and we both agree that for Christians who state that Christians should never use IVF, they are on solid biblical ground. So I want to just take some time to kind of unpack this, and Jeremiah, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but you know, we've had conversations about this.

Christians who believe that there is a morally permissible way to do IVF, they might be on to something, they might not be, but they might be on to something, and Wayne Grudem is a proponent of that. But Christians who say Christians should never engage in IVF, they might be on to something as well.

They might be on to something as well. Can you kind of elaborate on some of the arguments about Christians never utilizing IVF? Yeah, so that's a good point. To be honest, when I first researched and came across their arguments, and there are a lot, I honestly thought I was convinced of their position and their interpretation of scripture.

I would say the way they interpret scripture is mainly in Genesis 1-2 where they get their stance and seeing how God has created the means of having children, how procreation ought to happen. And they would argue that procreation ought to happen within the consummate act of a monogamous heterosexual union.

So anything, there cannot and should not be, there should not be procreation or the creation of children outside of the consummate act. They would view the example we have in Genesis 1-2 as sort of prescriptive. That children have to be created through that manner. That is an interesting point of view.

I think it's one to struggle through because there is some merit to it. It's not obviously wrong. It seems like a reasonable position that some Christians could believe in. And of course, we ought to take the whole totality of scripture in mind, but I think there's something there that's worth considering.

And that would be the most common argument for why IVF is morally unpermissible for the Christian. Yeah, you know, I did my own research and we've talked about this at length. And it's one of those things where it's so difficult because we're talking about life and just the value that life has.

We're not talking about merely healing someone. That would be a lot easier. But when we inject the beginning of life into the equation, to see it as having a different calculus, I completely understand. And I'm saying this because as I sit here today, and I've talked to Jeremiah about this, as I sit here today, I am still personally convinced that there is a morally permissible way to use IVF.

I'm still at that position, but I have to tell you that that position could easily change six months to a year as I learn more. Maybe it will never change. Maybe it will never change. And so even as I hold to that position, I in no way look at my brother who thinks, "You know what, Christians should never engage in this." I don't look at that position as irrational, biblically speaking.

I think, again, I think they are on solid ground. And that's difficult because normally when we adopt a doctrinal position, it becomes difficult to see why someone would hold to a different view, not in the sense that there isn't any rational ground, but you typically come to a doctrinal position because you're convinced of it.

At least for myself, I find myself not in that same position when I come to these other doctrinal positions of Scripture. When I think about this issue, although I am still convinced that a couple may somehow use the IVF procedure in a biblically permissible way, I easily see myself changing.

I could. I could. And again, I could not. So I want you to kind of speak plainly too because we spoke about, and I'm going to in the information portion, I'm going to tag Wayne Grudem's argument for IVF, and Jeremiah has also shared that on his blog, and I'm going to tag the counter-argument that is given as well.

But can you kind of share your thoughts on this as well? Yeah, so I mean, I think after discussions with you, you know, we sort of align on the same page where certainly I do view IVF as an opportunity for couples to have children. I do believe there is a morally permissible way, but there is certainly so much wrapped within the IVF process.

So it's not simply, okay, yes, there is a morally permissible way. That seems too simplistic of an answer. There's so much wrapped within the process, and like you were sharing, as time goes on and as technology changes and as the reality based on statistics changes, that certainly can shift how we view the technology.

But is there a morally permissible way? Of course, that would be my view, but the way it is practiced currently with the sort of lack of discretion over the number of children created, the just automatic default of freezing all these children, the genetic testing that goes on, the commodification attitude, everything that's wrapped in IVF is so fraught for the Christian.

It's such a difficult place to be as a Christian to enter into that realm, to partake of that and to come out unscathed in any way. There's so many, in that process, there's much temptation to think unbiblically and to view children in an unbiblical way. So while there is a permissible way for the Christian, or at least there seems to be.

Seems to be, yes, yes. Maybe there isn't. Yeah, exactly. Maybe there isn't, who knows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one should enter into it very cautiously. Yeah, you bring up this point, and again, I want to kind of circle back to this point of they do not share, these IVF clinics, again, unless you're going to NEDC or some other clinic like that, no IVF clinic shares our biblical worldview.

Their worldview is, we're going to get you a genetic child, a normal genetic child. We'll make sure that it's not one with, you know, God forbid, Down syndrome, God forbid you don't want to have a child with Down syndrome. So that's why you mentioned genetically normal, because that is their goal.

And to achieve that goal, they are not thinking about embryos as children, they're thinking about embryos as property. That's how they're thinking of these embryos. And so you go into that clinic, and they're going to just start pushing all these things on you. You know, genetic testing, do this, freeze them, do this.

And if you say, you really have to be sober and be like, stop, stop, stop, timeout, timeout, we're not doing this, we're not doing this, we're not doing this. Problem is, a lot of people don't even know much of the science to even say, stop, stop, stop, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that.

Would you agree, Jermaine? Yeah, I think so. I think that the understanding that most people go through IVF is simplistic. It's viewed as just a technology, a means to an end. And as they engage with the technology, and since the process takes months, they begin to get exposed to different parts of the process.

And that's when difficulty comes, because they realize, they face the consequences of entering in. And again, I don't want to make it sound like you cannot practice IVF, like there's no way, there is a way. Perhaps. Perhaps. But you would have to wrestle with a lot of issues prior, because like you're sharing, when you enter in and the doctor who you view as the one who's going to help you with the goal of having children paints a picture, are you able to discern that he might not be painting you all the options, he might not be giving you the reality of what's happening.

There's so many ways to word things, that the idea of even discarding children can seem like nothing. It can even escape your mind. They can emphasize and focus on the things they know you want, such that you don't even think about it. So, I mean, I don't want to paint this really bad picture of these people, but the point is that they don't share the same worldview.

And so everything they share will be from a sinful perspective, a fallen perspective. And it's just so important to have that discernment going in and having wrestled through all these issues and doing your due diligence with regards to the facts and the reality before going in, because they're not going to, they may not give you all the information that you need to make an informed decision as a Christian.

Yeah, and I know we've talked about this before, but I want to just put this out there. I know you're willing, if a couple does want to undergo IVF and they want to undergo it in a biblically permissible way, I know you're available to speak to and you keep things confidential and whatever the doctor tells them, they could run it by you to pretty much interpret what they're saying, right?

I mean, so I know, I don't know if you've done, I feel like you've done that. Have you done that before? I don't know if I've done that. Like, I don't know if I don't think, a couple has not necessarily come to me on their own, you know, having gone through parts of IVF and asked about certain questions, but we've certainly had dialogues with other couples who are thinking about it or are in the middle of the process or have done it and so, but yes, you know.

I'm certainly open to discussing it, you know, and like I said, the science changes, so it's incredibly hard to stay up to date and like you mentioned, it's very nuanced, like we didn't touch on there's certain circumstances where it's better to freeze than not freeze, right? I mean, that's incredibly nuanced, you know, because it depends on the patient population and the studies and even how you interpret the studies because as, you know, anyone in the healthcare field knows that research, you know, is not always correct, you know, and just because it's published doesn't mean it's right, it doesn't mean it reflects reality.

So it's incredibly difficult to come to a knowledge of what the reality is, but like you mentioned, discussion is important, you know, and you know, I'm always willing to discuss, you know, with couples or people who have come across literature that, you know, I may not know. I think we're all on this journey to uncover what is the reality of IVF and as a Christian, how we ought to think about it, yeah.

You know, I want to leave the listener with a possible scenario, not an, I don't want to say uncommon, but very possible one, and a possible one is this, they listen to this podcast and they decide, okay, we're going to fertilize four eggs, because no matter what, I'm okay with having four children.

So no matter what, we will fertilize four eggs. So let's say you implant one or two, right, and let's say one or two survive. So you end up having one or two kids, and then you have two embryos left. But suppose after you give birth, the doctor tells you, you have another kid, your wife might not live, for whatever reason, and there's some kind of medical complication.

You have another kid, your wife might not live, then what do you do? What do you do with these other two embryos? You know, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's an incredibly difficult situation, and the beauty of the gospel is that we have the Holy Spirit, you know, that Christ has given us a helper, and I think it's a discussion that the couple should have with, you know, the advice of those they trust, you know, and I would, you know, I would certainly say that you could see in terms of morality, in terms of what is right and wrong, you can see certainly the placement of a child for adoption as, you know, a biblically sound decision.

You can also see the woman and, you know, the mother and the father deciding, you know what, we're going to take the risk, right? That could be also, you know, a biblically sound decision, as one views it in light of all the scripture, you know, and trust that the Spirit will convict and guide, you know, I don't think there's one right answer in this situation.

Yeah, it's tough, and the reason I bring it up is because, you know, we plan one way, and something like that could easily happen, and that's why when we're talking about life, I mean, you have to understand what we're talking about, right? This is life. This is life. Yeah, you mentioned there are so many other things that we could talk about.

Let me see here, yeah, we're getting close to the end here, so I didn't want to end here. My plan is to perhaps circle back around to some of these topics as we learn more, but again, either one of us, but in particular Jeremiah is more than willing to talk to anyone who is thinking about this decision.

I want to just affirm, Jeremiah and I both know that there are many people who have already undergone this procedure. We are not condemning in any way. We are not trying to do that. There have been children born through this procedure. They are a gift from God. A child that is born, regardless of how they're born, the children are a gift from God.

They are precious, they're human beings in the fullest way. This has nothing to do with that, and maybe there are some of you listening, maybe perhaps after listening to this, are convicted. With any other sin, our Lord is ready to forgive. He has abundant mercy. He is waiting for His children to come to Him so that He can eagerly forgive.

I want to make that clear that we are trying to give guidance and disseminate information. We are not trying to implicitly create some second-class citizen scenario where amongst the people who are infertile, we're going to judge you this way. The people who are able to have children naturally, you just got lucky and will never have to undergo this scrutiny.

That is not what we're trying to do by any means. Ultimately, talking to couples who faced infertility, it is an incredibly intimate, deep, profound trial that God allows some couples to go through. He does it for His glory. We know that all things work out for that purpose. When I uncover IVF and all the concerns I had, there certainly was a fear that I would just be a discouragement to families that couldn't have children through the normal biological means.

But again, my desire would be that I would walk in the truth and that as a church, we would all walk in the truth. We would learn to love everyone. I think the beauty of IVF, at least as it stands now, is people can have differences with regards to how they understand IVF.

I certainly don't want to judge a couple simply because they've gone through IVF. I think the body can be built up as we wrestle and struggle through these issues, learning to love one another through discussing about these issues. I just really hope that no one would listen to this and be discouraged, but rather just be, in a sense, provoked in their heart to dig deeper into God's word and come to a conviction where they can go about whatever means of family building based upon the conviction of the Spirit through His word, not being influenced by worldly ideology.

So that's really the desire. It certainly is not to just close off an avenue for families that are looking to do IVF, but just really want to inform, because we know of couples who regret their decisions of IVF. We know of couples who regret creating too many children. That's incredibly sad to witness because when you see a couple go through that and they realize that these are their children, but yet they're of an age or in a context where they can't bring them outside the womb, that's a really difficult place to be in.

Or we know of families where they create a lot of children and for one reason or another those children got killed, whether intentionally or unintentionally, because some clinics don't really have much discretion with regards to the discard process and mistakes are made at times. That's just a difficult consequence for someone to have to deal with.

We hope that by informing about some of these things that we can spare people of those heartaches and ultimately just build up the body to think critically about these issues. Yeah, well, that's good. I'm glad you got to... Thanks for sharing your heart because that brings the sense of why you're so passionate about this subject and you've seen the hurt.

All right, that brings us to the end. Thanks for listening so far and we will end here. As you probably picked up on, there are many facets and many consequences when considering undergoing IVF. So in future episodes in this series, my hope is to break down some of the more finer points of IVF with Dr.

Jeremiah Chang. Obviously, he'll be doing the breaking down. I'll just be asking the questions, but we want to do something a little bit more finer than even what we went into here. And as long as this episode was, it was about an hour, Jeremiah and I both agreed at the end of this episode that this was a flyover rather than a robust discussion that we want to have.

So in future episodes, we'll take one of these points and break it down even further so that we can bring the listener along to the thinking and the rationale behind various positions. Thanks for making it to the end. I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it. To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion.

Amen. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)