1
00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:03,720
Speaker 1: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold,

2
00:00:03,759 --> 00:00:07,360
Managing editor at The Federalist. Please like and subscribe wherever

3
00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:09,880
you get your podcasts. If you don't know, we have

4
00:00:10,039 --> 00:00:13,439
a new channel specifically for the Kylie Casts on Spotify

5
00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:16,800
and Apple podcast So if you are only subscribed to

6
00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:20,280
The Federalist Radio Hour, or you're wrong with Molly Hemingway

7
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:23,879
and David Harsani, two of our other great Federalist podcasts,

8
00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:26,480
be sure to like and subscribe to the Kylie Cast

9
00:00:26,519 --> 00:00:28,920
as well so you never miss an episode. Leave us

10
00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:30,800
a five star review. That's one of the easiest and

11
00:00:30,839 --> 00:00:33,320
best ways for you to help out this show, and

12
00:00:33,439 --> 00:00:35,679
even better yet, if you're just listening to the show,

13
00:00:35,960 --> 00:00:38,520
go check out the full video version on my personal

14
00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:42,240
YouTube channel or the Federalist channel on Rumble, and then

15
00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:45,240
of course like and subscribe there too. If you'd like

16
00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:47,159
to email the show, you can do so at radio

17
00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:50,039
at the Federalist dot com. I would love to hear

18
00:00:50,079 --> 00:00:52,320
from you. I feel compelled to give my audience a

19
00:00:52,439 --> 00:00:56,119
trigger warning for this episode because I am interviewing none

20
00:00:56,200 --> 00:00:59,640
other than Katie Faust. Katie is an author. She's a

21
00:00:59,719 --> 00:01:02,799
children's rights advocate, and she's also the founder of the

22
00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:08,640
nonprofit Them Before Us, which exists to help protect children's

23
00:01:08,799 --> 00:01:11,879
rights to their mother and father. Katie and I dive

24
00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:16,480
into some pretty hot button topics, everything from ivf insurrogacy

25
00:01:16,799 --> 00:01:21,480
and adoption and abortion, to gay marriage and divorce. There's

26
00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:24,480
certainly something in this episode that's going to ruffle some feathers,

27
00:01:24,519 --> 00:01:27,879
but there's also so much here to help arm listeners

28
00:01:28,159 --> 00:01:31,000
with language and apologetics to know how to talk about

29
00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:34,560
these very important but very difficult issues. It's definitely an

30
00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:37,079
episode you won't want to miss. In fact, it's probably

31
00:01:37,079 --> 00:01:39,239
one you're gonna want a bookmark for later to listen

32
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:41,879
to again and maybe even send to a family member

33
00:01:41,959 --> 00:01:44,640
or friend. So, without further ado, please welcome to the show,

34
00:01:44,920 --> 00:02:00,159
Katie Faust. Katie Faust, it is so good to have

35
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:02,079
you on the Kylie Cass. Thanks for being here today.

36
00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:05,519
Speaker 2: Oh it's my honor love your show. Thanks for letting

37
00:02:05,519 --> 00:02:06,159
me be a guest.

38
00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:09,240
Speaker 1: Oh of course I would love if you could start

39
00:02:09,319 --> 00:02:11,479
us off just by telling listeners who might not be

40
00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:13,719
familiar with you, who you are, where you come from,

41
00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:15,879
and how on earth you got into the work. You're

42
00:02:15,879 --> 00:02:18,479
doing now, and I'm curious also, I know you weren't

43
00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:21,560
raised conservative Christians, so how you became a conservative Christian

44
00:02:21,599 --> 00:02:21,919
as well?

45
00:02:22,639 --> 00:02:24,080
Speaker 3: No, I wasn't, no, ma'am.

46
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:28,039
Speaker 2: I was raised in Portland, Oregon, not to religious parents.

47
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:30,960
They divorced when I was ten. My father dated and

48
00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:35,000
remarried my mom repartnered with a woman, so they've been

49
00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:38,360
together since I was ten eleven years old and have

50
00:02:38,439 --> 00:02:40,599
been a big part of my life all throughout. I

51
00:02:40,719 --> 00:02:43,560
ended up going to a youth group with a friend

52
00:02:43,759 --> 00:02:48,199
in high school and really got pretty good first taste

53
00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:50,639
of Christianity from the youth pastor there, who was really

54
00:02:50,719 --> 00:02:54,199
serious about the Lord, very sacrificial to everybody that came

55
00:02:54,199 --> 00:02:57,240
through the door, and I just had never seen anything

56
00:02:57,280 --> 00:02:58,039
like it before.

57
00:02:58,400 --> 00:02:59,599
Speaker 3: Officially got saved at.

58
00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:03,800
Speaker 2: Like a billig youth rally in nineteen ninety two, plunged

59
00:03:03,879 --> 00:03:06,680
back into Sin for a good year or so before

60
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:09,879
I handed everything over to God. I was like, if

61
00:03:09,919 --> 00:03:14,639
you can free me from the slavery to sin, I'll

62
00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:16,680
give you anything, and he did like he freed me.

63
00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:18,560
Speaker 3: Went to college, met my husband.

64
00:03:18,599 --> 00:03:20,520
Speaker 2: He was a baby Christian too, so we both kind

65
00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:24,639
of grew up together in college and then had a

66
00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:29,800
postgraduate scholarship in Taiwan, went to Colorado and he got

67
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:32,879
his Masters of Divinity while I worked at a Chinese

68
00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:36,199
adoption agency, so I have a bit of an adoption background.

69
00:03:36,879 --> 00:03:37,879
Speaker 3: Then we lived in.

70
00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:40,599
Speaker 2: Poverty for a while while he was the assistant associate

71
00:03:40,599 --> 00:03:43,960
pastor at a small church, and we had three little kids,

72
00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:46,719
and then moved to Seattle where he was the senior

73
00:03:46,719 --> 00:03:51,560
pastor of our church. We adopted our own child, our fourth,

74
00:03:51,719 --> 00:03:54,280
and very soon after that, the gay marriage debate came

75
00:03:54,319 --> 00:03:58,719
to Washington State, and what I heard the pro gay

76
00:03:58,719 --> 00:04:01,719
marriage advocates saying is kids don't care if they have

77
00:04:01,759 --> 00:04:03,639
two moms or two dads. They love having two moms

78
00:04:03,759 --> 00:04:06,800
or two dads. And I was like, hold on there.

79
00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:10,080
When a child has two moms, that means they have

80
00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:12,840
lost their dad, and when a child has two dads,

81
00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:15,719
that means they have lost their mom. And from being

82
00:04:15,759 --> 00:04:19,800
a mom myself having an adopted child. Working in ministry

83
00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,319
ever since college, my husband and I had been volunteering

84
00:04:22,319 --> 00:04:24,920
with the high schoolers. We ran the junior high ministry

85
00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:28,879
in Colorado. We did high school and college ministry, and

86
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,600
when you're doing ministry with kids, you are hearing their

87
00:04:31,639 --> 00:04:35,199
greatest burdens. You're hearing the things that tear apart their souls.

88
00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:38,240
And it's so interesting because most of those have a

89
00:04:38,279 --> 00:04:41,439
common theme, and it is where is my father? Why

90
00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,040
doesn't he love me? Why did my parents break up?

91
00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:47,199
Why did my mother choose drugs over her family? Like,

92
00:04:47,279 --> 00:04:49,879
I don't know who my dad is, And I take

93
00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:52,360
that as a personal rejection. I mean, like it is

94
00:04:52,399 --> 00:04:54,240
some of the deepest wounds that you can inflict on

95
00:04:54,319 --> 00:04:57,199
a child when they lose their mother father. If that

96
00:04:57,319 --> 00:05:01,040
happens to tragedy, very often the whole community comes around

97
00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:01,920
and they mourn.

98
00:05:01,959 --> 00:05:03,680
Speaker 3: And the child's not alone in their grief.

99
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:07,000
Speaker 2: But when it happens because an adult desire is prioritized

100
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:09,720
above the rights of the child, it leaves a lifelong

101
00:05:09,759 --> 00:05:13,720
wound that very often they blame themselves for. So that's

102
00:05:13,759 --> 00:05:16,959
when I got into this, because I am much more

103
00:05:16,959 --> 00:05:19,040
of a grace giver than a truth teller by nature.

104
00:05:19,319 --> 00:05:22,360
I would rather keep my friends. I don't like to

105
00:05:22,399 --> 00:05:26,240
offend people. But it was when they were using, really

106
00:05:27,079 --> 00:05:32,360
leveraging this incredible wound of mother and father loss that

107
00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:36,040
impacts children on a physical, mental, emotional, academic, spiritual, and

108
00:05:36,079 --> 00:05:39,279
relational level. It was when they were diminishing that and

109
00:05:39,319 --> 00:05:42,199
even capitalizing on it to advance this new form of

110
00:05:42,279 --> 00:05:46,399
family that I was like, gloves off, let's go, and

111
00:05:46,439 --> 00:05:49,360
I just started to write under an anonymous blog and

112
00:05:49,399 --> 00:05:51,920
then under my own name, and then I finally founded

113
00:05:52,399 --> 00:05:57,439
the nonprofit Them Before Us in twenty eighteen that defends children's.

114
00:05:57,120 --> 00:05:59,000
Speaker 3: Right to their mother and father.

115
00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:00,959
Speaker 2: So the way I talk about this is we've got,

116
00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:04,639
thank god, about one hundred organization defending children's right to life,

117
00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:06,639
and we need all of them.

118
00:06:07,079 --> 00:06:07,800
Speaker 3: Them Before Us is.

119
00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:11,800
Speaker 2: The only organization defending children's rights in their families to

120
00:06:11,959 --> 00:06:14,639
their mother and father, and that means we want to

121
00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:20,600
put the child first in conversations about the definition of marriage, divorce, surrogacy,

122
00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:24,959
modern family, same sex parenting, reproductive technologies IVF, and adoption.

123
00:06:25,079 --> 00:06:27,480
If it touches marriage and family, we're going to say,

124
00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:28,399
put the kid first.

125
00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:30,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we're going to get into a lot of

126
00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:32,879
those issues over the course of our conversation. But I

127
00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:36,439
think this foundational starting point, the very name of your organization,

128
00:06:36,519 --> 00:06:38,920
Then Before Us, is so important for people to understand,

129
00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:42,519
and it really helped me kind of reframe these issues

130
00:06:42,879 --> 00:06:46,079
to understand the apologetics behind them when I was first

131
00:06:46,079 --> 00:06:48,639
becoming politically sentient, if you want to put it that way,

132
00:06:48,759 --> 00:06:50,319
because that happened kind of late for me, and so

133
00:06:50,399 --> 00:06:52,639
a lot of your work on this helped me understand.

134
00:06:52,639 --> 00:06:54,600
You know, these things that on a gut level, I

135
00:06:54,639 --> 00:06:58,839
know they don't feel right, or I know I naturally

136
00:06:58,839 --> 00:07:00,480
oppose them, but I'm not even sure if I have

137
00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:03,959
the language for why. And as soon as you understand

138
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:07,040
that so many of these issues are about whether it

139
00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:10,399
pits the rights of children against the desires of adults,

140
00:07:10,439 --> 00:07:12,120
and once you see it in those terms, it really

141
00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:15,439
helps you understand like the very foundation of why so

142
00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:17,920
many of these things are wrong, such as IVF and

143
00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:21,199
surrogacy and all of the rest. So I'm really excited

144
00:07:21,199 --> 00:07:23,759
to get into this because just if people can keep

145
00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:25,600
that in mind throughout the course of our conversation, like

146
00:07:25,639 --> 00:07:28,680
that is what it all goes back to, is are

147
00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:30,000
we going to put kids rights first? Or are we

148
00:07:30,079 --> 00:07:33,480
going to put adults desires and rights before children? Because

149
00:07:33,519 --> 00:07:36,079
so often they can be in conflict with one another,

150
00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:39,399
and adults have a responsibility to sacrifice for children that

151
00:07:39,519 --> 00:07:41,759
children do not have to sacrifice for adults.

152
00:07:41,879 --> 00:07:45,199
Speaker 2: So yeah, I would say in every sphere you see

153
00:07:45,240 --> 00:07:47,800
adult desire overriding the rights of children.

154
00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:49,759
Speaker 3: And you know, we're going to talk about a variety.

155
00:07:49,759 --> 00:07:51,160
Speaker 2: I don't know what we're going to talk about, but

156
00:07:51,199 --> 00:07:54,319
I guarantee you will be triggered at some point. You,

157
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:57,240
the listener, are going to feel a little bit threatened

158
00:07:57,399 --> 00:08:00,240
in this conversation because this is not a call for

159
00:08:00,439 --> 00:08:02,800
the gays to do the right thing right, I mean,

160
00:08:02,839 --> 00:08:06,720
this is not a story of people using surrogacy victimizing children.

161
00:08:06,839 --> 00:08:09,600
There is no adult group who is not at some

162
00:08:09,680 --> 00:08:13,560
point collectively said the kids are going to sacrifice for me.

163
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:17,240
Like in this world of putting children first, at some

164
00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:19,160
point every adult is going to have to make the

165
00:08:19,160 --> 00:08:22,360
decision is it going to be us that sacrifices or

166
00:08:22,399 --> 00:08:25,600
is it going to be them that sacrifices. And in

167
00:08:25,639 --> 00:08:30,439
this world of children's rights, nobody gets a pass. Single, married, gay, straight,

168
00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:35,759
fertile and infertile all sacrifice because the only alternative is

169
00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:38,080
kids sacrificing for you, and that's an injustice.

170
00:08:38,399 --> 00:08:41,519
Speaker 1: H And so often you don't know, you don't know

171
00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:43,720
about the kid's sacrifice until later because they're not going

172
00:08:43,799 --> 00:08:46,080
to have the words to tell you or they know

173
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:47,919
how to express it and it's going to come out later.

174
00:08:48,519 --> 00:08:50,840
Speaker 2: They can't advocate for themselves. It is just like the

175
00:08:50,919 --> 00:08:55,039
right to life. They're voiceless, they're voteless. They don't hire lawyers,

176
00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:58,360
they can't lobby, they don't do podcast interviews. It is

177
00:08:58,519 --> 00:09:01,159
our job to protect the rights of the most vulnerable.

178
00:09:01,240 --> 00:09:03,879
For the voiceless, we speak up on their behalf.

179
00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:06,639
Speaker 1: Right, right, So let's start with one of these issues

180
00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:08,720
that's such a huge hot button thing right now, and

181
00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:11,559
that's IVF. And I know this is something that really

182
00:09:11,559 --> 00:09:15,080
divides people on the right, especially for a number of reasons,

183
00:09:15,159 --> 00:09:18,039
one of which is because we've seen such an increase

184
00:09:18,480 --> 00:09:22,240
in fertility issues among men and women. Some of that

185
00:09:22,320 --> 00:09:24,720
is of course self inflicted, because women are, you know,

186
00:09:25,159 --> 00:09:28,519
sacrificing their best fertile years at the altar of the

187
00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:31,279
lean in girl boss, you know, way of living. Sometimes

188
00:09:31,279 --> 00:09:34,120
it's completely out of your control and totally unintentional and

189
00:09:34,159 --> 00:09:37,320
just like an absolute sorrowful tragedy that women are struggling with.

190
00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:39,559
This like one of the worst things you could possibly

191
00:09:39,559 --> 00:09:41,919
struggle with. And so, you know, I have compassion for

192
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:44,879
people who think that this is their only option in IVF.

193
00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:47,320
Some of it is also because of a lot of

194
00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:49,399
the rhetoric that this is pro life. You know, it

195
00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:54,200
creates babies, it creates life. How can someone who loves families,

196
00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:56,240
and who loves children, and who wants to bring life

197
00:09:56,240 --> 00:10:00,000
into the world be against something that creates life. So, Katie,

198
00:10:00,159 --> 00:10:03,399
why is IVF a denial of children's rights? Why is

199
00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:04,200
it not pro life?

200
00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:08,960
Speaker 2: It's anti child. IVF is anti child. I too know

201
00:10:09,159 --> 00:10:12,519
and empathize with my friends struggling with infertility. And this

202
00:10:12,600 --> 00:10:15,120
is where we get to the infertile who have to

203
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:18,519
sacrifice for kids. The very fertile who are facing an

204
00:10:18,559 --> 00:10:21,600
unplanned pregnancy. They don't get a pass just because the

205
00:10:21,679 --> 00:10:23,879
child was unplanned. That doesn't mean they could to violate

206
00:10:23,919 --> 00:10:25,559
the child's right to life or write to their mother

207
00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:28,240
and father. The solution there is for all adults to

208
00:10:28,279 --> 00:10:30,960
do hard things to protect the rights of children. If

209
00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:33,720
you're struggling with infertility, that also is not a pass

210
00:10:33,759 --> 00:10:35,600
to victimize any child's right to life or write to

211
00:10:35,639 --> 00:10:39,559
their mother and father. But unfortunately, the world of baby

212
00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:43,000
making IVF destroys more little lives every year than the

213
00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:46,519
world of the baby takers of abortion now why is that.

214
00:10:46,679 --> 00:10:47,759
Speaker 3: Because a woman that's.

215
00:10:47,639 --> 00:10:50,399
Speaker 2: Dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, if she's going into the

216
00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:54,159
planned parenthood clinic, there's usually one little life on the line.

217
00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:56,919
Anybody that's done IVF knows that it's not one life

218
00:10:56,919 --> 00:10:59,480
you're talking about. You're talking about five, You're talking about fifteen,

219
00:10:59,519 --> 00:11:03,159
You're talking about twenty five little lives that have been fertilized,

220
00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:08,360
very often graded, genetically screened, sometimes sex selected, and then

221
00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:12,000
only the prime candidates, the one that meet the specifications

222
00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:14,480
of the adults, are going to be implanted, and then

223
00:11:14,559 --> 00:11:17,159
the less then ideal will be frozen, and the ones

224
00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:20,480
that are completely unwanted will be discarded or donated to research.

225
00:11:20,879 --> 00:11:23,320
And so what you see is the best that we

226
00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:27,200
can ascertain because Big fertility doesn't have a lot of requirements.

227
00:11:26,759 --> 00:11:29,200
Speaker 3: To report or share what they do with these little lives.

228
00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:34,759
Speaker 2: Our best estimate is that ninety seven percent of children

229
00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:38,240
created in a laboratory will never be born alive. Probably

230
00:11:38,320 --> 00:11:41,360
ninety percent will never even have the chance to live.

231
00:11:41,399 --> 00:11:44,000
They want to be transferred to the womb, and so

232
00:11:44,039 --> 00:11:48,240
you have child destruction on a mass scale. So of

233
00:11:48,279 --> 00:11:50,320
the two to three percent that do make it through

234
00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:54,840
the process alive, anywhere from one third to two thirds

235
00:11:54,840 --> 00:11:56,879
are going to lose their mother or father or both

236
00:11:56,960 --> 00:12:00,600
in the process. Because now we have these vibrant online

237
00:12:00,639 --> 00:12:03,200
markets where you can shop for your child's genetic mother

238
00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:06,879
or father and filter them down right to your specifications.

239
00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:08,960
You want a known donor or an unknown donor. You

240
00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:11,240
want a white egg donor, in which case you're going

241
00:12:11,279 --> 00:12:13,519
to pay a little more. Obviously, white donors they just

242
00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:15,799
you know, fetch a higher fee than the brown ones.

243
00:12:15,879 --> 00:12:18,360
Do you can choose the eye color. You know, has

244
00:12:18,399 --> 00:12:20,039
she gone to Yale or did she just go to

245
00:12:20,039 --> 00:12:22,120
with State school? I mean, like, where are you getting

246
00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:24,360
the genetic material for this? The market is going to

247
00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:28,840
adjust based on your preferences. So kids that are born

248
00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:32,600
separated from their mother or father at birth, we know

249
00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:35,200
that they have higher rates of struggles when it comes

250
00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:39,039
to identity issues, higher levels of distrust for their own parents.

251
00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:41,519
The one study that we have that compares outcomes of

252
00:12:41,600 --> 00:12:44,960
children created through sperm donation raised by their biological mother

253
00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:49,039
and then either no other parent, another female parent, or

254
00:12:49,279 --> 00:12:53,080
a social male parent, shows that those kids do not

255
00:12:53,240 --> 00:12:56,720
fare as well as adoptees who are raised by neither

256
00:12:56,879 --> 00:12:57,679
mother or father.

257
00:12:57,799 --> 00:13:01,200
Speaker 3: Now, why do you think that is? Because both of these.

258
00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:03,679
Speaker 2: Kids, the children created through sperm donation and the children

259
00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:07,000
who were adopted, both of them have suffered the primal

260
00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:10,639
loss of their mother and father, or at least on

261
00:13:10,639 --> 00:13:13,440
this side, just their father. And yet these kids, the

262
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,039
adopted kids being raised by neither parent, are doing better.

263
00:13:16,519 --> 00:13:19,399
Why do you think that is. It's because these kids

264
00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:22,200
that are adopted, they're being raised by the adults who

265
00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:22,960
are seeking to.

266
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,720
Speaker 3: Mend the wound of their parental loss.

267
00:13:26,159 --> 00:13:29,399
Speaker 2: These kids that were created through sperm donation, whose parents

268
00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:33,159
purchased the sperm from their biological father with the promise

269
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:35,320
that he never had contact with the child ever. Again,

270
00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:37,360
these people created the wound.

271
00:13:37,519 --> 00:13:38,240
Speaker 3: So both of.

272
00:13:38,159 --> 00:13:40,720
Speaker 2: These kids have grief, both of them have questions, both

273
00:13:40,759 --> 00:13:43,200
of them are mourning, both of them probably have some

274
00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:47,159
inner turmoil. These guys, the adoptees, they get to process

275
00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:49,919
it with their parents because the parents didn't choose for

276
00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:51,840
it to be that way. They're simply trying to remedy

277
00:13:51,919 --> 00:13:55,120
a broken situation, whereas the kids of big fertility are

278
00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:57,200
being raised by the people who said, we like it

279
00:13:57,240 --> 00:13:58,600
this way, We're glad he's gone.

280
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:02,279
Speaker 1: Can you explain the difference between paying for adoption and

281
00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:05,000
paying for IVF or surrogacy.

282
00:14:05,039 --> 00:14:06,799
Speaker 3: This is a really important distinction.

283
00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:10,080
Speaker 2: So I'm an adoptive parent. I used to work in

284
00:14:10,120 --> 00:14:13,279
the world of adoption. I actually was responsible for compliance

285
00:14:13,639 --> 00:14:16,480
for international, federal and state level standards when it came

286
00:14:16,519 --> 00:14:19,320
to adoption best practices. And there is a lot of

287
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:22,519
money that gets exchanged in adoption. But I'll tell you

288
00:14:22,559 --> 00:14:26,200
one thing. Money will never go from the adoptive parents

289
00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:29,200
to the birth parents. If any of the money that

290
00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:33,399
my husband and I spent to bring home our fourth child,

291
00:14:33,559 --> 00:14:36,039
if any of that money that we contributed to that

292
00:14:36,120 --> 00:14:39,440
process went directly to his birth mother or his genetic

293
00:14:39,480 --> 00:14:42,399
family in exchange for their parental rights, that would no

294
00:14:42,480 --> 00:14:45,639
longer be adoption. That would be trafficking. You are not

295
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:48,519
allowed to do that. There are international standards set up

296
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:52,120
to cross country inter country that is not allowed. There

297
00:14:52,159 --> 00:14:55,480
should be no payment to genetic parents or birth parents

298
00:14:55,559 --> 00:15:01,000
for relinquishing parental rights. Now, big fertility also involves a

299
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:04,840
lot of money, but it's built upon direct payments from

300
00:15:04,879 --> 00:15:08,879
intended parents to genetic parents and birth parents. When you

301
00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:13,279
donate your eggs or your sperm, you are always in

302
00:15:13,879 --> 00:15:17,440
explicitly signing over your rights. I will have no contact

303
00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:21,879
with any biological children that result from my donation. When

304
00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:22,799
you are going through.

305
00:15:22,639 --> 00:15:24,159
Speaker 3: A surrogacy process.

306
00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:28,639
Speaker 2: There is no state in our country that allows a

307
00:15:28,679 --> 00:15:31,159
birth mother to sign over the rights of her child

308
00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:33,919
before the baby is born. All states have some kind

309
00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:36,519
of a waiting process a couple days, a couple of weeks,

310
00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:39,600
because the state presumes that the baby belongs to the

311
00:15:39,639 --> 00:15:42,159
birth mother and she should not be able to relinquish

312
00:15:42,159 --> 00:15:44,039
her rights prior to the time the baby is born.

313
00:15:44,519 --> 00:15:47,799
In surrogacy, they now have something called pre birth orders,

314
00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:50,240
where in the second or third trimester, the woman signs

315
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:53,279
over her rights to the child, and when the baby

316
00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:56,000
is born, she's legally not the mother, and she is

317
00:15:56,039 --> 00:16:01,399
doing that in exchange for money, categorically under the best practice,

318
00:16:01,559 --> 00:16:05,840
best interest of the child statutes of adoption. This is

319
00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:09,279
baby buying. You are paying genetic parents and birth parents

320
00:16:09,399 --> 00:16:12,639
to relinquish their parmental rights and hand over their genetic

321
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:16,720
children to you, so there's money spent in both places.

322
00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:20,279
One of them adheres very carefully to the standard to

323
00:16:20,399 --> 00:16:23,559
never have there be a cross pollination between those two

324
00:16:23,559 --> 00:16:25,759
streams of cash and the other one is based on.

325
00:16:25,679 --> 00:16:30,159
Speaker 1: It, right, right, So back to IVF specifically, what would

326
00:16:30,159 --> 00:16:35,480
you say to birth parents or sorry, the people, yeah,

327
00:16:35,519 --> 00:16:38,679
the people commissioning the child through IVF, if they could

328
00:16:38,679 --> 00:16:42,919
find a facility and IVF facility that refuse to do

329
00:16:43,159 --> 00:16:47,879
embryo grading and or sex selection, that they only you know,

330
00:16:47,919 --> 00:16:50,919
I know, the reason that they fertilized so many embryos

331
00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:52,559
is because the cost of each of those cycles. But

332
00:16:52,639 --> 00:16:55,639
say they were only going to fertilize four embryos, and

333
00:16:55,759 --> 00:16:57,720
every single one of those they were going to implant

334
00:16:57,720 --> 00:17:00,840
and whatever, what would you say to somebody who's trying

335
00:17:00,879 --> 00:17:03,399
to pursue that course of action if that even exists.

336
00:17:04,759 --> 00:17:07,559
Speaker 2: Everybody asks, because everybody wants to do it right, all

337
00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:08,480
of the people in our world.

338
00:17:08,799 --> 00:17:09,400
Speaker 3: We love babies.

339
00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,200
Speaker 2: We're conservative, we're pro life. We don't want to do

340
00:17:12,319 --> 00:17:14,400
to any kind of genetic screening. We're not going to

341
00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:17,200
throw out the boys and keep the girls. We understand

342
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:19,519
that life begins at conception and is precious and wonderful.

343
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:21,519
So we're only going to create the number of children

344
00:17:21,519 --> 00:17:25,000
that we can immediately implant and carry those babies. So

345
00:17:25,319 --> 00:17:28,720
that's noble. But very few doctors are even going to

346
00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:31,000
agree to help you with that. And I'll tell you why.

347
00:17:31,319 --> 00:17:35,599
Number One, it's so cost prohibitive. They're boxing out repeat customers.

348
00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:38,440
That IVF cycle is very likely to fail. The older

349
00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:40,680
you are, the more likely it's going to. Your failure

350
00:17:40,759 --> 00:17:44,279
rates get exponentially, exponentially increats every year. Okay, And so

351
00:17:44,599 --> 00:17:46,160
they want you to have a bank of children that

352
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:47,440
you have to come back for. They want you to

353
00:17:47,759 --> 00:17:50,640
be dependent on them for the next pregnancy. And so

354
00:17:50,839 --> 00:17:53,160
I have had couple say, yeah, my doctor wouldn't even

355
00:17:53,240 --> 00:17:56,039
do that. Here's the other reason. The one thing that

356
00:17:56,119 --> 00:17:59,000
fertility clinics do have to publish is their live birth rate.

357
00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:02,400
That's the thing they compete against one another. Four how

358
00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:05,240
many children that they transfer finally do make it to

359
00:18:05,279 --> 00:18:07,319
the place where they are born alive. Many of them

360
00:18:07,319 --> 00:18:09,799
are going to be premature because IBF is categorically a

361
00:18:09,880 --> 00:18:12,839
risky pregnancy. But that's the thing they're competing against. And

362
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:16,640
if you want to implant a subpar embryo, it actually

363
00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:20,599
could destroy the thing that is the most objective standard

364
00:18:20,599 --> 00:18:24,279
they have to prove how successful they are. And then

365
00:18:24,319 --> 00:18:27,039
the third reason is you don't have the money for this.

366
00:18:27,799 --> 00:18:30,599
You don't have enough money to go through the process

367
00:18:30,599 --> 00:18:34,319
of creating two embryos at fifteen thousand to twenty five

368
00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:37,599
thousand dollars a pop and then transferring them every single time.

369
00:18:38,079 --> 00:18:42,279
Much much better if you can fertilize fifteen at fifteen

370
00:18:42,319 --> 00:18:44,799
thousand to twenty five thousand dollars and then only pay

371
00:18:44,799 --> 00:18:47,119
a couple thousand dollars for the transfer when you need

372
00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:48,799
to go back the second or third, or fourth or

373
00:18:48,839 --> 00:18:52,559
seventh time because the first time failed. So I've now

374
00:18:52,599 --> 00:18:57,519
spoken across the country to tens of thousands of people

375
00:18:57,559 --> 00:18:58,200
at conferences.

376
00:18:58,240 --> 00:18:59,440
Speaker 3: I've talked about this kind of thing.

377
00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:02,440
Speaker 2: Everybody asked me this question, and I say, it's so

378
00:19:02,599 --> 00:19:05,880
cost prohibitive, nobody does this, and very few doctors will

379
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:08,319
even help you if you try. And so far I've

380
00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:10,559
had five different people come up to me and say

381
00:19:10,599 --> 00:19:11,240
we did do that.

382
00:19:11,799 --> 00:19:12,039
Speaker 3: Now.

383
00:19:12,079 --> 00:19:14,400
Speaker 2: Some of them froze the children, but went back for

384
00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:16,680
all of them, which I would say, you.

385
00:19:16,559 --> 00:19:17,599
Speaker 3: Cannot freeze children.

386
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:20,039
Speaker 2: Much of the time, when you freeze the babies, they

387
00:19:20,079 --> 00:19:22,119
never come out of the freezer, even if you have

388
00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:24,480
the best intentions. We get emails all the time from

389
00:19:24,519 --> 00:19:26,559
somebody saying I had two I want to go back

390
00:19:26,559 --> 00:19:27,200
for my other three.

391
00:19:27,319 --> 00:19:28,519
Speaker 3: I had a medical emergency.

392
00:19:28,559 --> 00:19:30,400
Speaker 2: My hysterectomy is gone. I don't want to give my

393
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,640
children away. I can't donate them to research. I can't

394
00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:33,960
adopt them on to somebody else.

395
00:19:34,279 --> 00:19:34,960
Speaker 3: What do I do?

396
00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:37,000
Speaker 2: So you have to do this in a way that

397
00:19:37,039 --> 00:19:39,759
doesn't involve freezing. So even with freezing, I've only had

398
00:19:39,839 --> 00:19:41,680
five people come up and say we did that.

399
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:42,839
Speaker 3: We did it.

400
00:19:42,839 --> 00:19:45,440
Speaker 2: We didn't destroy any embryos, we didn't grade any embryos,

401
00:19:45,559 --> 00:19:48,400
we didn't sex select, we didn't selectively reduce, which is

402
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:51,200
abort when multiples took place or where there were twins

403
00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:54,039
that were unexpected, and I was like, congratulations, I'm so

404
00:19:54,079 --> 00:19:56,640
glad your children are alive and healthy.

405
00:19:56,759 --> 00:20:01,400
Speaker 3: Are you loaded? And they're like, right, yes, yes. I'm

406
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:03,119
like how many homes do you own? And they're like,

407
00:20:03,559 --> 00:20:04,640
we own many houses.

408
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:07,519
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go, right, Like you can do it

409
00:20:07,559 --> 00:20:10,680
the quote unquote pro life way, but not unless you're

410
00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:11,240
a millionaire.

411
00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:13,599
Speaker 1: Right, And these are exceptions to the rule, and we

412
00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:17,119
need laws that are that govern the rule, not the exceptions.

413
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:22,119
So how about speak to women who maybe are in

414
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:26,000
this category where they feel misled or they really thought

415
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:29,839
IVF was pro life, they went through these cycles, they

416
00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:33,559
now have say, three healthy children and a dozen eggs

417
00:20:33,599 --> 00:20:36,759
still in a freezer somewhere. What is the most pro

418
00:20:36,839 --> 00:20:38,279
life thing they can do?

419
00:20:38,559 --> 00:20:41,000
Speaker 3: Now? You go get your babies.

420
00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:45,079
Speaker 2: You know, people come to me all the time and

421
00:20:45,079 --> 00:20:47,680
they're like, what do you think about embryo adoption? And

422
00:20:47,799 --> 00:20:51,319
I'm like, well, let's answer some fundamental questions. First, what

423
00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:54,599
do you do in an unplanned pregnancy, Well, you reorient

424
00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:57,000
your life. You and the father, we aren't their life

425
00:20:57,039 --> 00:20:59,160
around the child and around each other, so the child

426
00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,839
doesn't lose their right time life and they don't lose

427
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:03,000
their right to their mother and father.

428
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:04,880
Speaker 3: If one or both.

429
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:06,640
Speaker 2: Are unable to do that or unwilling to do that,

430
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:11,200
then adoption is the most child honoring option. But don't

431
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:16,400
be mistaken, adoption costs the child. Okay, adoption is what

432
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:18,799
I like to call a friend of mine calls divine

433
00:21:18,839 --> 00:21:22,119
plan B. But it doesn't come without a cost to

434
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:24,920
the baby. The best case scenario is the adults do

435
00:21:25,079 --> 00:21:28,799
hard things, so the child in the unplanned pregnancy has

436
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:32,400
all of their rights protected and maintained. So what do

437
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:35,359
you do in a very planned pregnancy where you planned

438
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:38,400
so much that you have fifteen children, three of which

439
00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:41,000
are alive. You know, maybe some of them that didn't

440
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:44,039
make it through the process, and you have six left. Well,

441
00:21:44,279 --> 00:21:46,079
the solution is not for the children to lose their

442
00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:48,480
right to life. It's not for the children to lose

443
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:53,079
their mother or father. A solution to the very planned

444
00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:54,680
child is the same it is as it is for

445
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:55,480
the unplanned child.

446
00:21:55,519 --> 00:21:56,160
Speaker 3: It's parenting.

447
00:21:56,920 --> 00:21:59,920
Speaker 2: You made the baby, you raised the baby, even if

448
00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:02,119
you have to take out some loans, even if you

449
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:04,440
have to get a bigger house, even if your mother

450
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,960
has to move in with you, even if you have

451
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,119
to go without some of the other things that you

452
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:10,200
wanted to spend your money on.

453
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:13,400
Speaker 3: Those are your children. Go get your children.

454
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,039
Speaker 2: So we have been contact with a lot of people

455
00:22:17,079 --> 00:22:18,000
that would say.

456
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:19,759
Speaker 3: I am now doing that.

457
00:22:19,799 --> 00:22:22,759
Speaker 2: I'm reornenting my life and we're going to get through

458
00:22:22,759 --> 00:22:25,039
as many of these embryos as possible. Even though it's

459
00:22:25,079 --> 00:22:28,119
tough when you're thirty nine and they're seven, you know,

460
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,240
to go back. They're like, we're going to do whatever

461
00:22:30,279 --> 00:22:33,640
we can to bring up the children that we have created.

462
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:36,799
So it's for a lot of people you get to

463
00:22:36,799 --> 00:22:41,000
that point where you are way past the place. You're

464
00:22:41,039 --> 00:22:44,240
fifty six and you still have those three kids in

465
00:22:44,279 --> 00:22:46,839
the freezer, and they're like, what do I do? The

466
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:51,640
answer is you're cooked. I mean, people hate to hear

467
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:57,839
that there's no way forward without those children losing something

468
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:02,400
that is critical to them, and we should sound the alarm.

469
00:23:03,039 --> 00:23:08,480
We have somewhere between one million and ten million children

470
00:23:08,599 --> 00:23:12,359
frozen in this country. By some estimates, twenty to forty

471
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:16,039
percent have been abandoned. Nobody's paying the storage fee, they

472
00:23:16,039 --> 00:23:20,160
cannot find the parents. Do you understand the magnitude of

473
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:24,160
the human rights crisis on our hands? Because Big Fertility

474
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:28,240
has capitalized on the desperation of parents that were told

475
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,839
they were in fertile right and a lot of these

476
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:32,480
parents didn't have a chance to think about it, and

477
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:35,400
had they thought, I'll make eight embryos, Oh my gosh,

478
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:37,720
it would be incredible if I was able to have

479
00:23:37,839 --> 00:23:41,279
half of them and all four of them took and

480
00:23:41,279 --> 00:23:43,799
they have four left. I mean, a lot of them

481
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:47,319
just did not go into this understanding the genuine moral

482
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:50,680
weight that was before them, and their doctors certainly didn't

483
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,119
help them think it through clearly.

484
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:54,319
Speaker 1: Right, which I mean now would be a good time

485
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,160
to say if you go to see your doctor and

486
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,759
their first solution to you having tried for a period

487
00:23:59,799 --> 00:24:02,400
of time to get pregnant is to refer to to

488
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,920
refer you to big fertility, and not to say, have

489
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,000
you checked your thyroid? Can we do this blood test?

490
00:24:07,079 --> 00:24:08,799
Can we do this other thing? Then find a different

491
00:24:08,839 --> 00:24:11,000
doctor like that is not the solution because they're not.

492
00:24:11,319 --> 00:24:15,079
That will never help you heal your body, and so

493
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,599
that's that's not a doctor's role. A doctor's role is

494
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:19,880
to help you heal, not to refer you to the

495
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:21,240
next cash cow.

496
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:26,039
Speaker 2: And that medical wing that is working to restore fertility

497
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,799
is called restorative reproductive medicine. And a lot of people

498
00:24:29,839 --> 00:24:33,200
that were told you have infertility or you have unexplained infertility,

499
00:24:33,519 --> 00:24:36,319
You and I both know that you have unexplored infertility.

500
00:24:36,559 --> 00:24:39,720
Nobody's even tried to look. They have not checked your

501
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:42,640
thyroid levels, they have not evaluated his sperm count or

502
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:45,599
sperm health. There are dozens of reasons why your body

503
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:47,720
is not able to get If we're talking somebody under

504
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:49,680
thirty five, I mean, if you're if you're forty four,

505
00:24:49,839 --> 00:24:52,559
you're just outside of what your body is ready to

506
00:24:52,599 --> 00:24:54,720
do and prepared to do. Maybe there's still some things

507
00:24:54,759 --> 00:24:56,400
you can do to help. You should totally check out

508
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,279
the restorative reproductive medicine world. But if you are younger,

509
00:24:59,599 --> 00:25:02,880
something is wrong, something that might have an easy fix,

510
00:25:03,039 --> 00:25:05,359
or maybe a surgical fix that can free your body

511
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:06,799
up to have babies on your own, where you're not

512
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,519
dependent on a technician to decide whether or not you

513
00:25:09,519 --> 00:25:11,920
can have a child. And even if you don't end

514
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:13,640
up with a baby, at the end, you're not going

515
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,319
to have surplus frozen embryos, You're probably not going to

516
00:25:16,319 --> 00:25:18,240
be in debt, and your body's going to be healthier

517
00:25:18,279 --> 00:25:21,599
as a result. The moral weight of this is taken

518
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,759
completely off the table. And depending on the condition that

519
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:29,960
is preventing pregnancy, restorative reproductive medicine has higher rates of

520
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:31,039
success than IBF.

521
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,799
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, let's switch gears a tiny bit, just for

522
00:25:34,839 --> 00:25:38,720
a quick sidebar. What are your thoughts on IUI intruder

523
00:25:38,799 --> 00:25:42,920
insemination where you are using the biological mother and father's

524
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:47,440
genetic material and the mother is carrying her own child, Like,

525
00:25:47,599 --> 00:25:48,559
what is your view on that?

526
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 2: We say, that's totally fine, Like, it doesn't it's not

527
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,400
somebody forcing certain sperm to meet certain eggs, which I

528
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,599
think is problematic from the perspective of just the health

529
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:00,960
of the embryo. Right, you still are getting that natural

530
00:26:01,039 --> 00:26:04,880
kind of competition needed for sperm to zeek and be

531
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,920
welcomed into an egg. You're still getting the hospitable environment

532
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:10,640
of this taking place in a womb.

533
00:26:11,319 --> 00:26:12,079
Speaker 3: I think that there's some.

534
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,319
Speaker 2: People that say, well, you're still separating the procreative act

535
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,440
from procreation itself. But from a children's rights perspective, you

536
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:21,119
still have the right to life. I mean if the

537
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:26,279
child does not, if there is not a successful conception

538
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:30,720
or implantation, it's not a technician making that decision, which

539
00:26:30,759 --> 00:26:33,759
is really kind of the problematic eugenics aspect of who

540
00:26:33,759 --> 00:26:35,680
lives and whose dies when we're talking about the ones

541
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:37,440
in the pea tritish or the ones in the freezer.

542
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:42,519
So we don't condemn all forms of art, we condemn

543
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:47,160
the child commodifying, child victimizing practices that are so often

544
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:48,200
connected to art.

545
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, okay, so yeah. The ethical concerns with divorcing

546
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,039
sex from reproduction is is a conversation for another day,

547
00:26:55,079 --> 00:26:57,079
but it's just a good thing for people to consider.

548
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:01,960
So let's talk surrogus versus adoption when it comes to

549
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,359
the vetting, because I think people are very uninformed when

550
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:07,319
it comes to how much vetting you have to go

551
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:10,160
through as an adoptive parent and how little exists for surrogacy.

552
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:11,559
Can you speak to the specifics of that.

553
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 2: The vetting for adoption is extensive, the vetting for surrogacy

554
00:27:16,279 --> 00:27:18,880
is non existent. I mean that's like that's as close

555
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,079
as I can like put it, Like there is no vetting.

556
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 1: And is there really nothing?

557
00:27:23,839 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 2: There's nothing? Okay, there's nothing. There's no background checks, there's

558
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:27,440
no screening.

559
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:28,519
Speaker 3: There's some agency like.

560
00:27:28,519 --> 00:27:31,319
Speaker 2: Well we do a psychological exam, but that's if they

561
00:27:31,319 --> 00:27:31,880
do A.

562
00:27:32,039 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 3: It's not required. B.

563
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 2: It might just be like have you had any mental health? Nope,

564
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,720
I do have any like problems with domestic rese Nope.

565
00:27:39,759 --> 00:27:41,079
Speaker 3: I mean, like nobody's there's.

566
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 2: No background checks anybody has who has gone through adoption,

567
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,079
Like you got your fingerprints multiple times. Probably you were

568
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:51,119
vetted by the state agency, like your agency, the state,

569
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,759
the federal government. If you're going overseas, you're getting like

570
00:27:54,799 --> 00:27:58,400
immigration as and like everybody's looking at you. And it's

571
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:02,000
not just the criminal background check. You're getting references from

572
00:28:02,079 --> 00:28:04,200
friends the social workers coming to your house to see

573
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,359
how do you parent your other kids? Like you're getting

574
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:10,000
financial reports and it's taking place over you're doing training.

575
00:28:10,759 --> 00:28:11,759
Speaker 3: Then there's postplacement.

576
00:28:11,799 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 2: They come and they look at you. How's the child,

577
00:28:13,799 --> 00:28:15,839
how are they being treated? We're doing follow up. You're

578
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,799
not allowed to take children across international borders without some

579
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:23,920
kind of like verification and permission. None of that exists

580
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,440
in surrogacy, and that is why you have scenarios like

581
00:28:27,599 --> 00:28:30,559
the seventy four year old man who had the two

582
00:28:30,599 --> 00:28:34,079
six year olds removed from his home this summer after

583
00:28:34,279 --> 00:28:37,799
keeping them in cage like conditions in his upstairs loft.

584
00:28:38,119 --> 00:28:41,160
Seventy four year old man raising twin six year olds

585
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,440
through surrogacy. That is how you get the Chinese couple

586
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,440
that mass produced children, and we're raising them in a

587
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,720
Californian mansion, fifteen of them. We're three years old and under.

588
00:28:51,799 --> 00:28:54,160
And they had some kind of business going there where

589
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:55,960
people would pull up to the.

590
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 3: Foyer. There was some kind of like a reception desk.

591
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 2: They'd stay there a couple hours and then they would leave.

592
00:29:01,319 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 3: We have no idea what's going on.

593
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 2: We only knew about this because one of the children,

594
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:06,880
was abused by the nanny and was taken in to

595
00:29:07,039 --> 00:29:09,400
the hospital and then they went and checked and they're like, oh,

596
00:29:09,599 --> 00:29:11,000
look at this, We've got.

597
00:29:10,799 --> 00:29:12,519
Speaker 3: Like a harem of babies in here.

598
00:29:13,039 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 2: That is how you get, you know, the Chinese billionaire

599
00:29:17,279 --> 00:29:20,640
who is custom ordering now over one hundred children's in

600
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,839
the US surrogates. He doesn't even touch grass in the

601
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,240
United States. They fly the babies back to him. He's

602
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,759
got US citizenship. I think all of the boys are

603
00:29:29,359 --> 00:29:32,200
all the children are boys. He is raising up people

604
00:29:32,279 --> 00:29:34,519
that are going to take over his video game business,

605
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:39,759
like there is we have. You know, the famous Mitchell

606
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:45,000
his name was last name Mitchell in Pennsylvania who went

607
00:29:45,079 --> 00:29:48,119
viral because he and his partner were kissing their baby,

608
00:29:48,359 --> 00:29:51,640
their surrogate born baby at every month you know, newborn,

609
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:53,359
one month, two month, three months more, all the way

610
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:55,440
up to twelve months old. And people were like, well,

611
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,200
that kind of makes me uncomfortable, like two guys kissing

612
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,559
their baby. And then it came out that he was

613
00:30:00,559 --> 00:30:03,680
a registered sex offender. A year before that, we had

614
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:09,119
the veterinarian from Chicago who was busted by child trafficking

615
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,119
agents because he had talked openly about how he was

616
00:30:12,119 --> 00:30:14,839
looking forward to picking up his surrogate born son next month,

617
00:30:15,079 --> 00:30:16,839
and he had described what he was going to do

618
00:30:16,839 --> 00:30:18,880
to the child once he got them. In terms of abuse,

619
00:30:19,279 --> 00:30:23,200
there is no vetting and screening like many of these

620
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,640
people choose surrogacy because they.

621
00:30:25,599 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 3: Would never pass an adoption background check. So sometimes people think.

622
00:30:29,279 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 2: Adoption and surrogacy write two different ways to form a family.

623
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:33,359
Speaker 3: No.

624
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 2: Adoption is a child centric institution that elevates the best

625
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,640
interest of the child. Reproductive technologies are an adult centric

626
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,640
marketing place, a marketplace where the child's interests are never

627
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:47,440
even considered.

628
00:30:52,079 --> 00:30:56,039
Speaker 4: Regime change sounds great, but what's the real story in Venezuela.

629
00:30:56,119 --> 00:30:59,079
Speaker 5: The Watchout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every

630
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:01,920
day Chris helps impact the connection between politics and the

631
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:03,680
economy and how it affects your wallet.

632
00:31:03,799 --> 00:31:07,519
Speaker 4: Maduro's captured, but his entire apparatus is still there. Are

633
00:31:07,559 --> 00:31:10,279
they truly liberated? Will the US have to cut a

634
00:31:10,359 --> 00:31:12,920
deal with whoever's left even after this operation?

635
00:31:13,119 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 5: Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street,

636
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,880
it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdot

637
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,759
on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify

638
00:31:20,839 --> 00:31:24,799
or wherever you get your podcasts, right.

639
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: So I know your work at them before us. You

640
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,119
don't just work to change hearts and minds, you also

641
00:31:29,119 --> 00:31:32,480
work to change laws. So what are the what laws

642
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,799
would you advocate advocate for? Is it just to outlaws surrogacy?

643
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 4: Like?

644
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,599
Speaker 1: Do we ban that as far as IBF like? What

645
00:31:39,799 --> 00:31:44,400
laws are the most palatable, the best to actually solve

646
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:45,119
these issues.

647
00:31:46,079 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 2: Well, if you're a policymaker and you're listening to this,

648
00:31:48,519 --> 00:31:49,960
you can come to them before US dot com and

649
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:51,759
you can send us a message and we will meet

650
00:31:51,799 --> 00:31:54,519
with you and we will give you policy recommendations. There's

651
00:31:54,559 --> 00:31:56,960
a lot of different things that you can do from

652
00:31:57,039 --> 00:31:59,920
sort of the safer options. If you're in a blue state,

653
00:32:00,559 --> 00:32:02,400
you could say, well, I just want you to share.

654
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,160
Just tell us how many kids you're making, what do

655
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:06,920
you do with them? How many of them get stored,

656
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:09,440
how many of them are donated to research, how many

657
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:13,359
of them are actually transferred to the womb? Then who

658
00:32:13,359 --> 00:32:15,480
goes home with the baby? Is it their genetic parents,

659
00:32:15,599 --> 00:32:17,920
is it a single parent, is it a foreign national?

660
00:32:19,319 --> 00:32:21,200
You know, just tell us what you're doing. Now we've

661
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,839
tried to propose those kinds of checks, and Big Fertility

662
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:27,720
has a conniption because I think if the US people

663
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:31,039
knew what was happening in these laboratories, it would blow

664
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,799
apart this myth that this is just about helping infertile

665
00:32:33,799 --> 00:32:36,880
couples to have a baby. So at the very lowest level,

666
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:38,400
you can just say, just tell us what's going on.

667
00:32:38,519 --> 00:32:41,440
Let's just do some record keeping, okay, But you could

668
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:45,640
also do things like dignify the embryo by saying this

669
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,119
is a human child. Even if you want to continue

670
00:32:48,119 --> 00:32:50,759
doing IVF, recognize that children have a right to life

671
00:32:50,759 --> 00:32:52,799
from the moment of conception, and that means you can't

672
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:57,039
arbitrarily destroy them. Now, this is exactly what the Alabama

673
00:32:57,039 --> 00:33:01,680
Supreme Court handed down last February, and do you know

674
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,640
what happened. It was the most pro life decision we'd

675
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,559
ever heard from a court. Hey, if your embryo is

676
00:33:08,599 --> 00:33:12,039
destroyed accidentally by a fertility clinic, you can sue under

677
00:33:12,039 --> 00:33:15,599
a wrongful death claim for a child. The entire industry

678
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,960
ground to a halt hospital said whoe there.

679
00:33:18,039 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 3: We can't do IVF.

680
00:33:19,119 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 2: Unless we can destroy embryos. So, unfortunately, all the lawmakers,

681
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:28,240
including Republicans circled the wagon, and the result was protecting

682
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,119
the industry, not parents and not kids. So if you

683
00:33:31,319 --> 00:33:35,000
just wanted to stop the excesses, even if you're like, well,

684
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,680
we're pro IVF, but we just don't think children should

685
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:41,279
be destroyed, then just hold on to your bills that

686
00:33:41,359 --> 00:33:43,000
say that children have a right to life from the.

687
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 3: Moment of conception.

688
00:33:44,119 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 2: You will wipe out ninety nine percent of In fact,

689
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:48,920
most of them just won't do business. They will not

690
00:33:49,039 --> 00:33:53,920
make money unless they can select, discard, and curate the

691
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:58,920
exact child that the purchasing parents want. You can absolutely criminalize.

692
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,359
You know, We've got some policy suggestions of saying, take

693
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,559
all the money out of sperm and egg donation and surrogacy.

694
00:34:05,759 --> 00:34:08,679
You can no longer buy and sell the genetic parents

695
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,480
of a child, and then you would still have people

696
00:34:11,519 --> 00:34:15,400
that are donating altruistically. But a lot of this is

697
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,360
a monetary incentive. Many girls are not going No girl

698
00:34:18,519 --> 00:34:21,360
is going to risk their prime fertility years. Things like

699
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:28,920
hyperovulation hyper ovarian oh my gosh, where the ovaries are

700
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,679
so enlarged due to all of the injections, so that

701
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:36,360
you can extract twenty eggs rather than just one per cycle, Like,

702
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,519
it's actually a very high risk process that these young

703
00:34:40,559 --> 00:34:43,920
co eds are subjecting themselves to. Not a lot of

704
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:47,159
people are going to endure the daily injections and the

705
00:34:47,199 --> 00:34:49,480
discomfort and the medical risk if they're.

706
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 3: Not getting paid.

707
00:34:50,519 --> 00:34:53,760
Speaker 2: And then yeah, we can and should ban all surrogacy,

708
00:34:54,079 --> 00:34:58,119
but we could start by, you know, not allowing us

709
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,119
women to give birth to children who are then flown

710
00:35:01,159 --> 00:35:04,840
overseas and then disappearing across borders for god knows what.

711
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 3: Kind of future.

712
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,159
Speaker 2: So I mean, there's a lot of different things that

713
00:35:08,199 --> 00:35:10,320
you can do if you want to curtail the excesses

714
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:13,119
of big fertility without saying all of this should stop,

715
00:35:13,159 --> 00:35:15,679
even though I think pretty much all of it should stop.

716
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:19,079
Speaker 1: Right right. What do you think about when a family

717
00:35:19,119 --> 00:35:21,719
member is a surrogate for someone who can't have children

718
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:23,679
in their own family, Like a girl's sister carries a

719
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:26,159
child for her because she can't do it herself or

720
00:35:26,159 --> 00:35:28,519
something like that. What are the primal wounds like in

721
00:35:28,559 --> 00:35:31,559
that scenario. Is that less problematic because you are the

722
00:35:31,639 --> 00:35:35,280
child still has a bond with the biological mother who

723
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:36,920
carried her, or what does that look.

724
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 2: Like the best way to understand surrogacy from the child's

725
00:35:40,039 --> 00:35:43,639
perspective is it splices what should be one person mother

726
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,039
into three purchasable and notional optional women. The first one

727
00:35:47,079 --> 00:35:50,480
is the genetic mother, and she contributes the egg. That

728
00:35:50,599 --> 00:35:52,719
is the mother that helps children answer the question who

729
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,480
am I? It's critical for identity formation. The second mother

730
00:35:56,559 --> 00:35:58,960
is the birth mother. This is the woman that the

731
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,599
baby bonds with for the first nine months. This is

732
00:36:01,639 --> 00:36:06,280
the one whose smell, whose voice, whose skin, whose touch

733
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:09,239
drops babies cortisol levels in a way that skin to

734
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:13,159
skin contact with any other adult will not. She is

735
00:36:13,199 --> 00:36:15,800
the one that regulates the baby's stress hormones in a

736
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,760
way that nobody else will. Okay, we place babies on

737
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,719
their mother's chest right after birth, not so they can

738
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,880
form a bond, but because they have an existing bond,

739
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,840
and if you disrupt that bond, you are going to

740
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,519
set the child up for struggles to trust and attach

741
00:36:32,679 --> 00:36:35,760
in the future. And then the third mother is the

742
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:38,920
social mother, the woman that kisses the booboos, that rocks

743
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:40,719
them to bed at night, the one that is going

744
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,960
to be there all day, every day, hopefully all their life,

745
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,840
giving that distinctly female love that maximizes their development and

746
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:52,679
satisfies their longing for maternal connection. Okay, so surrogacy splices

747
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,840
what should be one person into three. The problem is

748
00:36:56,079 --> 00:36:59,039
none of these women are optional. The child needs all

749
00:36:59,079 --> 00:37:01,360
of these women, and if they are not found in

750
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,079
the same person, the child's going to experience lass. So

751
00:37:04,119 --> 00:37:07,039
in the scenario you presented, which I would say is

752
00:37:07,079 --> 00:37:11,480
sort of the gateway of surrogacy, right, you get the

753
00:37:11,519 --> 00:37:14,599
surrogacy industry gets a lot of mileage out of saying, well,

754
00:37:14,639 --> 00:37:16,840
there's no money that takes place. The child's going home

755
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,320
with a genetic parent. This is altruistic. It's just a

756
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:22,880
woman helping another woman. Even in that scenario, you're still

757
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:24,960
asking the child to sacrifice.

758
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:26,639
Speaker 3: For adults, the child has.

759
00:37:26,519 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 2: To lose a relationship with the only person they know

760
00:37:28,559 --> 00:37:31,079
the day they're born. And even if they're being handed

761
00:37:31,119 --> 00:37:35,519
to their genetic parents, these are just two strangers out

762
00:37:35,519 --> 00:37:38,840
of eight billion, and the baby starts from ground zero

763
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:43,639
when it comes to forming a bond. So it's just anyway,

764
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,760
This is why I'm saying, like this is a unflinching

765
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:51,559
worldview that says every adult has to sacrifice. It's not

766
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:55,199
just the gaze you know, it's not just you know,

767
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,960
the people that are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. At some

768
00:37:58,079 --> 00:38:00,199
point everyone has to say, this is something I really

769
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,360
long for, this is something that I want. Maybe this

770
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,400
I'm feeling like I'm fulfilling some kind of creation mandate.

771
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 3: I get it.

772
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:11,159
Speaker 2: It cannot be at the expense of fundamental child rights.

773
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:15,039
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Let's change gears a little bit

774
00:38:15,079 --> 00:38:18,440
away from big fertility to gay marriage, because I know

775
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,840
this is something that you are especially working on some

776
00:38:21,559 --> 00:38:25,440
initiatives right now about you know, a couple months ago,

777
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,079
by the time this errs, the Supreme Court declined to

778
00:38:28,079 --> 00:38:32,000
take up a case that would have reconsidered Obergefell. Do

779
00:38:32,119 --> 00:38:36,000
you see Obergefell ever going away? What's the next step

780
00:38:36,039 --> 00:38:40,400
to getting there? What are the stakes in overturning that law?

781
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:42,199
Speaker 3: What do you think?

782
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,079
Speaker 2: Well, first, let me talk about what's happened in the

783
00:38:45,119 --> 00:38:48,719
last ten years. So there were some of us that

784
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,480
were warning in twenty fifteen, hey, if you make husbands

785
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:55,440
and wives optional in marriage, mothers and fathers will become

786
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:59,639
optional in parenthood laws. And they said, away with you, bigot,

787
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,320
this isn't about children. This is just about adults. A

788
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:04,559
lot of couples choose to get married without having children,

789
00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:06,920
and so that's just what is we're expanding marriage. Well,

790
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,119
we've got ten years of receipts, and you know what

791
00:39:09,159 --> 00:39:12,119
they did. They made mothers and father's optional in Parentedly,

792
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:14,480
we have stripped the words mother and father out of

793
00:39:14,519 --> 00:39:18,199
a variety of different laws, state level and federal level.

794
00:39:18,519 --> 00:39:22,559
We've redefined infertility, so now a single person or a

795
00:39:22,559 --> 00:39:25,159
same sex couple can be infertile in the name of

796
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,159
adult equality, so they too can have the state or

797
00:39:28,199 --> 00:39:31,760
their insurance company fuel and fund the creation of motherless

798
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:36,000
or fatherless children through IVF and big fertility. We have

799
00:39:36,079 --> 00:39:39,440
actually created new pathways for adults to acquire children. The

800
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,039
two legitimate pathways are biology. I give birth to this child,

801
00:39:43,039 --> 00:39:45,519
therefore I can take them home from the hospital or adoption.

802
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:48,880
I proved myself to the state to show that I

803
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,119
am not going to abuse or neglect this child, which

804
00:39:51,159 --> 00:39:55,800
is statistically vastly higher with an unrelated adult, and so

805
00:39:56,039 --> 00:39:57,960
I have done what I can to prove that as

806
00:39:58,039 --> 00:39:59,639
much as possible, I will love this child as if

807
00:39:59,679 --> 00:40:02,480
they had been born to me. Now, both of those pathways,

808
00:40:02,559 --> 00:40:06,960
unfortunately were considered discriminatory for the same sex crowd. Right,

809
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:08,800
it's undignified for me to have to go through an

810
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,039
adoption process. When that woman gave birth to her child

811
00:40:12,119 --> 00:40:15,280
and her husband was recognized as the parent, My wife

812
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:17,000
gave birth to a child and I'm the wife, why

813
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,440
can't I be recognized as the other parent? And so

814
00:40:19,599 --> 00:40:23,960
they've created these new pathways to acquire unrelated children, and

815
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:29,119
it's about ten different states have passed the Uniform Parentage Act.

816
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:30,079
Speaker 3: Which does exactly this.

817
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 2: It says, if you can assemble sperm, egg and womb,

818
00:40:33,639 --> 00:40:35,519
and you intend to parent the child, and you have

819
00:40:35,559 --> 00:40:38,760
a valid contract, then the state will assign the child

820
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,159
to you, even though you're not related, you haven't gone

821
00:40:41,159 --> 00:40:44,280
through any kind of vetting process. And so I actually

822
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,280
wrote something at first things called the End of natural Parenthood,

823
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:50,400
where I looked at about nine different statutes that used

824
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:54,079
to recognize the pre eminence of the natural parent child relationship,

825
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,039
that this was something that was privileged and pre political

826
00:40:57,119 --> 00:40:57,920
that the state.

827
00:40:57,719 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 3: Should not touch.

828
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 2: It showed that there was something special about a child's

829
00:41:01,519 --> 00:41:04,840
own relationship to their mother and father, and very slowly

830
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,039
each of them have been deconstructed because the natural parent

831
00:41:08,119 --> 00:41:13,679
child relationship is a threat to gay marriage. Why because

832
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:17,119
two men and two women can never both be biologically related.

833
00:41:17,599 --> 00:41:20,840
So you have to deconstruct the importance of biology in law.

834
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:25,039
So fast forward today, ten years later. Now we have

835
00:41:25,159 --> 00:41:31,840
children treated as accessories in law, facilitated by these technologies

836
00:41:32,039 --> 00:41:35,159
and carried along by the cultural wins that say biology

837
00:41:35,159 --> 00:41:38,360
doesn't matter, love makes a family. So we have really

838
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,519
egregious situations that are popping up, some of the ones

839
00:41:40,519 --> 00:41:43,039
that I just mentioned. Even when it's a heterosexual couple,

840
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,800
they are taking advantage of the new ways that we're

841
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:50,360
conceiving of parenthood as assigned rather than a child belonging

842
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:53,920
to their own parents prior to the signing of a contract.

843
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:56,719
So we now have ten years of receipts showing the

844
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:01,440
direct child harm. So I actually was grateful that they

845
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:05,079
didn't take up Kim Davis's case. She was the wrong victim,

846
00:42:05,559 --> 00:42:07,920
and what I mean by that she has been a victim.

847
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,920
But that was one of the reasons why we lost

848
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,239
gay marriage ten years ago. We decided that the victims

849
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:17,039
of gay marriage were going to be the florists who

850
00:42:17,079 --> 00:42:19,440
didn't want to arrange the flowers and the baker who

851
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,719
didn't want to make the cake. Now they're victims, but

852
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:27,800
adults who have to provide a service, they're not the

853
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,599
direct victims. Children who lost their mother or father because

854
00:42:30,639 --> 00:42:33,239
of this ruling, they are the victims. But when we

855
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,599
talk about how Kim Davis is a victim because she

856
00:42:36,679 --> 00:42:39,840
has to sign a paper, a lot of people here

857
00:42:40,119 --> 00:42:42,199
you're telling me that my gay brother who has been

858
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,079
with his partner for ten years they can't get married

859
00:42:44,079 --> 00:42:47,639
because she has to sign a paper, she's the wrong victim. Okay,

860
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,280
it's the wrong question, and it's we don't want the

861
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,960
Supreme Court to answer the question again, which adults get

862
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:54,559
what they want?

863
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:55,159
Speaker 1: Right?

864
00:42:55,599 --> 00:42:58,320
Speaker 2: So, then before Us is doing it differently. We are

865
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:02,719
spearheading a coalition of every major national organization, a lot

866
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:05,440
of different state allies as well. You can go right

867
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,239
now to Greater than campaign dot com and you can

868
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:11,599
take a look right it's a bit of a skeleton

869
00:43:11,679 --> 00:43:13,480
site right now, but sign up. We're going to send

870
00:43:13,519 --> 00:43:15,960
you some updates. But we're going to do this differently.

871
00:43:16,159 --> 00:43:19,119
This is not going to be pitting religious adults against

872
00:43:19,199 --> 00:43:22,239
gay adults. This is going to be forcing the court

873
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:25,960
to answer a different question, which is do children benefit

874
00:43:26,119 --> 00:43:29,840
from their own mother and father more than an adult

875
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,239
who is assigned to them by the state via contract.

876
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,159
We're going to make them evaluate this from a different perspective.

877
00:43:37,199 --> 00:43:41,679
It's not our gay people second class citizens or you

878
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,079
know what about their dignity. It is going to be

879
00:43:44,519 --> 00:43:48,679
who benefits children most, their own mother and father or

880
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:53,480
adults who have acquired them through contracts. So, yes, gay

881
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,920
marriage is going down. It has to if we believe

882
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:00,159
in justice for children. And there's going to be a

883
00:44:00,159 --> 00:44:02,760
lot more happening in the next year for you to

884
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:04,239
kind of see how that plays out.

885
00:44:04,519 --> 00:44:07,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, it excites me so much because it's just I

886
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,800
that's a great point. You know, adults will always squabble

887
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:14,239
over whose rights trump whose rights, and just being able

888
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:17,679
to point to the real victims is so powerful. And yeah,

889
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,679
you're right, we have ten years of receipts pulling back

890
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:22,760
a little bit from that because you know, we can

891
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,719
look at twenty fifteen to twenty twenty five and what

892
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:27,280
has happened in that decade. But it's hard to even

893
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,679
talk about kind of how the definition of marriage has

894
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:33,760
devolved without talking about the role of divorce in this

895
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,960
and specifically no fault divorce and even the ethos of

896
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:39,159
you know, if well, if the adults are happy, the

897
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,599
kids are happy. So can you talk about how no

898
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:46,199
fault divorce has completely paved the way for gay marriage.

899
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. So you can look at marriage from

900
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:52,760
the perspective of why is it. Why do we always

901
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:55,159
say it's the building block of society. It's because there's

902
00:44:55,159 --> 00:44:57,800
three characteristics of marriage that make it really different from

903
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,719
all the relationships that you have, Different from relationships you

904
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:04,119
have with your children, from your friends, with your own parents,

905
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,039
with your tennis partner, with your business partner. There's three

906
00:45:07,079 --> 00:45:10,400
things that set marriage apart and why it's so critical

907
00:45:10,639 --> 00:45:13,079
to social thriving. So what are those three things. The

908
00:45:13,119 --> 00:45:17,480
first one is permanence. It's supposed to last for life.

909
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:21,639
The second one is complementarity, it's supposed to involve both

910
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:25,719
halves of the human species. And the third one is monogamy.

911
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,760
It's supposed to only include those two and exclude all others.

912
00:45:30,199 --> 00:45:33,559
So those are the three distinctives of marriage. No fault

913
00:45:33,599 --> 00:45:38,280
divorce was the original redefinition of marriage because it removed permanence.

914
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,280
It said, if the adults are unhappy, the marriage can

915
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:44,880
cease to exist. It doesn't have to last for life. Previously,

916
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:48,239
we had an understanding that sometimes dissolution of the marriage

917
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,920
was justified if one of the spouses was found to

918
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:56,559
be at fault of addiction, abuse, adultery, abandonment. But now

919
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,639
you could exit the marriage when there was no fault.

920
00:46:00,199 --> 00:46:02,679
And that just meant that anyone can leave you for

921
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,079
any time, at any time. You'll never see it coming,

922
00:46:05,119 --> 00:46:07,239
and there's nothing you can do about it. And so

923
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,519
I'll tell you what you know. After Reagan initiated that

924
00:46:10,599 --> 00:46:13,119
in California in nineteen sixty nine and all the other

925
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,440
states followed, you saw a massive spike in divorce of

926
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:20,360
course everywhere, like rates doubled, tripled, And this is a

927
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:23,360
really big problem. There was a huge CDC report that well,

928
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,599
a report using CDC data of five million children, five

929
00:46:26,639 --> 00:46:29,920
million children, that just came out this summer. We've known

930
00:46:30,199 --> 00:46:32,920
that there were problems with divorce if a child got divorced,

931
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,239
but we didn't know what it really was. I mean,

932
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:38,440
is it was it the socioeconomic aspect of it? Was

933
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:40,199
it because there was a lot of turmoil happening in

934
00:46:40,199 --> 00:46:43,679
their home before the divorce. This one conclusively showed not

935
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:49,159
correlation but causation. The divorce caused children girls to be

936
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:51,920
sixty three percent more likely to become teen moms. It

937
00:46:52,119 --> 00:46:55,480
caused boys to have a forty percent increase in criminality.

938
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:59,320
It caused a thirty five to fifty five percent increase

939
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:06,159
in early childhood death. Divorce caused it. Permanence is not

940
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:09,400
a non negotiable for kids. They need their own mother

941
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:11,239
and father, and they don't just need them for two

942
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:12,960
months or two years of twelve years. They need them

943
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:15,880
all their life. And right they're starved of that permanence.

944
00:47:16,599 --> 00:47:19,119
Children's thriving is going out the window.

945
00:47:19,199 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 1: Right right well, And that's such a good point too,

946
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,320
because it's not just when kids are young. It's not

947
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,800
just pre adolescence that this affects. I've seen so many

948
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:31,840
trends online, not only the divorcing the good guy trend,

949
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:34,039
which is just so ridiculous of these you know, middle

950
00:47:34,079 --> 00:47:36,679
aged narcissistic women in their cars talking about how they

951
00:47:36,679 --> 00:47:38,679
were married to this wonderful guy but they just didn't

952
00:47:38,679 --> 00:47:42,119
love them anymore whatever, but also great divorce and how

953
00:47:42,199 --> 00:47:45,320
many couples have been married for decades, They've built a

954
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:49,039
life together, they have grown children and they're divorcing after

955
00:47:49,119 --> 00:47:52,639
twenty thirty more years of marriage. I think through your

956
00:47:52,639 --> 00:47:55,239
work with them before us, you've even heard many of

957
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:57,920
the stories of adult children and how this has psychologically

958
00:47:57,960 --> 00:47:59,719
affected them. Can you share a little bit about that.

959
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 2: It is absolutely destabilizing. Obviously, it's terrible when your parents

960
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,119
divorce when you're in the home and then you're pingponging

961
00:48:06,159 --> 00:48:08,440
between dad's house and mom's house and their new partners

962
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,159
and all of that. But there's a really distinct burden

963
00:48:11,199 --> 00:48:13,559
that it places on a child when they are grown.

964
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:15,920
And the best way that I can put it, after

965
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,239
hearing a lot of these stories, capturing some of them,

966
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:22,039
is they're supposed to be sort of a the older

967
00:48:22,079 --> 00:48:25,480
generation supports the next generation, who sports the youngest generation.

968
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,519
And I know that, Like as a middle aged woman,

969
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:32,079
you know, even with teens, I really needed my mom's support.

970
00:48:32,199 --> 00:48:34,679
I remember times when I slept the best, even though

971
00:48:34,679 --> 00:48:36,760
I've got a wonderful, incredible husband, when my mom would

972
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:40,400
come to visit, I slept, I slept so well. And like,

973
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:42,599
even as I got older, like she was still mothering

974
00:48:42,639 --> 00:48:45,000
me in a lot of ways, Like I still needed

975
00:48:45,039 --> 00:48:47,199
her to support me in some areas so that I

976
00:48:47,199 --> 00:48:50,639
could support my children. Right, But what happens with great divorce,

977
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,320
right when the parents' divorce after their children are out

978
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:57,840
of the home, is now that middle generation supports above

979
00:48:58,199 --> 00:49:02,159
and supports below. Now they are the load bearing wall

980
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:05,039
for all the generations. So very often you've got a

981
00:49:05,039 --> 00:49:08,440
mom who's forty, she's got three young kids. She's desperately

982
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:10,360
trying to make sure that they're going to school, and

983
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:12,559
she maybe she's doing a part time job and she's

984
00:49:12,639 --> 00:49:14,920
volunteering over here, and she's also doing all the shopping

985
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:16,920
and the cleaning and the caregiving. But now her parents

986
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:20,800
split up. Dad's got a new woman. He's completely occupied

987
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,679
with her. Right, But mom has a health condition, and

988
00:49:24,039 --> 00:49:27,960
typically dad would help take care of mom. But dad's gone, right,

989
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,960
he's in kN kun. Now this mom also needs care

990
00:49:31,159 --> 00:49:33,880
and so it's the busy middle mom who then has

991
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:36,000
to say, I am going to do the caregiving duties

992
00:49:36,079 --> 00:49:40,159
for my parent instead. And this is I like almost

993
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,559
always I hear like obviously it breaks their heart because

994
00:49:43,599 --> 00:49:46,960
a lot of these older parents, they talked about the

995
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:50,239
importance of marriage, They talked about how this was a

996
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:53,000
reflection of Christ and the Church, and then not only

997
00:49:53,039 --> 00:49:56,119
have they're doing the caregiving duties, which is taxing and

998
00:49:56,159 --> 00:49:56,760
burning them.

999
00:49:57,000 --> 00:49:59,679
Speaker 3: But now they're like, was it all?

1000
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 4: Lot? Why?

1001
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:02,280
Speaker 3: Is that all? A?

1002
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:02,519
Speaker 2: Why?

1003
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:03,079
Speaker 4: Right?

1004
00:50:03,199 --> 00:50:05,199
Speaker 2: And it's interesting how many of these and you know,

1005
00:50:05,679 --> 00:50:08,079
you and I move in the kind of conservative Christian

1006
00:50:08,119 --> 00:50:12,599
pro marriage space, These people who believe it to their core,

1007
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,800
they get rattled and they go, oh my gosh, I

1008
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:18,559
believed a lot of that because I saw my.

1009
00:50:18,559 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 3: Parents do it.

1010
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,280
Speaker 2: Now I'm wondering, is it possible? Will I also be so?

1011
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:25,880
Am I gonna fall pright right that my future? Is

1012
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,880
that my destiny too? It's incredibly destabilizing, and I would

1013
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:31,199
say it's unjust.

1014
00:50:32,599 --> 00:50:35,599
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, And it's the same underlying problem with

1015
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:37,679
all of these things we've talked about today, which is

1016
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:40,480
just your desires and how they affect the people around you.

1017
00:50:40,559 --> 00:50:44,760
And you can you cannot fulfill your disordered desires without

1018
00:50:45,039 --> 00:50:47,360
harming the people around you, no matter how old they are,

1019
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,360
no matter how young they are. It's so important, and

1020
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:52,559
of course as Christians we know that, and that's why

1021
00:50:52,599 --> 00:50:56,400
sin is so destructive, no matter when it happens. Let's

1022
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:58,400
go back to the gay marriage things. I kind of

1023
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,360
took that divorce detour. But I want to go back

1024
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:03,079
one of the things that I hear all of the time,

1025
00:51:03,119 --> 00:51:07,079
specifically when it comes to adoption. You know, you'll argue

1026
00:51:07,079 --> 00:51:10,239
that children, children have a right to a mother and

1027
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:13,119
a father, and if you lose, you know, if you

1028
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,159
tragically lose your biological mother and father, the next best

1029
00:51:16,199 --> 00:51:17,960
thing is to be adopted by a loving mother and

1030
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:19,719
father who are married to each other. And that's like,

1031
00:51:20,199 --> 00:51:23,079
you know, righting this wrong in the best way that

1032
00:51:23,119 --> 00:51:26,760
you possibly can. And when you make this argument, often

1033
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:31,280
the immediate response when it comes to gay marriages, why

1034
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:34,480
would you really rather have children suffering and foster in

1035
00:51:34,519 --> 00:51:37,039
a broken foster care system or in an orphanage when

1036
00:51:37,079 --> 00:51:40,159
they could be in, you know, a home with two

1037
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:42,199
loving dads who are married to each other, or two

1038
00:51:42,199 --> 00:51:44,760
loving moms. What do you say to that argument.

1039
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:47,360
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you have to recognize what you're doing.

1040
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:51,079
You're pitting exception against exception, okay, and a lot of

1041
00:51:51,159 --> 00:51:53,400
times it's framed us Okay, I'd rather have two loving

1042
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:56,480
dads than a biological mom and dad who are like

1043
00:51:56,639 --> 00:51:58,960
drug addicting and abusive and things like that.

1044
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 3: So first, let's establish.

1045
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 2: The norm a child's own mother and father are statistically

1046
00:52:05,519 --> 00:52:08,960
the most connected to, invested in, and protective of them.

1047
00:52:09,199 --> 00:52:11,920
You can measure that in terms of money spent, time spent,

1048
00:52:12,159 --> 00:52:14,599
money saved. You can measure it based on the self

1049
00:52:14,599 --> 00:52:17,679
reporting of the kids or the parents, whether they're unrelated

1050
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:20,440
or related. They claim their own parents more often than

1051
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,199
they would claim an unrelated adult. So we've got an

1052
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:25,719
entire chapter on this in our second book. Then Before

1053
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:27,960
that's our first book. Then before us why we need

1054
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,519
a global children's rights movement. We talk about the importance

1055
00:52:30,519 --> 00:52:33,719
of that biological connection as it relates to children being

1056
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,000
safe and loved, children having the kind of connection feeling

1057
00:52:37,159 --> 00:52:39,960
like these are my parents. Okay, Now there are some

1058
00:52:40,039 --> 00:52:42,639
biological parents that are horrible that I would like to

1059
00:52:42,639 --> 00:52:45,800
beat what they stick because they victimize their own children,

1060
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:48,199
and it's just one of the worst to us before

1061
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:50,079
them is you can ever think of. And we have

1062
00:52:50,199 --> 00:52:52,760
systems to take care of them, we have systems to

1063
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:56,599
remove them in those kinds of cases. Interestingly, the kids

1064
00:52:56,679 --> 00:52:59,880
still want them. You know, even the kids that are

1065
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:02,599
in foster care, if you talk to them, they almost

1066
00:53:02,639 --> 00:53:04,360
always say, I just want to go back, I want

1067
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:05,199
to go back to my mom.

1068
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 3: I love my mom.

1069
00:53:06,159 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 2: It's so interesting that a child's own biological parents are

1070
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,280
adults that you can miss and love even if you've

1071
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:16,800
never met them before. There's something about that right now.

1072
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:21,280
The exception over here is an unrelated adult who loves

1073
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:24,119
the children. Okay, And I'm saying that because I know

1074
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:26,679
heroic step parents. I know men that have filled the

1075
00:53:26,679 --> 00:53:29,559
gap of a negligent biological father who's doing what he

1076
00:53:29,639 --> 00:53:33,519
can to shoulder the load for children that lost their dad. Okay,

1077
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:37,360
but it's very hard blended families, you know, For all

1078
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,239
of the Brady Bunch like Woohoo that we've tried to promote,

1079
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,679
blended families are hard, hard on the kids, hard on

1080
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:46,679
the parents. Again, a lot of those parents are stepping

1081
00:53:46,679 --> 00:53:49,840
in to do the right thing, and on an individual level,

1082
00:53:50,119 --> 00:53:52,679
a lot of times you do see redemption. On a

1083
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:56,639
population wide level, there is no scenario where an unrelated

1084
00:53:56,639 --> 00:53:59,920
adult joins the home where risks of abuse and neglect

1085
00:54:00,199 --> 00:54:03,119
not skyrocket. So what you have over here with the

1086
00:54:03,119 --> 00:54:08,360
two men is two unrelated adults. Okay, So just recognize

1087
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:11,440
kind of the game that you're playing. You're pitting the

1088
00:54:11,559 --> 00:54:15,199
exception of bad biological parents over here, with the exception

1089
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:20,719
of fantastic unrelated adults over here. Does that scenario exist, Yeah,

1090
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,280
it does, But recognize that you've got to play the

1091
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:26,599
odds pretty pretty hard to even set up a justifiable

1092
00:54:26,599 --> 00:54:28,880
scenario for this. Well, kids don't care if they have

1093
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,880
two moms or two dads. Okay, so let's talk about

1094
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,199
First of all, there is no shortage of adoptive parents

1095
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:39,480
when it comes to white drug free infants. There are

1096
00:54:39,599 --> 00:54:42,960
lots of mothers and fathers who want to adopt those children.

1097
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,719
But it's true we don't have enough married mothers and

1098
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:49,440
fathers that want to take the sibling groups and that

1099
00:54:49,519 --> 00:54:51,679
want to take the kids that have been in foster

1100
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:54,000
care for a while, or who are older, or who

1101
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:57,119
are overseas or who have special needs. Those children are

1102
00:54:57,119 --> 00:55:02,039
hard to place and sometimes a single foster mom or

1103
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:05,960
a same sex couple might be the only option that

1104
00:55:06,039 --> 00:55:09,639
the child has. So my solution to that is not

1105
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,920
great open up the doors for same sex couples.

1106
00:55:13,079 --> 00:55:15,039
Speaker 3: The solution is, if you're.

1107
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:18,119
Speaker 2: A Christian and you're married, maybe you should go get

1108
00:55:18,119 --> 00:55:21,960
those kids. And this is again where I say this

1109
00:55:22,079 --> 00:55:25,239
is a worldview that doesn't discriminate even if you don't

1110
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:28,159
have fertility problems. Even if you're not in a struggling marriage,

1111
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:31,039
you might need to put them before us by bringing

1112
00:55:31,039 --> 00:55:33,800
a child into your home that desperately needs you to

1113
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:37,119
bear their burden. So people kind of critique the two

1114
00:55:37,199 --> 00:55:41,199
guys adopting a child. I'm like, hey, at least they

1115
00:55:41,199 --> 00:55:44,039
went through the vetting process, and I do think you

1116
00:55:44,039 --> 00:55:47,880
should prioritize mothers and fathers. People that don't, I'm like,

1117
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:50,519
you know, now, you're just looking for that, you know,

1118
00:55:50,679 --> 00:55:53,880
progressive street cred. But sometimes I mean, I know the

1119
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:57,639
social workers that say, the kid is sleeping on my

1120
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:03,440
office floor, there's no place for them. Go go put

1121
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:05,360
them before us and bring those kids your home.

1122
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: Are there any things we can any things we can

1123
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,760
do on a policy level to make it easier for

1124
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:16,719
good married moms and dads to adopt children or existing

1125
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,679
embryos or whatever it is, if it's cost prohibitive, or

1126
00:56:20,119 --> 00:56:22,679
you know what if you're not chosen by the birth mother,

1127
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:24,280
or things like this, like, how can we make it

1128
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:28,280
easier for children to fall into the hands of good families?

1129
00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:34,559
Speaker 2: It it shouldn't be easy to acquire an unrelated child, Okay,

1130
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:37,480
and adoption does not exist for adults.

1131
00:56:37,079 --> 00:56:37,599
Speaker 3: That want them.

1132
00:56:37,800 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 2: True, yes, this is this is not a way for

1133
00:56:40,039 --> 00:56:42,239
infertile couples to have children, and it's not a way

1134
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:42,840
for same.

1135
00:56:42,679 --> 00:56:45,440
Speaker 3: Sex couples to have a baby. This is.

1136
00:56:47,159 --> 00:56:50,639
Speaker 2: This is an institution that centers around justice for children

1137
00:56:50,679 --> 00:56:51,760
to redeem something that.

1138
00:56:51,639 --> 00:56:54,440
Speaker 3: They have lost. The goal and I made this mistake.

1139
00:56:54,519 --> 00:56:57,039
Speaker 2: You know, when I was brand new at the adoption agency.

1140
00:56:57,119 --> 00:56:59,639
I remember I went to the director and I said, oh,

1141
00:56:59,679 --> 00:57:02,840
I'm working so hard to get this couple approved. We've

1142
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:05,519
run into some roadblocks. To be honest, there's been a

1143
00:57:05,559 --> 00:57:08,079
few red flags, but I'm really going to do what

1144
00:57:08,119 --> 00:57:10,760
I can to make sure that they are approved to adult.

1145
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:15,840
And my director said, you misunderstand. We are not here

1146
00:57:16,159 --> 00:57:19,239
to give them a child. We are here to find

1147
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:22,239
parents for every child that does not have them, and

1148
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:25,159
that means some adults will not get a baby. But

1149
00:57:25,199 --> 00:57:28,000
if we do our job, every child that is lost

1150
00:57:28,119 --> 00:57:29,960
their mother or father is going to be placed in

1151
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:33,480
a loving home. The child is the client, not the adult.

1152
00:57:34,039 --> 00:57:37,920
So where there are unnecessary barriers, we can remove them.

1153
00:57:38,159 --> 00:57:41,320
But the solution is not to make it cheap and easy.

1154
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:43,519
The solution is to make sure that it is child

1155
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:47,280
centric and the best interest of the child are upheld

1156
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:48,960
throughout every step of the process.

1157
00:57:51,199 --> 00:57:53,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good point and a good distinction.

1158
00:57:54,519 --> 00:57:57,119
So before we wrap up here, I mean, as you

1159
00:57:57,119 --> 00:57:59,400
said at the beginning, this is a very triggering conversation.

1160
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:02,039
I'm sure there's plenty of people listening, who are, you know,

1161
00:58:02,159 --> 00:58:04,320
say and preach to everything you're saying there. I'm sure

1162
00:58:04,320 --> 00:58:06,199
there are plenty of people who are bristling at a

1163
00:58:06,239 --> 00:58:09,800
lot of the things for whatever reason. I'm curious what

1164
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,519
your personal experience has been like on the whole with

1165
00:58:12,559 --> 00:58:15,199
people who disagree with you, specifically because you have I mean,

1166
00:58:15,239 --> 00:58:18,559
this is obviously a very sensitive subject, even within your

1167
00:58:18,559 --> 00:58:21,639
own family. But I'm sure there are people who do

1168
00:58:21,719 --> 00:58:24,440
believe the things that we've talked about, but are really

1169
00:58:24,519 --> 00:58:26,880
afraid to say so, or they they don't want to

1170
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:28,599
articulate them out loud because they don't want to be

1171
00:58:28,639 --> 00:58:30,719
called the bigot, or they don't even you know, they're

1172
00:58:30,719 --> 00:58:32,239
a Christian and they don't want to be accused of

1173
00:58:32,239 --> 00:58:34,800
being unloving because they just want to love their gay neighbor. Well,

1174
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:37,639
or you know, or their friend who's pursuing IVF. Well,

1175
00:58:38,880 --> 00:58:42,119
what would you say to them, how can they have

1176
00:58:42,239 --> 00:58:44,440
the courage to stand up for the rights of children

1177
00:58:44,480 --> 00:58:45,440
no matter what it costs them.

1178
00:58:46,159 --> 00:58:47,719
Speaker 3: Well, that was me for a long time.

1179
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:50,079
Speaker 2: Like I was on the bench in the culture War

1180
00:58:50,159 --> 00:58:52,719
for a long time because I didn't want.

1181
00:58:52,559 --> 00:58:54,159
Speaker 3: To pay the social price.

1182
00:58:54,880 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 2: And there is one the reason you're staying quiet is

1183
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:00,880
you will be punished. You'll be punished socially, maybe I'll

1184
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:04,079
be punished vocationally. Maybe there's going to be tension at

1185
00:59:04,199 --> 00:59:09,159
the Thanksgiving dinner table. So I'm not going to pretend

1186
00:59:09,199 --> 00:59:11,519
like it's going to be easy, because it's not. You

1187
00:59:11,559 --> 00:59:14,519
are confronting what I think is the most powerful force

1188
00:59:14,679 --> 00:59:17,920
on the planet, and that's adult self interest. If an

1189
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:21,719
adult really wants something, especially when the only thing standing

1190
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:23,960
in their way is a kid that can't defend themselves,

1191
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:26,199
they're going to get what they want. And for an

1192
00:59:26,199 --> 00:59:28,920
adult to confront them and to stand in the path

1193
00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:31,480
and say, hey, I know that you and Greg have

1194
00:59:31,559 --> 00:59:35,119
had a struggling marriage for a while, but you running

1195
00:59:35,119 --> 00:59:38,199
off with your trainer. That's going to inflict lifelong loss

1196
00:59:38,199 --> 00:59:41,280
on your kids. Like I read this book and it

1197
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:44,440
said that fifty percent of kids that grow up in

1198
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:48,599
two different homes develop split personalities because their world that

1199
00:59:48,639 --> 00:59:50,320
their mom's house is so different than the one at

1200
00:59:50,320 --> 00:59:53,760
their dad's house. And I just I care about your

1201
00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:55,880
kids and I don't want them to suffer it that way.

1202
00:59:56,840 --> 00:59:59,400
That might go well, or she might unfriend you. In

1203
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:01,559
every way, you can be unfriended and spread terrible lies

1204
01:00:01,599 --> 01:00:05,280
about you. So it's it really is the question of like,

1205
01:00:05,440 --> 01:00:08,559
someone's going to be victimized here. Okay, either the kids

1206
01:00:08,559 --> 01:00:11,639
are going to be victimized or you are, Like, you're

1207
01:00:11,639 --> 01:00:12,840
either going to pay the price that the kids are

1208
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:15,519
going to pay the price. Right, But in a just society,

1209
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:18,880
we the strong do hard things on behalf of the week.

1210
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:21,679
And the truth is culture and even the Church has

1211
01:00:21,719 --> 01:00:26,320
been complicit. They've decided to preserve their social standing right

1212
01:00:27,159 --> 01:00:30,639
at the hands of child victimization. They've been quiet about marriage,

1213
01:00:30,719 --> 01:00:33,599
or they've been quiet about IVF, they've been quiet about

1214
01:00:33,679 --> 01:00:36,039
divorce because they think, well, we want to be welcoming

1215
01:00:36,039 --> 01:00:38,960
of adults. We don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable. Okay,

1216
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:43,639
I bet you accomplished that, and the result was child victimization. Yes, So,

1217
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:46,679
especially if you are a Christian, you have to understand

1218
01:00:47,119 --> 01:00:51,039
that child defense is and always has been one aspect

1219
01:00:51,159 --> 01:00:55,840
of your pure and undefiled religion before God. Every country

1220
01:00:55,880 --> 01:00:59,480
that Christians have set foot on, they have found very

1221
01:00:59,519 --> 01:01:04,199
distinct threats against kids. Whether it is infanticide, whether it

1222
01:01:04,239 --> 01:01:07,000
is abortion, whether it is children running the streets because

1223
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:11,320
there's no orphanages, whether it's footbinding in China, whether it

1224
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:15,760
is scripting poor homeless kids to work in factories in

1225
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:18,119
the UK in the eighteen hundreds for fourteen hours.

1226
01:01:18,239 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 3: And like, every.

1227
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:23,480
Speaker 2: Culture finds some way to victimize kids. And in every

1228
01:01:23,639 --> 01:01:27,440
one of those scenarios, Christians have stepped up and said,

1229
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:31,599
over my dead body, don't do that to kids. They've

1230
01:01:31,599 --> 01:01:34,360
dignified children, They've protected children. Many of them paid a

1231
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:39,480
price for it, personally, financially, socially, but the result was

1232
01:01:39,519 --> 01:01:44,920
oftentimes entire societies were transformed to dignify the human child.

1233
01:01:45,159 --> 01:01:47,880
Speaker 3: So welcome to the great cloud of witnesses. People.

1234
01:01:48,280 --> 01:01:50,639
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a different fight. It doesn't look like

1235
01:01:50,679 --> 01:01:54,199
throwing babies in the Ganges. It does look like mass

1236
01:01:54,199 --> 01:01:57,920
producing them and then doing a complete genome screening so

1237
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:04,360
that you can throw to the researchers the undesirable children

1238
01:02:04,400 --> 01:02:05,880
and keep only the ones that are going to be

1239
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:09,079
above six feet tall with blue eyes. Okay, like we've

1240
01:02:09,079 --> 01:02:12,280
got different kinds of threats, but your mandate has not changed.

1241
01:02:12,519 --> 01:02:16,719
Your mandate is not to hinder any of these little

1242
01:02:16,719 --> 01:02:19,920
ones from coming to Christ. And then if you're complicit

1243
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:21,880
in causing one of these little ones to stumble, you

1244
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:23,119
have to answer to God for that.

1245
01:02:25,239 --> 01:02:29,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, Katie, I have about twenty five other things that

1246
01:02:29,719 --> 01:02:32,400
I could ask you, but our time, Our time is short.

1247
01:02:32,519 --> 01:02:35,320
So where can people find you? Where can they find

1248
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:37,880
your books? Where can they find you online on social media?

1249
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:40,599
And how can they join this new Greater Than movement?

1250
01:02:40,639 --> 01:02:42,280
Can you remind them of all of those things?

1251
01:02:42,599 --> 01:02:45,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, go to Greater Than campaign and just sign on.

1252
01:02:46,039 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 3: Let us know how we're doing.

1253
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:48,920
Speaker 2: We'll send you some updates every now and then. If

1254
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:52,599
you want everything about children's rights on all these different topics,

1255
01:02:52,679 --> 01:02:55,039
go to them before us dot com and subscribe to

1256
01:02:55,039 --> 01:02:58,119
our newsletter. We will arm you to the teeth. We

1257
01:02:58,199 --> 01:03:01,360
will make you a defender of children. If you want

1258
01:03:01,400 --> 01:03:04,400
the entire primer on everything we've been talking today on

1259
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:06,840
all these different topics, then before us why we need

1260
01:03:06,840 --> 01:03:09,480
a global Children's rights movement that I co authored with

1261
01:03:09,519 --> 01:03:12,199
Stacy Manning. You can find it on Amazon or anywhere.

1262
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:15,639
Stacy and I also did a little second project on

1263
01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:19,719
parenting called Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City. If

1264
01:03:19,719 --> 01:03:21,519
for some reason you're worried about the way that the

1265
01:03:21,559 --> 01:03:24,000
world is coming for your kids going to consume like

1266
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:26,320
turn them into a little like Bernie bros.

1267
01:03:27,239 --> 01:03:28,760
Speaker 3: Like, We've got the solution for you.

1268
01:03:28,840 --> 01:03:30,800
Speaker 2: Even if they're going to public school, even if you

1269
01:03:30,880 --> 01:03:32,719
live in a deep blue city. There's a way to

1270
01:03:32,880 --> 01:03:36,239
replicate your worldview in your kids and make them influencers

1271
01:03:36,280 --> 01:03:40,119
of culture rather than influenced by culture. Our third book

1272
01:03:40,159 --> 01:03:43,400
is Pro Child Politics, where we take all of the

1273
01:03:43,480 --> 01:03:48,400
major issues. We conscripted nineteen subject matter experts on immigration,

1274
01:03:48,599 --> 01:03:52,199
national security, the environment, energy, and we made them talk

1275
01:03:52,239 --> 01:03:56,440
about their political issue through the lens of putting children first.

1276
01:03:57,000 --> 01:03:59,079
So that's sort of a comprehensive what would it look

1277
01:03:59,159 --> 01:04:01,440
like to put them before us on everything?

1278
01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:04,000
Speaker 3: And you get all my opinions on.

1279
01:04:04,280 --> 01:04:09,920
Speaker 2: X at a dvo underscore kat Y advo Katie and

1280
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:11,800
there you're just gonna get like Katie uncensored.

1281
01:04:11,840 --> 01:04:12,679
Speaker 3: There's no boundaries.

1282
01:04:13,559 --> 01:04:15,320
Speaker 1: If you're not following Katie on Twitter, I don't know

1283
01:04:15,360 --> 01:04:16,880
what you're doing with your life. She's a great follow,

1284
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:19,239
so definitely follow there. And I'm so excited to join

1285
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:21,559
the Greater Than movement and get all those things in

1286
01:04:21,599 --> 01:04:24,880
my inbox. So, Katie, I can say this without a doubt.

1287
01:04:24,880 --> 01:04:26,840
We will definitely be having you back on the Kylie

1288
01:04:26,880 --> 01:04:29,000
Cast if you're willing, because there really is so many

1289
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:31,599
other things I would love to get to. So thank

1290
01:04:31,639 --> 01:04:33,000
you so much for your time today though. It was

1291
01:04:33,039 --> 01:04:33,719
so good talking to.

1292
01:04:33,719 --> 01:04:41,119
Speaker 3: You, great to be with you. Thank you, thank you so.

1293
01:04:41,119 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 1: Much for tuning into this week's episode of The Kylie Cast.

1294
01:04:44,639 --> 01:04:47,119
If you haven't done so already, please like and subscribe

1295
01:04:47,119 --> 01:04:50,119
wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a five star review,

1296
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:53,239
and of course, go follow Katie on social media, Go

1297
01:04:53,480 --> 01:04:56,159
find her book, go find her website. She is definitely

1298
01:04:56,159 --> 01:04:58,280
one that you're gonna want to follow, You're gonna want

1299
01:04:58,320 --> 01:05:00,960
her in your inbox, so go subscribe to those newsletters

1300
01:05:01,119 --> 01:05:03,800
and hopefully we'll have her back again very soon. I

1301
01:05:03,880 --> 01:05:06,440
will be back soon with more so until then, just

1302
01:05:06,519 --> 01:05:08,719
remember the truth hurts, but it won't kill you.

