Podcast Summary: Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

Episode Title: Defending the Rights of Children
Date: September 5, 2025
Host: Jim Daly (A), with John Fuller (C)
Guest: Katy Faust (B), Founder and President of Them Before Us

Main Theme/Overview

This episode of "Focus on the Family" delves into defending the foundational rights of children within the family structure and larger culture. Jim Daly and John Fuller interview Katy Faust, an advocate for children’s rights and the founder of Them Before Us, exploring how Christian families can navigate, respond to, and push back against cultural shifts—especially around marriage, parenting, and reproductive technologies. Faust shares personal stories, social science insights, and actionable advice for defending biblical family values and prioritizing children’s well-being over adult desires.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Katy Faust’s Journey to Advocacy

• Entry into Activism: Faust began as an “anonymous blogger” confronting the rise of progressive ideas affecting families.
• Facing Persecution: Outed by a powerful blogger, Faust and her church were doxed, facing substantial harassment.
  • Quote: “He said, ‘I'm gonna destroy you and I'm going to destroy your entire church.’...he published the names and addresses of our home community leaders, known as doxing.” (04:05)
• Church’s Response: Rather than pulling back, church elders encouraged her to “go big”—propelling her into public advocacy, Supreme Court amicus briefs, and international workshops.
• Broader Implication: Her experience is a call for “normie moms” and everyday Christians to courageously address cultural changes, even at personal cost.

2. The Core Issue: Adult Desires vs. Children’s Rights

• Shifting Burdens: Society increasingly expects children to sacrifice for adult desires, especially in issues around family breakdown, LGBTQ rights, and reproductive technologies.
  • Quote: “It used to be adults sacrifice for children, now we expect children to sacrifice for adults.” (07:13)
• Justice for Children: Faust frames so-called “culture war” issues as fundamentally about justice for children, not just adult rights or preferences.

3. The Rights and Needs of Children

• Fundamental Rights: Children have the right to life and to be raised by their biological mother and father.
  • Quote: “If we understand that children have a right to their mother and father, we actually get the correct answer to all of these other questions…” (09:54)
• Adoption vs. Reproductive Technology: Adoption is seen as redemptive—addressing a child’s pre-existing loss—whereas IVF and surrogacy often intentionally create loss for children by separating them from biological parents.
• Personal Lens: Faust shares her own childhood—her parents' divorce, her mother’s female partner, and the complexities of blended families.
  • Quote: “I, like every child, need, deserve, have a right to my own mother and father.” (12:46)

4. Modern Family Structures, Divorce, and Their Impact

• Critique of Divorce Culture: The normalization of no-fault divorce is described as the original cultural move to prioritize adult comfort over children’s well-being.
  • Quote: “If you want to talk about the original, I'm gonna make kids do hard things so I don't have to. That's not same sex marriage. That's no fault divorce.” (15:41)
• Children’s Experience: Faust and Daly discuss their own pain as children of divorce, highlighting the wounds caused when families break apart for non-abusive, low-conflict reasons.
  • Quote: “The kids who suffer the most are the 2/3 whose parents divorce when it wasn't high conflict...those are the kids that actually are the most traumatized.” (17:48)

5. Science, Social Trends, and Reproductive Technologies

• Social Science Support: Data shows children fare best in stable, loving, two-parent (mother and father) households.
• IVF and Surrogacy Critique: Faust is outspoken about the harms of IVF and surrogacy—not only for commodifying children, but for resulting in millions of destroyed embryos and depriving children of biological parents.
  • Quote: “IVF is responsible for destroying more embryonic life than the abortion industry ... a third to two thirds [of IVF children] will lose their mother or father in the process.” (20:08, 21:00)
• Contrasting Adoption: Adoption, when done well, seeks to heal a wound in the child; reproductive technology often intentionally inflicts it.

6. Christian Response and Cultural Engagement

• Cultural Boldness: Christians are encouraged to speak the truth in love and not allow cultural pressure to redirect biblical convictions.
  • Quote: “All of the cultural bullying, it's not going to direct our steps, and it shouldn't direct your steps.” (06:11)
• Balanced Approach: Faust emphasizes that Christians can defend the biblical design for family and love their LGBTQ friends and family—these are not in conflict.
  • Quote: “You should love your gay family and friends better than anyone else. Those two things are not in conflict...” (12:56)

7. Hope and Looking Forward

• Hope for Change: Despite current cultural chaos, Faust confidently asserts that truth—rooted in biblical and natural reality—cannot stay “underwater” forever.
  • Quote: “You can hold that [truth] underwater for a while like a beach ball, but it will not stay underwater forever.” (24:12)
• Encouragement for Listeners: The episode closes with calls to courageous engagement, use of provided resources (like the “Truth Rising” documentary), and stories of ordinary people making significant impacts.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Facing Persecution and Advocacy:

  • “...when they come for your children or your husband or your friends or your church, it really does make you go, okay, never mind. I'll stop, I'll stop. Don't hurt these people... But church leaders said: ‘Well, you could stop or you could go big.’” (04:38 – 05:58)

• On Adult Choices and Children’s Suffering:

  • “The choice is—will the adults struggle through it, get accountability, therapy, grow up, do hard things or will you force the kids to struggle? It's a trade-off. Someone's going to do the hard thing. It has to be the adults.” (15:58)

• On Modernity and Children:

  • “Children refuse to modernize. For some reason, they still insist on coming only from a man and a woman. And they suffer when they lose that man or that woman.” (13:54)

• On IVF and Reproductive Tech:

  • “We lose maybe four times the amount of unborn children to the baby making industry as we do the baby taking industry.” (20:08)
  • “Of the 2% of children born through IVF, a third to two thirds will lose their mother and/or father in the process…” (21:00)

• On Steadfast Biblical Conviction:

  • “When you stand on the side of biblical truth, you will never be put to shame. You might be demonized for a time, but you will be proved correct.” (24:24)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Katy’s Story of Advocacy and Doxxing: 03:27 – 06:11
• Prioritizing Children’s Rights: 07:13 – 08:38
• Social Science and the Two-Parent Advantage: 11:02 – 13:15
• Personal Divorce and Same-Sex Parenting Story: 11:29 – 13:02
• Modern Family & Divorce Culture Critique: 13:54 – 16:34
• Impact of Divorce on Children: 16:34 – 19:09
• Hope Restored Marriage Counseling Mention: 19:09 – 19:39
• Discussion of IVF and Reproductive Tech: 20:08 – 22:53
• Adoption as Redemptive: 22:53 – 23:17
• Cultural Hope and Unchangeable Truths: 24:06 – 25:02

Tone

The conversation is earnest, compassionate, and convictional—both challenging and encouraging listeners, adopting a mixture of personal testimony, data-driven insight, and biblical worldview throughout.

Final Takeaways

• Christian families are called to boldly defend the rights and well-being of children, sometimes at personal risk.
• Major cultural issues—divorce, same-sex parenting, reproductive technologies—should be evaluated through the lens of child justice, not just adult desire.
• Social science affirms biblical family structure as optimal for children.
• Adoption can heal but should not be confused with or replaced by technologies that inflict loss.
• Truth and biblical reality are both countercultural and enduring; Christians should stand firm with grace and courage.

Resource Highlight:
Watch the documentary “Truth Rising” for more stories and practical guidance, as referenced multiple times in the episode: truthrising.com