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What Does it Mean to be Human - Katy Faust
October 27, 2026 · 1 hr 9 min
Series Pray TV October 27, 2026 · 1 hr 9 min · Pray TV
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What Does It Mean to Be Human 0:00 Of the children that we are mass producing in laboratories across this country, only two to three percent will be born alive. The vast majority are going to be screened out of existence,0:12 sex selected out of existence, like you said, spend their lives perpetually in a freezer, or donated to research. With those two things, new definition of parenthood where you don't have to be0:24 biologically related and you don't have to undergo adoption screening, and now the industry of big fertility that has kicked in to supply the children that same sex couples are demanding,0:36 you have, quite frankly, a reproductive marketplace in little human flesh.0:42 Even with all the love that two individuals can give, you are still robbing that child of at least the factor of a mom or dad. And so that in and of itself is reason not to0:53 allow, kids to be brought up in, homes with, two men or two women.0:58 Every question that we are debating about that you lose friends over, that get you uninvited from Thanksgiving dinner, that is going to determine1:14 human.1:15 And again, as embryos, we're still talking about, little ones that are human beings made in God's image, that life begins at conception. And again, as embryos, we're still talking about, little ones that are human beings1:21 made in God's image. Their life begins at conception, and so here we are.1:25 It is good to empathize with women who are in an unplanned pregnancy and afraid. It is right to shepherd them and to show compassion for where they are. But no amount of adults1:37 struggle or suffering or loss or longing ever justifies victimizing children.1:45 Welcome to the Love and Truth Network podcast, your guide for hope and healing in a hurting world searching for truth. Here we explore God's extraordinary design for biblical sexuality, identity, and authentic community.1:57 You'll be impacted by incredible stories of transformation, practical wisdom from pastors and counselors, and the power of god's grace that changes lives.2:13 Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Love and Truth Network podcast. So glad that you could join us. If you've been following us for a while, you may see, Katie Faust here and2:22 realize, wait a minute. Have you had Katie on quite a few times? Well, Liz and I are big Katie Faust fans. And, her organization then before us, we just... We can't say enough good things about it or about her.2:34 And so I wanted to ask, Katie to come back on again. I can't believe it's been a year and a half, but Katie came on, shortly after we kinda began the podcast. We're... She was in episode forty five with us and then also2:46 in episode one zero three. So you'll wanna go back and listen to those episodes. In the first episode, Katie talks, more about her story of growing up and coming to faith and what kind of launched her into the role that2:57 she now has with them before us and also as a mom and a wife and all of those things. So I'd encourage you to go back. There may be some things we touch on today that that reconnect with a little bit of that, but the3:06 main story is there. And then in the in the second time that we got together, we just kinda picked up. And we wanna do the same thing here. It's been a year and a half. And, Katie, thank thank you for joining us. I know3:15 a lot has happened in the organization since we last talked, and we'd love to catch up, on what's... What God's been doing and how it's been growing.3:22 Well, it's good to be with you. I am a big fan of Gary and Melissa. So, it's nice to have that in common. We love what you guys are doing. And, the more biblical truth that we can take into these complex and3:34 sensitive areas of sex and gender, the better. Because I am astounded by the number of Christians that get it wrong or3:41 Right.3:41 Do the equal error of just not talking about it and allowing culture to disciple their people. So very thankful for your voice and your work, and the clarity and freedom that this kind of biblical truth offers people.3:54 It's true. It's true. And, Katie, I know that, when you and I last talked, I think that the small group... Sorry. The small group curriculum was just about to come out. And, what has that been4:06 like? And and explain a little bit about that for people.4:08 Yeah. It's out. And actually, we just re... Relaunched it on our substack as well. We just want it to be as accessible as possible for people. So basically, this takes the principle of children before adults, them before4:20 us, specifically as released to marriage and family issues. So children have a right to life. Children have a right to their mother and father. And if you believe those two things, it actually sets you up4:32 to understand everything that's happening in the world of marriage and family today. You understand why, child's own mother and father benefit them distinctly as it relates to their development,4:43 their safety, their protection, their investment, their flourishing, their development, their identity. And if you understand that, then you can understand why the redefinition of marriage is so harmful,4:55 why divorce is so detrimental, why we should completely ban sperm and egg donation, why we should end surrogacy in every form, why adoption needs to be for5:07 children, not for adults, why we need to highly critique IVF because it destroys so much embryonic life. So Mhmm. That is a message that is starting to gain a lot of traction. You5:19 know, our organization has really experienced a lot of favor, as it relates to influence in these public spaces, and in the policy realm as well. It's5:31 an area where there's some gaps when it comes to Christian teaching or at least, Christian messaging around it. Mhmm. There are, you know, Catholic, Catholic5:42 believers have some access to answers in terms of their church teaching. There are some denominations like the Southern Baptist or the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod that has some more direction,5:55 and some more critique. But a lot of the times, what you get is silence, you know, from your pastors, from your church leaders, or you'll get distortion from them because they don't know what to say or they're erring on6:07 the side of, well, shouldn't we just have more babies? And isn't this okay if you feel called to parenthood? So what we tried to do with our small group curriculum was take our child6:18 centric lens, looking at all these marriage and family issues, and pair it with scripture. Like, if you go to them before us dot com, if you read our first book, Them Before Us,6:30 why we need a global children's rights movement, you won't see any bible verses. We work at my nonprofit to appeal to these natural realities using natural6:42 law, social science, and the stories of children to make it harder for people to dismiss our case. You're not gonna be able to say you're just some religious bigot. I mean, you can say it. And then I'll say, which which6:53 bible verse did I cite that you object to? And they'll say, well, you didn't. And I'm like, yes. That's because this is a universal human reality, not something explicit for Christians. They're specific for Christians.7:04 So we wanted to take these child centric truths and create a curriculum for people that understand that, actually, something's gone very wrong in the space of marriage and family,7:16 that there's some answers that they need about IVF, or maybe they've never felt good about surrogacy, but they can't figure out why, or they themselves have been the product of divorce and are starting to wade through7:27 the follow-up... Fallout of that. So what we did is we made this curriculum. It's six sessions long, plug and play. I will talk about children's right to their mother and father. I will explain by... Why7:39 marriage is a matter of justice for kids. I will talk about the harms of divorce. I will bring up IVF. I will talk about the difference between surrogacy and adoption. You won't have to broach those difficult topics.7:52 I will do the triggering, but then I'll also do the shepherding. At the end of each of those sessions, people will say, hey. I totally agree, but my marriage is struggling. Are you saying that I need to stay in a8:02 marriage where I'm perpetually unhappy for the sake of my kids? Or I agree with you, but my niece is struggling with infertility. Are you saying she should never be a mother? Or I know kids need a mom and dad, but I've8:14 got this lesbian couple next door with a nine year old. What am I supposed to do? So we want to give you the truth about all those from biology to sociology to anthropology and8:26 from scripture. But then we also wanna shepherd you through sort of rubber meets the road scenarios where Mhmm. Hard to figure out how to live out those child centric truths.8:36 Right. Well, that sounds incredible. And I know, the church could... The church does and, to a greater degree could really benefit from everything that you're talking about. I'm thinking back on many8:48 conversations I had before I was... I really understood. I mean, I I I had a general sense of what IVF was, but I didn't understand it, to the way that you've explained it to me in the past. And and so I've had many9:00 conversations with churches, with pastors, with, Christian leaders who are delighted and will bring up as a praise in a in a prayer gathering that, you know, their daughter, had a baby and they they really9:11 wrestled and it was through IVF that they had that. I mean, I didn't really think anything more about it. That's that's a praise. The baby has come into the world. But not thinking about, well, what what process was used9:21 to get there and what's happening with, just with, what was the process like? And, and are there, babies that, are are on ice9:33 basically awaiting, some kind of either, research or to get trashed at some point or just sit there for years and years and years as as little, image9:45 bearers, just frozen. I mean, that to me is astounding that we're not thinking more about that. Of course, the Catholic church is is on that topic. I think more so than the Protestant. You mentioned,9:57 that I think as well. But what do you what do you say? I mean, you you you got into it. Your your curriculum, of course, you're good... Is going to get into it. But I'm wondering, you know, personally, I think a lot of10:07 people that are watching or listening to this could be wondering, what do you say in in the instance of of where the church is really supporting IVF as a way of giving somebody who otherwise couldn't have a10:19 baby a child, but not considering all of the other ramifications?10:24 The church was a little late to the take too on abortion at times, for the same reason. Right? The victims were unseen, and the person right in front of us got most of our empathy. It is10:36 good to empathize with women who are in an unplanned pregnancy and afraid. It is good to empathize with couples struggling to get pregnant or dealing with infertility who desperately want a baby. It10:48 is right to shepherd them and to show compassion for where they are. But no amount of adult struggle or suffering or loss or longing ever11:00 justifies victimizing children. And unfortunately, the victimization of children's right to life and right to their mother and father happens on such a mass scale in the world of big fertility.11:12 It is something that the church must be speaking loudly and clearly about.11:16 Mhmm.11:17 When somebody, gives birth to an IVF child, what we say is, thank God. Thank God. This baby is alive and cherished and loved.11:28 Yeah. But11:28 it would have been nice to meet their siblings. Because the reality is that of the children that we are mass producing in laboratories across this country, Only two to three percent will be born11:40 alive. The vast majority are going to be screened out of existence, sex selected out of existence. Like you said, spend their lives perpetually in a freezer or donated to research11:52 or thawed and discarded. We have dehumanized these little lives to such a degree that we are subjecting them to a eugenics process because we're12:04 not just after a baby. We're after the exact baby that we want, the way we want it, how we want it, with the health that we want it, and the sex that we want it, and maybe with the color eyes that we want. So Mhmm.12:15 Unfortunately, big fertility smuggles in an awful lot of horrors against the smallest among us because of the people that we know that legitimately want to be parents and would be12:27 wonderful mothers and fathers. We just need to make sure that our eyes are opened to the genuine victims. And it's not adults who can't have what they want. It is children whose rights are violated for12:39 an industry that honestly rakes in so much money it's hard to count.12:44 Yes. Yes. You know, I I feel like the the lens through which you look and you and you point us all to look through this idea again of them before us, children's rights before12:56 the desires of adults, is something that is akin to the idea of one of the found... Foundations of our ministry is the fact that we were made male and female in the image of13:08 God. That there's something... There's a way in which you bear the image of God as a woman that is different, but of equal value in the way that I bear the image of God. And there's something about that that isn't13:17 just... We oftentimes when we think about, identity confusion, we're automatically drawn to think about the LGBT world. But our contention is everybody on the planet is identity confused until13:29 they understand that they are male even Of course, the majority are. Right? Men and women are opposite sex attracted. But that alone doesn't even come close to, to touching on the issue of being made in the13:41 image of God. And how do we live out that image in a way that he actually intended us to as men, in in a way that he intended us to as women to to glorify him, and also to produce the greatest level of thriving13:53 in others and in ourselves. And when we look through that lens, so many things that are just insane in our world and just going awry, is actually corrected if we look through that lens and14:04 understand, wait a minute. I I have responsibility for god, a, but also I have responsibility as a man or woman made in his image. What does it look like to live that out? But then also right alongside of that, what does14:15 it look like to take, the most innocent and, the most needy among us as a child and put their rights above my own personal desires? I just... What are your thoughts about kind14:27 of that compilation of those key, ideas?14:31 Yep. So you and I work well together because the truth is we are answering the same question, from different angles. So when the14:43 church was born, there was a couple centuries of disagreement. And and some of the letters of the New Testament written specifically to try to nail down the question, what is the nature of14:55 God? Like, now that the son had come and, died and there obviously is the Holy Spirit that is bringing some kind of manifestations upon his people, what is the nature15:07 of God? Was Jesus fully God and fully man? Was he fifty fifty? Did the father turn into the son who turns into the spirit? Like, what's going on there?15:19 Mhmm. And there was a couple hundred years of debate around the nature of God until Christendom kind of came into alignment and agreement with the Nicene Creed. So that15:30 that sort of settled that primary theological question. So then twelve hundred years later, you have another major question crop up, and that is, what is the nature of salvation?15:42 How do you get saved? Is it through the church? Is it through works? Is it through faith alone? Do you have to be absolved by a priest? Are you a... Do you only have one high priest? And we debated at a15:54 couple hundred years of bloody argumentation Yes. About that until we finally settled in our respective camps. When my husband was at seminary... And I think16:06 I think probably for the last hundred years, really, the dominant question is what is the nature of the word of God? Is the word of God reliable? And so the big emphasis when we were in college or when he was in seminary16:17 was apologetics. How do you defend the Bible as the word of God? How do you answer the different contradictions? That's also very, very important. Those are... None of those are the primary question that is16:28 being asked today. Every question that we are debating about that you lose friends over, that get you uninvited from Thanksgiving dinner, that is going to determine really where you stand on the political spectrum is16:40 your answer to the question, what does it mean to be human? Everything goes down to what does it mean to be human. Who makes life? Who takes life? What is a16:52 man? What is a woman? And if you know what man and woman is, can a man become a woman? Can a woman become a man? What is marriage? And you can't answer what is marriage unless you can answer what is a man, what is a17:02 woman. What is a human child? Who do children exist for? Are they just items to be assigned to any adult with a valid contract, or are they born into a pre political natural relationship with the two17:14 people who made them? So right now, the biggest questions in all of the world, but that means for Christians, is we have to get the answer right to what is the nature17:26 of man, what does it mean to be human. And there's so much confusion on these issues. You are battling one aspect of that as it relates to sexuality. We, at them before us, are battling that as17:38 it relates to the nature of family and whether or not you can manufacture children into existence based on your own specifications and then eliminate them if they don't meet your demands. So, ultimately, that is17:50 the business of every Christian right now is to become experts, apologetic experts on answering the question, what does it mean to be human? And then taking that human dignifying child protective answer18:01 into every sphere, into every political question, into every cultural upheaval, into every culture war. That is the place where Christians need to emphasize. Not that the nature of god doesn't matter, the nature of18:13 salvation, and not that that doesn't matter, not that the reliability of scripture doesn't matter. It's just that those are not the primary questions that culture is asking that we first need to have an answer to.18:23 Yeah. It's so good, Katie. And I just wanted to, hearken back to something you said earlier and make sure that I and my audience is understanding this. I think you were saying that only one to two percent ofThe Harms of IVF and Big Fertility 18:35 of the human beings, those that, are conceived, that only one to two percent are brought to term. Is that correct? Okay.18:45 Our best estimate, two to three percent. That's our best estimate based on piecing numbers together. Big for... Like the abortion industry, big fertility does not tell us what they do.18:55 No.18:56 But based on the numbers that we've been able to put together, two to three percent are born alive.19:00 Okay. So two to three percent born alive. And and so that that alone is a horrific number. Like, again, I know we already said it, but just remind us again, what is happening with the other, ninety seven to19:12 ninety eight percent?19:13 Okay. Good. So a couple that is struggling with infertility is going to go into a clinic, and they are going to be encouraged to mass produce embryos. They're going to be encouraged to, extract as many eggs as19:25 possible from her or purchase a huge vat of eggs from an online seller, because they're going to make as many embryos as they can. Why? Because they will grade them.19:36 K? They're going to grade the fitness of these embryos. They will give them a literal grade, a, b, c, or d. And then, they'll maybe discard the c and d embryos. If they get twenty of them, well, maybe they don't19:48 need, you know, the ten CND embryos. Now they've got ten left. They're gonna do some genetic screening on those. Okay? Maybe two of them look like maybe there are some risk factors from some chromosomal... We're gonna19:59 discard them. Now you have eight. Okay. So now you've got eight embryos, and you've got three boys and five girls. So you're gonna freeze two of the boys, four of the girls. You're gonna20:11 plant a boy and a girl. Okay. So there you go. You've got two out of twenty. So now let's say that one of the girls' twins... The girl twins, and now you've got triplets. Well, now20:23 you've got a problem on your hand because let's say this woman is already forty one years old because you tend to seek these avenues when you're older because you've... A lot of women have missed their prime reproductive20:34 years. Right. So you're already a geriatric pregnancy. Twin pregnancies are high risk. IVF pregnancies are high risk. Now you're gonna do triplets. You will be recommended to selectively reduce because20:47 Yep. Triplet pregnancies at forty one, IVF, very, very high risk. So that child may lose their right to life. Those kids that are hopefully make it through the process alive, very likely will be born premature. They'll20:58 be in the NICU for a while. They might have some longer term, issues, cerebral palsy or developmental problems or lung challenge, something like that that's going to make it very difficult to... Okay. So now you've got,21:11 twenty embryos, twelve that were discarded... Ten that were discarded right off the bat, two that were implanted, eight that are in frozen storage. If I did that right, maybe six that are left in21:23 frozen storage. Very often, you don't go back to get those six. Okay? And we get letters all the time from conservative, Christian, pro lifers who said, I did this. I desperately21:35 wanted a baby. I said, I'll do anything to have a baby. And it did take three rounds, but we did finally get two children who were so grateful for them. But we have seven that are left. And I don't know what to do21:47 because now I'm forty seven. And the truth is I would go back and do it, but my husband is fifty four. And he's like Right. There is no way. I'm not gonna do this. Right? Or we thought we were gonna go back for all of21:57 them, but now we went through divorce. And we can't agree on whether or not he wants to discard them. I want to them. Or we went through this process, and we have twelve embryos that I was gonna go back for all of22:09 them. But after my second pregnancy, I had an hysterectomy. And so very, very often, life gets in the way, and even people with good intentions don't go back for their children in frozen storage. So what are22:21 the options at that point? Well, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine gives you three. You can thaw and discard. These are your human children, but you can thaw them and discard them like medical22:33 waste. The second one is you can donate them to research. They will take these little lives. They will experiment on on them for a couple weeks. Ironically, usually to perfect future22:45 processes of creating other little lives. So they'll destroy little humans to create better humans in the future, or you can donate them to another couple. This is kind of seen as the humane way to go22:57 about things, but children are not items to be donated. They're not a used couch. They're not an old car. They deserve a right to life and a right to their mother and father. Donating children is pretty23:08 much trafficking children. Mhmm. So maybe you will adopt those children out at one of the very few embryo adoption agencies in the nation, but be23:20 prepared for those children to come back to you and say, why do my biological siblings, why did they grow up in Beverly Hills and I grew up in a condo? Why why am I as old23:33 as the woman who raised me? Why is it that I'm genetically, you know, ten years younger than my my siblings conceived at the exact same... Why did you keep them and23:44 not me? I mean, these are really big problems that even traditional adoptees have not had to answer before. So Right. The truth is that mass producing children and23:56 freezing any embryos, it rarely redounds to children... Their right to life or their right to their mother and father being protected. The vast majority of them won't even24:08 be implanted. They will be eliminated before they even make it into the womb.24:13 Yep. And again, as embryos, we're still talking about, little ones that are human beings made in God's image. Their life begins at conception. And so here we are with this24:25 massive massive, issue going on. And I also appreciated the way you were describing all of the... Well, not all, a few, a handful of possibilities of why people don't go back and and and do,24:37 have these babies, implant them and have them themselves. And what you're describing is just a a tiny little microcosm of all the things that happen as you describe life. Like, when we start when24:49 we start taking our own action on some of these issues, particularly around life and around kids, we get further and further out from our original intentions. And and so many things can25:01 change. Countless numbers of things can change. And and so it's... Again, it behooves us in this arena as in many others to to really walk in a way that is about obeying and following,25:13 hard after Christ and making the hard decisions that... One of the things you described to me in one of our other podcasts was the idea that you're you're bringing a child who has not given their own25:25 consent, obviously. You're bringing them into a situation where they are... Where a child is wanted, but they are still being deprived of at least one, either a mom or dad or or both, their25:37 biological mom or dad. And and so it it just sets up... You... You've talked about some of the websites, in in one of your books, that where where children are just crying out for this kind of like25:49 a soul hunger, this recognition. They can't even fully define, like, what is it? Why do I miss the father I never knew? Why do I miss the mother I I never knew? Talk a little bit about that as well.26:01 Well, what I was just describing is the problem of, embryonic commodification. Right? Destroying embryos, because there's too many or they're the wrong grade or they're the wrong sex26:12 or we just never got back to them or we ran out of money or whatever. So that is the number one risk to kids that are created through IVF. But if you're making babies in a laboratory, it's just as easy26:24 to use somebody else's egg or somebody else's sperm or put that child into somebody else's womb. And so a large percentage of children that do make it through the process of life will also lose their mother26:36 or father because somebody else's gametes were purchased to create that child. So now you're not just talking about the risk to children's life. Now you're talking26:48 about severing them from their mother or father, and those children suffer. The website you were probably talking about is called anonymous us dot org Mhmm. Where kids can anonymously27:00 just talk about how being conceived through sperm or egg selling has affected their life. Overwhelmingly, they struggle with identity issues. Sometimes they feel disconnected from the father or mother27:12 who raised them who is not their genetic parent. They are bothered that money changed hands during their conception. And if they were raised in a home without a father or a mother, maybe a single mother by choice,27:24 maybe a lesbian, household, maybe conceived through surrogacy and raised by a gay couple, these children hunger for the maternal love or paternal love that they're missing. So we have27:35 built an industry, and we are increasingly restructuring our parenthood laws around this idea that love makes a family, that biology doesn't matter. Kids just need to be safe and loved.27:47 Or, kids don't need moms and dads. They just need caregivers or guardians. Well, the kids themselves say absolutely not. Children who don't have a mother, hunger for27:59 female connection and attention. Children who don't have a father, hunger for male love. Now that makes kids vulnerable Because28:11 if you are, for example, a little boy or a little girl who doesn't have a father, you'll do what you can to get male attention. You will find a man who love you.28:23 This is why you see almost predictable patterns of children with single mothers, where boys disproportionately get drawn into crime and girls disproportionately become teen28:35 mothers. Because both of these kids have found a man to love them. This one found the gang boss. This one found the guy on Friday night who loved her for five minutes. So28:47 if you are not being loved well by your mother and father, it makes you vulnerable to be victimized or even groomed,28:59 by people who are happy to give you attention. You don't have the proper guard up. You're so you're so empty that you're willing to have anything fill your cup as it relates to male or female29:11 love. And and, you know, it's a lesson for those of us who are in healthy marriages when we see a child who is missing a mother or father to do what we can to meet their needs in a way that is healthy and29:22 age appropriate. You know, for a while, we had a homeless woman and her daughter living with us, and they... She was... The daughter was right at the ages of our girls who are, like, six and eight and seven and29:34 nine. And, my husband had to be really careful because you can't just, you know, grab a seven year old and... But but pulling her in and saying, well, we're doing a tea party, and29:46 and dad's gonna be at the tea party and let me be at the tea party with all three of you. But we could see her standing at the periphery of the of the living room watching him wrestle with the29:57 girls and just, like, wondering, can I get done on that? I want some of it. Yeah.30:02 So, you30:02 know, he would go past and he would kind of ruffle her hair or or, you know, or a goofy handshake or some kind of physical contact that was appropriate at the time because she's gonna find a man to meet that30:13 need.30:14 Yep. And30:15 you pray that it's people that do it in a way that's protective.30:18 Right. Right. Exactly. Again, heartbreaking, dynamics, that you're talking about there. But I I wanna touch on one other thing that, I find to just be30:30 so revolting and infuriating. I... I've I've seen a number of... And and obviously, you have too, and I'm sure our listeners, viewers have as well. But I've seen online, Facebook, and other places30:42 where you'll have this surrogacy that's happened or renting a womb or whatever for for two guys and and one of them is is a predator. I mean, one of them30:54 is actually, you know, is out of prison for, you know, for sexual involvement with, a minor. And I mean, one of the things that... And I've and I've seen that more than, just once.Show more In this video 0:00 What Does It Mean to Be Human18:30 The Harms of IVF and Big Fertility31:00 Children's Right to Their Mother and Father45:00 Raising Children With a Biblical Worldview57:00 Divorce, Cultural Challenges, and Resources
186: What Does it Mean to be Human? | Katy Faust & Garry Ingraham Garry Ingraham Oct 20
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