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It's Tuesday, November 18, 2025. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. We have seen so many major headlines in recent months, and, of course, even in recent years. But lately, largely because of the second term of President Donald Trump, there have been many headlines about the administration's policy on ivf, in vitro fertilization, and assisted reproductive technologies and what all of this means. In recent days, the New York Times ran an article, it made the front page of yesterday's print edition that basically said that there are liberals in the United States who don't like President Trump, but they do like what he's been doing on ivf. Now, let's just back up for a minute and remind ourselves of what the Trump administration has done. Back during the time that the president was running for a second term, the issue of IVF and reproductive technologies came up. It came up because of a decision handed down by the state Supreme Court in Alabama that declared frozen embryos to be human persons and thus to find that there was genuine loss in the destruction of human embryos. And that was immediately, by the way, the catalyst for all kinds of cries about the end of IVF and what this would mean. The Alabama legislature actually just turned around and adopted legislation to protect IVF technologies. As I said at the time, I think that was a grave mistake. Nonetheless, they did it, and they did it because of political pressure. President Trump, observing this when he was running in the 2024 election, decided to get out in front of it. And he said something that's profoundly right, but he followed it with something that I think is profoundly problematic. What is profoundly right is that he points to the fact that we have a falling birth rate and that having babies is a very good thing. And you'll notice that the president spoke of this in the context of marriage. He spoke of the context of a married couple finding it very difficult to have children and turning to assisted reproductive technologies in order to try to achieve pregnancy and thus a baby. But at the same time, there were many in the pro life movement who detected that this could be a seismic shift. And the Trump administration, when it did come out with a policy just a matter of several months ago, it did not put the full weight of the federal government and of the federal budget behind IVF technologies, IVF treatments, as they are often called, or rounds of ivf, that would produce embryos. But the administration did take a step out in terms of arguing that insurance companies should cover such procedures. And it took some other steps short of federal support, direct federal support for in vitro fertilization treatments. And one of the things that I pointed out at the time, we have the huge issue of ivf, about which I've said and written a very great deal, grave moral concerns about ivf, the commodification of human reproduction and the alienation of human reproduction that produces embryos, many of which are going to simply be destroyed. And thus, if pro life Christians mean what we say about the status of the human embryo, that's just unacceptable. But we also understand that the parameters the President implied actually are not real. Which is to say that if you're talking about in vitro fertilization or assisted reproductive technologies, yes, there are many, many grieving married couples, that is, with husbands and wives who are mourning the fact that they have been unable to have children. And that is something that Christians should understand as a profound grief with enormous sympathy. But at the same time, it's not just married couples who would qualify for this treatment. And as a matter of fact, current medical protocols doesn't give preference to married couples. It could be a single woman. It could be two gay men using a surrogate mother. The alienation from creation order is so profound that this would call upon the federal taxpayer. If indeed IVF did become something that's included under some kind of federal spending program, it would put American taxpayers in the position of funding IVF or assisted reproductive technology treatments for homosexual male couples, for single women, for lesbian couples. You just go down the list. And this is obviously, in moral terms, just a huge, huge problem. But this article that appeared yesterday in the print edition of the New York Times tells us that even though there are many liberal. I almost said couples, we could just say liberal people who have been very opposed to President Trump. They do like the fact that he's putting pressure on insurance companies and others and is trying to bring the cost of IVF down, even though he did not bring it under any federal program. By the way, the total price of a single cycle of IVF is generally between $15,000 and $20,000, with complications that can reach 30,000 to $40,000 in some cases, but about 15,000 to $20,000 per cycle. And the changes that President Trump was trying to bring about in the second administration is an attempt to lower that by a significant percentage. But that's not direct taxpayer support. Specifically, the President was calling upon the drug makers to cut the cost of IVF drugs by about 75%. Now, that doesn't mean 75% in the reduction of the total cost, but just of some of the drugs involved. Nonetheless. Big thing here, Big thing here. And it's very interesting that the New York Times sees it in political terms here. You have people who don't like President Trump, but they do like the fact that he's the first American president to take any such action in favor of ivf. Alright, why did the President do this? Well, I think it was good for him politically, he thought. I think the other thing is, I don't think he holds to any particular conviction about the status of the human embryo. However, his support base includes many conservative Christians who care a great deal about the moral status of the embryo. And I think that's why the administration did not go further. It's also true that the President wants to see more babies. And I want to emphasize that's an emphatically good point, and it is an emphatically great point to be made by an American president. But you'll just notice that in the context of today's politics, even as he talks about married couples, meaning a husband and a wife, that is not how it is heard in terms of the larger society. Nor would it be a policy that would discriminate between heterosexual married couples and anyone else who would claim the need for assisted reproductive technologies. But the New York Times followed that up with something even more interesting, and that's an opinion piece by a woman named Rexandra Teslow. The headline in the article is, here's what Trump should actually do for Fertility. Now, the push here on the Trump administration to do more on IVF is less interesting than the shape of the argument that this woman makes. So let's listen to her argument. In the second paragraph. She says this quote, although cultural commentary often suggests otherwise, many Generation Z women, including myself, deeply want children. Okay. The first thing you notice is she identifies herself with Generation Z young adults. She goes on to say, we're simply trying to navigate a world where the timelines of our bodies and the timelines of our ambitions rarely align. That is one of the most candid statements I have seen in this kind of context ever. Here you have a young woman saying that there are two timelines. Number one, the timeline of her body, and secondly, the timeline of her ambition. Okay, so what we see here in worldview analysis is one of the biggest clashes and crises of our day. And it is particularly affecting women, young women. It is particularly showing up in this kind of statement. They're saying, I have ambitions, personal ambitions, career ambitions. And then I also have a bodily timeline. And those personal ambitions are winning over, victorious over the bodily timeline, and thus there's increased need for IVF and assisted reproductive technologies. She gets right to that point in the next sentence when she writes, as a result, childbearing drifts later, and many of us feel a sharp anxiety as each year passes, widening the distance between our hopes and our reality. Meanwhile, she writes, technologies to preserve and support fertility exist, but they remain prohibitively expensive and inconsistently effective. Now, let's work backwards. First of all, inconsistently effective, that is true, and that's something that a lot of people don't recognize. These very expensive cycles of IVF often do not produce a viable pregnancy. And so she is calling here for the federal government to respond to this by making these treatments more consistently effective. And there's no doubt that there is a lot of pressure here. You have major American corporations that are now incentivizing women to stay in the workplace by saying that they will either provide for or subsidize rounds of assisted reproductive technology in the future. So come to work for us now, give us the best years of your life in terms of our company, and we'll try to give you back the gift of motherhood on the other side. But that also leads to a lot of crushed dreams, even with the use of assisted reproductive technologies. But her other complaint is that these cycles remain prohibitively expensive. Well, of course they are. They would have to be expensive, right? Just consider what we're talking about. We're talking about taking the male cell and the female cell in a laboratory context, and with all of the expense of that being the context of bringing together those two cells in order to produce embryos, and that is simply, by the way, an embryo that exists in a clinical setting. It requires medical costs, real medical costs, to transfer those embryos. It's a very expensive process. It will have to be a very expensive process. Even if it becomes more routine, it's almost assuredly going to be continuing a very expensive process. And I think Christians need to just underline the fact that one of the reasons why it is so expensive and even, to use the words of this woman, inconsistently effective is because it is a separation or an alienation of sex and reproduction and of the life cycle in reproduction in such a way that it is going to be very expensive and it is going to be, in many cases ineffective, and tragically so in the lives and with the expectations of the people involved. But in worldview terms, I just want to underline the fact that rarely do you see an argument made with this candor. It's far more honest and far more direct than anything I have ever seen in the mainstream conversation about IVF or this young woman. She identifies with Generation Z. This young woman says that the timelines of our bodies and the timelines of our ambitions rarely align. Well, you'll notice which gives to which it's the understanding that in this world it makes perfect sense that the ambition for profession should vastly outweigh even Trump, if only temporarily. It is claimed the ambition to be a wife and a mother, or in this case, just to be a mother, because the wife part isn't even actually mentioned. This writer, Rexandra Teslow, also says that she thinks that there is a modification coming in the support by pro family groups and President Trump. A crack in the wall, she says, over this issue. And yet she also recognizes that support for IVF is not going to be universal. She's not even sure exactly what President Trump is all about. She says, quote, part of the answer lies in Mr. Trump's governing style. He excels at cultural signaling, not structural policy. But she also says that, quote, it also reflects pressure from the anti IVF bloc. That is part of his base, end quote. Yeah, it is a big part of his base. The pro life movement is an essential part of President Trump's base and of any future base for a viable candidacy by a Republican nominee for President of the United States. And Republicans had better keep that in mind. Now this particular writer goes on to say, here's an opportunity for a meeting in the middle. For conservatives, it would reinforce pro family values and respond to their growing alarm about declining birth rates. Let me just stop there. Their that is conservative Christian growing alarm about declining birth rates. Does that mean she's not concerned? That's interesting in and of itself. Who in the world is going to take care of these people when they're old? For progressives, it would advance the goal of making high quality reproductive health care more affordable and accessible. Just want to point out the terms of this statement are making high quality reproductive health care. Once again, I think there are a lot of conservative Christians hearing that kind of language and they just think marriage, you need to understand, you've got to unthink that when it comes to how this federal policy would work. Because I assure you the federal government is not going to restrict this to married heterosexual couples. And that is already something that is really far behind us even in the establishment of federal policy. So just keep that in mind when you hear this. Even the term reproductive healthcare, understand that's wide open and it can mean the lesbian couple, the gay male couple, or just the woman who wants to have a baby, or the single man who wants to hire a surrogate mother and use this kind of process in order to gain an embryo. The result of this, by the way, is that this would be even if you just try to bracket the morality for a moment, and as Christians, you can't really do that, but just hypothetically do it for a moment and recognize that the finances of this aren't going to work because it's an almost infinite pool. And remember the story that was published in the New York Times Magazine? We discussed it thoroughly on the briefing just days ago about the woman who was using such technologies in order to even achieve pregnancy, put quotation marks around that into her sixth decade of life, even very close to age 60. And you look at this and you say, well, if you're going to support these technologies and you're going to demand them as a part of federal policy, then this is the kind of thing that's going to become routine. And by the way, us taxpayers are going to pay for it. All right, but while we're thinking about this, I also want to go to the issue of autonomy, because that shows up in this article as well. The writer of this article, ricksandra Teslow, raises autonomy herself, and this is what she writes. Quote, generation Z women who voted for Mr. Trump in the last election prioritized having a good job, owning a home and being financially independent above having children. That was an NBC poll. So again, listen, think of this in worldview significance. These were Generation Z women who voted for Mr. Trump. They prioritized. These are their own, their own priorities here. They prioritized having a good job, owning a home and being financially independent above having children. And then the writer of the article says, this, quote, asking young women to choose between autonomy and family repels the very group whose decisions will shape our demographic future. End quote. We're just in massive trouble here. Massive trouble. If women are going to prioritize, young women, even the young women who voted for Donald Trump for president, if they're going to prioritize having a good job, owning a home and being financially independent above having children, guess what? They're not going to have many children, period. All right, so that takes me to another big story, and it has to do with a report that just came out from the Pew Research Center. They asked some interesting questions. You get some interesting answers. So in this case, 12th graders, males and females, boys and girls, they were asked the question, do you want to get married someday? Okay. So here is the headline news response. US High schoolers are less likely now than in the past to say they want to get married someday. And a smaller share today say they're very likely to have children if they do get married. So that's a statement about today's 12th graders. Boys and girls say they are less likely than 12th graders in the past to say that they expect to get married, want to get married, and thus want to have children. In 2023, 67% of the 12th graders said they will likely choose to get married one day. It was 80% in 1993. So 30 years, significant drop off from 80% to 67%, quote. Another 24% say they don't know if they'll get married, up from 16%. Okay, but here's the big story. When you look at boys and girls and you separate them, the responses are radically different. And here's what you need to understand. Far more boys said that they want to and expect to get married than girls. That's high school seniors in 2023. All right, so once again we see that the cultural reality has flipped. Something has happened in recent years. Now, of course, it's not just in recent years, recent decades, something has happened in modern American culture where boys are more likely than girls, girls as teenagers to go to church. Boys and young men are far more conservative than girls and young women when it comes to politics. And now, even when it comes to marriage, a far Greater Percentage of 12th grade boys wants to be married or indicates that now than the number or percentage of 12th grade girls. And the fact that this is of interest to demographers, to secular scientists, those who are looking at this more sociologically, that should tell us something. By the way, when we talk about this shift, when did it happen? Well, according to Pew, it happened between 1993 and 2023. So in that 30 year period, it did switch because in 1993, a larger share of girls than boys said they wanted to get married. Now the numbers were close, 83%, 76%. But now, 30 years later, it is a clear distinction with more boys, 74% than girls, 61%, who say they want to get married and expect to be married in their adult lives. So this is just a huge shift. I don't think there's any way to exaggerate this. And I think most of us feel this, we perceive it, we see what is happening right now in the culture around us, and we come to understand that when you see young women walking on the sidewalk in a major American city. You just do not assume that they are married or that they're heading to be married. You look at a lot of the young men. They may also not be married or be headed to get married immediately, but they want to be married. And this is a significant shift. And I think for Christians, we need to understand that it reveals that in the modern age of social transformation, many young women are seizing what they see as an opportunity to express their autonomy. At the same time, many young men increasingly don't want more autonomy. They want the structure of marriage. They want the experience of being a husband and a father. I think this is just explosive. I think it is something that should have the attention of every Christian family of Christian parents. It should have the attention of Christian churches. And I think we need to lean in big on the secular assumptions behind this. In particular, the influences that are now having such massive effects on young women, to the extent that even conservative voting young women are putting marriage and having children way down the list of their priorities. And I don't want to just point to young women and say, look what they've done. I want to point to young women and say, look at what our society has done to them. Look at how the larger pressures of the culture around us have affected young women and girls. Just think of what's going on in Hollywood. Just think of what's being put out in the culture. Just think about the culture, cultural conversation, but also think about what's going on in the school conversations, in the peer conversations among young people. It used to be that parents were afraid their kids would get married too early. Speaking of high school seniors, now the big concern is whether they're going to get married at all, or if so, when and if children will ever be a part of the picture. I don't think we can exaggerate the worldview importance of this or the practical importance of this in everyday lives. All right, so before we leave this, there's another study out, and this one at least. Well, it's interesting. This comes from Gallup, and we'll be talking more this week about some of the reports coming out from Gallup just in recent days, because it's not just a matter of statistics. They're telling us something, something big. But in this case, I don't think it's all that big. But it is interesting when you add it to what we've been talking about today. Gallup has just reported that there are now in the United States, record numbers of younger women who want to leave the country. Okay? So not only are they displeased with an awful lot that is going on here. Not only are they redefining their life ambitions in terms of personal autonomy, they've also decided with massive numbers indicating here, that a massive number, record numbers of younger women say that they would like to live somewhere else in the United States and that they want to leave the United States. That's not just a small statement, right? I want to leave my country. I want to leave the United States. I will also point out the limitations of asking this kind of question because obviously there is a lot of hypocrisy going on here because if they really wanted to leave the country, guess what? Plane tickets are pretty cheap. You can get out of the country. I think a lot of this is political posturing and political and social communicating. But, you know, the report from Gallup tells us, quote, for the second straight year, about 1 in 5Americans say they want to leave the U.S. again. If they wanted to, they could and permanently live in another country. They could. By the way, how hypothetical is that? And I just came from a major experience in several countries in Europe. And, you know, Americans who have moved to many of those countries for all kinds of different reasons, they, they in many cases are living with a reality which is not exactly what they planned for. But the gender distinction shows up again. I quote from the Gallup piece. In 2025, 40% of women aged 15 to 44 say they would move abroad permanently if they had the opportunity. Okay, now wait just a minute. I am reading to you directly from the report that's coming straight from Gallup. They mean for it to be taken seriously. Are you telling me that 4 out of 10 young women in the United States, women age 15 to 44, want to permanently leave the United States of America? Is this supposed to be taken seriously? I'm not going to say that they are lying. I don't think they are. I think that the women who are responding to this are taking the opportunity to send a political statement that is not. I think we can just say. I'll just say no. I'm absolutely sure it's not indicative of what they actually plan to do, because if they did plan to do it, guess what? It can be quickly done. Goodbye. By the way, one of the big things cited in this report is the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade, that supreme court decision of 2022. We're told that that was a game changer and that as a result, many women, in particular young women, have to use the language of this report, lost confidence in American institutions. Okay, so once again you see the worldview issue here. This is not really making a statement about wanting to leave the country, because if they wanted to, I think it's a statement about their dissatisfaction with many of the political and even judicial developments of recent years. One way you can say you're unhappy is to say you want to leave the country. Gallup evidently thought that was an interesting question. I do think the answer is interesting, even if I also think it's deeply dishonest. Oh well, at the very least it's worth are thinking about. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information go to my website@albertmuller.com you can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.comalbertmuller for information on the Southern Baptist Theological seminary, go to sbts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.