A (3:10)

So you were prolifically speaking and you were already equipping people and then how does it come about that someone asks you to speak at Google? I think that kind of got so viral or controversial maybe. Of course, because of the topic, because it's abortion. Very controversial. But the fact that Google had hosted you, I think both sides were surprised by. People who would be very against what you had to say are like mad that they platformed you.

B (3:34)

Right.

A (3:34)

And those of us that agreed with you were thankful that you had given that message. And I think I was just struck by how well you presented the argument. I mean, that's the whole thing. An apologetic is. It's not a. It's a defense of what's true or presenting something that's true. And you did it in such a lovely, calm, composed way that you just represented the pro life movement so well. I think even people who would have been against you were thinking, I'm having a hard time disagreeing with what she's presenting because it's so linear and just makes sense. But yeah, tell us a little bit more about how you got there and what was that experience like?

B (4:10)

Yeah, so definitely, I think it was very much a God thing. God was aligning things down to a staff member who had recently been hired at Google was happened to be familiar with my work and shared my worldview. And he realized being on staff, that Google ran a program like TED Talks for its staff called Google or Talks at Google. And so Google brought in presenters and then their lectures were then put on the Google YouTube channel and staff was encouraged to suggest presenters. Well, when this person familiar with my work began working there, they had just, Google had just brought in the then president of Planned Parenthood. And he immediately thought of me and thought, oh my goodness, I could approach the authorities here and the leadership and say, hey, Google's known for inclusivity and tolerance and we pride ourselves on being diverse and having a diversity of views. So since we just Brought in the president, Planned Parenthood. I wanted to throw your name in the ring as an alternative perspective to bring forward here at Google. So he approached me and said, would you mind if I did that? I said, I would love it if you did that, but what are the chances I will be approved? So I just said, go ahead. And I put it to prayer. I'm like, God, this is in your hands. I totally surrender it to you. And it was just remarkable how smoothly everything unfolded and went. And the opportunity arose half a year later, less than half a year later. And then it was put on their YouTube channel, I think about six weeks after the actual event on, on site. And then it went around the Internet.

A (5:49)

Yeah. Wow. And then that's where we, everyone else sees it, I think. I'm pretty sure you made this point in that original talk a long time ago because I've used it ever since. The notion of, well, is it a human and is the baby, is the fetus a human? And I think you said something along the lines of, well, if it's a human father and a human mother, what species of offspring would it produce? And I was like, blown, mind blown.

B (6:14)

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's so basic, but that's what you have to walk people through, the basic principles and asking simple questions to get people thinking when they make ridiculous claims like it's not a human, well, what else would the offspring be? If the mother and father are, are of the species Homo sapiens, even when people claim, well, it's not alive, well, then we simply ask, well, is the embryo growing? And by virtue of the embryo's growth, wouldn't that follow that something is living and that something is determined by what the parents are.

A (6:44)

A lot of people now and I, we got to talk to Nancy Pearcey on the, on our show about her book Love Thy Body. People really started to shift the goalposts once it became undeniable. Just from the science we can, we know it's a human. We can see that it's growing and it's alive. Well, it's a human, but it's not a person. How do you, how do you bridge that for people in an apologetic, even just in a quick conversational way?

B (7:08)

Sure. So I always ask someone who makes that claim, what is a person? I draw out of them their definition. And if they've had any degree of influence by, you know, thinkers such as Peter Singer, a Princeton philosophy professor, they will start to define person based on a human beings function. So they will say, well, a person is someone who's conscious, someone who's rational, someone who's self aware. And then they would say, you know, a one celled embryo, an early, you know, first trimester fetus, is not rational, conscious or self aware. So that's why they might be of the species homo sapiens, but not persons and therefore ought not be protected under the law. So when you get draw out that definition, you then simply ask, okay, well why isn't that, you know, first trimester Homo sapien fetus not rational, conscious or self aware? Well, it, its brain hasn't developed enough to be able to manifest those abilities yet. Okay, well why hasn't the brain developed enough yet? Well, it hasn't had the time. At which point I would then say to the person, okay, and time is reflected in our age. So ultimately that human preborn child can't think, reason, feel pain, be conscious, rational or self aware like all of us because of how old they are. So we then ask the question, should our personhood be grounded in our age or should it be grounded in our membership within the human family? And if it's grounded in our age, then why draw the line at a certain trimester? Why draw the line at birth? Why not draw it after birth? Why not draw it after puberty or after the brain develops at 25? So we're always developing, our age is always changing. But if personhood is grounded in our membership in the human family, then we have equality because that's the one feature of all of us have in common. A shared feature is our human nature. Everything else about us, our development, our age, our abilities, our appearances, that's always changing.

A (8:59)

And it's kind of the same argument that they're making then on the, on the other side of the spectrum with age or ability or agency, is then when someone has outlived their function, as some might look at it, then it's okay to also, what, what do they call it, death with dignity or all the different euphemisms for killing someone because now they're too old. It's not based on, like you said, membership in being a human, it's based on these other, well, it's going to take too much money for us to keep you alive. So.

B (9:28)

Right, so and coming from Canada, right, where they call it maid medical assistance in dying, which is really assisted suicide, it's someone who wants to end their life and is asking for assistance with it. And it's really a blend between suicide and homicide because they're not fully killing themselves by themselves. So they're enlisting another Party to aid them. But then if you're aiding someone, well, then it's a type of homicide. So unfortunately, in my original country of Canada and various other countries, including many other states, now here in America, there is this movement towards justifying ending people's lives at the end of their life. As you say, with this same type of perspective of, well, if I can't function at the end of my life the way I did at the prime of my life, if, you know, maybe I have, I will develop dementia or I have dementia and I'm not remembering and thinking and doing things and comprehending stuff as I once did, well, then my life is no longer worth living. And of course, the pro life point is your life is worth living because of who you are, not how you function, not how you know you are able to accomplish things. It's. It's who you are.

A (10:35)

Yeah, I've wondered. So you do this kind of speaking and reasoning with folks professionally. I've seen clips where you're talking to college students, which I think takes another special level of sort of grace and being willing to try and boil things really down to simple, okay, we have to agree on, are we human? Now we can go to the next thing. But have you had to have some of these difficult conversations? You don't need to say names or who they are, of course, but in your personal life. And have you noticed that your work helped influence how you did it in your personal life? Or has your personal life and personal conversations helped influence how you do it publicly? I'm just curious, because when you have to do it for work. But most of the people listening are concerned because it's like, well, I'm not going to do it publicly, but I have to have a conversation with my co worker at the water. What are they called? Water bottles.

B (11:28)

Oh yeah, the water station.

A (11:30)

Yeah, people do. Now I work remotely, so I just go to the fridge. But I think everyone has to have their water bottles.

B (11:36)

But yeah, that's right. People would always go to the water.

A (11:38)

Yeah, I don't know.

B (11:39)

I never worked in a regular office either.

A (11:41)

Yeah, yeah. People go to the cafeteria and they have a conversation face to face. So there's a different complexity there. But a lot of what you do could still help us.

B (11:49)

Absolutely. Yes. There is an element, I would say actually of challenge when it's people we know. Because when we are in relationship with someone, there's that fear that sets in of, oh, if, if I'm seen as opposing my colleague, my friend, or my family member's viewpoint. Will that be kind of interpreted as opposing them? If I hate their view, will they think I hate them? And of course you can hate a view and not hate a person. You can oppose a view and not oppose a person. But people often mighty the waters and they get confused and you have to walk them through that. So it feels like there's almost more to lose with someone you know than with someone you don't know. So professionally, in one sense, it's been easier for me to debate strangers, you know, formally or even informally like on college campuses. And I've actually found people even have revealed and open up, up secrets in their life to me because they don't know me and they think, oh well, the secret will, will remain safe with her. So yes, it is more challenging with our loved ones. But what I have done and kind of, you could say mastered in my professional life has been helpful in my personal life. And that is what I always encourage my audiences to do, which is to take that Socratic approach. Socrates in his quest for truth was always asking questions. So if we take that approach with our colleagues and our friends and our family members and say, oh, how did you come to that conclusion? Why do you think that? What about this? Those very open ended questions are actually going to compel the other person to have to explain more of what they've just claimed. And often we haven't had to think that deeply. So when we have to explain our claims, we are now being provoked to think more deeply than we have. And then you as the individual challenging that person doesn't, don't appear to be that challenging because you're just what I call compassionately curious. And then you can have very fruitful and effective conversations by taking that strategy. But it usually is, is dragged out in a sense. It, it doesn't happen in an instant because you're asking open ended questions. You might have to say, let's pick this conversation up later, we both have to get back to work, or you've made me think a bit, I'm gonna chew on this for the next few days. And so things don't always come to a complete, complete end the way they might, you know, in a debate setting, like I'm doing on a college campus.

A (14:05)

Yeah, that's really good. Yeah. The Socratic method. Most people feel a lot like, well, depending how you do the question, right, it's a lot more open to a conversation versus I. You said something, now I'm going to say what I think. And it either goes nowhere or you both just stay state Say statements versus someone. Yeah. Presenting more of what they think and maybe they haven't had to before. So then they're going to think about it a little differently for those of us that are more on the Protestant side, so them before us isn't religious, but then a lot of us that work within it are. IVF has popped up kind of a lot later in the pro life argument than I think it has for our Catholic brothers and sisters that we would say were right about it earlier and vocal about it earlier. And was that true for you as well, in terms of you were aware about IVF even, you know, even at the start of your work and the ethical questions there, or do you think too, it has popped up a lot more now and so how you're talking about it and thinking about it has developed more over time?

B (15:07)

I would definitely say my, my ability to think and talk about it has developed more over time, especially in terms of trying to really craft an argument that would appeal to people of different denominations or even no denomination to make both a sectarian and non sectarian case against in vitro fertilization. Yes, early on, just from my, my Catholic background, there was formation and understanding about ivf, how it worked, why it was morally problematic, but it wasn't really my topic of professional focus. And it was only as I was year after year speaking on abortion that what was happening was audience members were asking me about IVF and they were drawing conclusions, saying, okay, if you've just made this whole presentation claiming life begins at fertilization, then what's your opinion on frozen embryos? What's your position on in vitro fertilization? And I realized there was a lack of formation on that topic. And I had in my heart and mind a clear position, but I needed to really work on articulating it in a way that made sense and in a way that was persuasive and convincing. So then it was in the last, I would say, maybe eight or so years that I really began to think through that issue and craft a whole apologetic on that.

A (16:27)

I know you're newer to the United States and so I'm not sure about what the Canadian politics on this was, but we've talked about this a little bit at them before us, that it felt like the Democrats, which is the more politically left part of the United States, actually correctly equated a lot of the IVF processes with abortion by saying, these are the same thing and Republicans are coming for your rights. And then the Republicans were tripping over themselves to say, no, they're Totally different.

B (16:53)

Right.

A (16:54)

And I don't know if, you know, we've mentioned this before, but Ted Cruz, I think on msnbc, was asked, wait, don't you think life begins at conception? And he was totally busted for that lack of coherent thinking. So do you think, you know, is that a good. Is it good to connect those. We say they're kind of two sides of the same coin. But is that a good argument, like an apologetic argument?

B (17:15)

I think we do need to make the connection for people, because as you've rightly pointed out, it's almost like our opposition sees the connection more than our side is willing to admit. I think our side does see the connection, but there is what I've even said on the topic of abortion, there is ignorance and there is denial. Ignorance is not knowing. So it's not being rude to say someone is ignorant. They simply don't know something. Denial is very different. Denial is not wanting to know. And so because with abortion and ivf, although there are similarities of fundamental differences with abortion, you are experiencing a natural, good, normal, healthy process of pregnancy and wanting to end that in a violent way. Whether you're aware of it being violent or not, it's a rejection of that which is good. IVF seems very different because you actually aren't able to achieve the good, the natural and beautiful thing which is pregnancy. And you're longing for that beautiful thing which is a child, which is offspring. And so people think, wait a second, if we're against violently ending life, then wouldn't we want to embrace the process of making life? But then we want to probe a little deeper and say, but how are we making that life? Who is making that life? Who ought make life? And when that life begins, how are we treating that life from that point forward? And so once we start to ask those questions, then it should be abundantly clear for people like Ted Cruz and others to be like, oh, my goodness, no matter how good the end is of having a child, I ought not manufacture human beings into existence because we are subjects, not objects, and we shouldn't be treated as objects, which means we shouldn't be discarded, which is tragically often the case with. With the process of in vitro fertilization.

A (18:58)

Right? Yeah. And that's why we think your work is so important, the work with them before us. And we're just so thankful. So many folks are sharing their stories of ivf. Either IVF regret, or they've struggled with infertility and chosen not to do it because they've learned these different right? Because there's just a lot of education still for people on the right, quote, the right side, you know, political right or the religious.

B (19:19)

Yeah.

A (19:20)

Within. Especially within the Protestant communities. Because Catholics, like we said, got it right a little bit earlier. But, but it's all about to, like you're saying, continuing to adapt how we speak about it, making sure we are, we always talk about, we have to balance the compassion for those who struggle with infertility with. At the same time, here's these ethical problems and we've had people contact us who've have frozen embryos on ice now and they do regret it. It was a woman, I think she was Catholic and said her priest told her it was okay, you know, so I don't know what, what they were going off of, but she's like, now we have 17 or something children on ice and we don't know what to do.

B (20:00)

Yeah.

A (20:00)

And it's like we don't know what you should do either.

B (20:02)

Yeah.

A (20:03)

And the problem is these are life and death decisions for human beings and we're trying to help as many people not even get to there, be informed before you make those kinds of decisions, you know.

B (20:13)

Right, right. Well, and that's where I would say, you know, your remark that kind of the Catholics were ahead on this. I would say the institution of the Catholic Church, insofar as its moral teaching was always ahead of the culture in the other denominations in making it clear that IVF ought to be rejected but trickle down on a practical day to day level. Unfortunately, that message didn't always get out to people. And so you have a number of Catholics that have pursued ivf. You have some priests that would have told some Catholics that in their setting, in their context, it's okay. Because people kind of got the idea, well, God said be fruitful and multiply. And if I don't use sperm sellers or egg sellers terms I prefer to use than sperm or egg donors, because typically there is a financial compensation, sometimes quite hefty for being the seller. So people think, but if I don't use the sperm or egg seller, if I don't use a surrogate, if it's just my and my spouse's gametes and we only make a couple embryos and we plan to go back for all of them to attempt insertion and hope implantation in birth, then, then isn't that okay? And so a lot of people will be misguided and say, actually that is okay, when in fact we need to step back and say, well, we actually don't have a right to another human being. We don't have a right to a spouse and we don't have a right to a child. And if we don't have a right to a child, that means we may not act as if we can possess or own a child. And the problem with IVF is it involves contracting out one's ability to conceive children through marital intimacy to a third party external to one's relationship and have them manufacture a human person in a lab at the hands of a stranger who often is the determiner of what that life will be. You know, is it ICSI C S I, which is a process involving the, the lab tech selecting the sperm that will be inserted into that one egg. They then become the individual to determine who your child will be as opposed to in an act of sexual intimacy. That receptivity of I don't know which sperm is going to hit the egg this month, and it's in the hands of the Lord who then genetically our child will be. So stuff like that isn't being thought about. And people think, okay, if I put a few kind of walls up, then it's okay. And what I try to unpack for people is even the concept of contracting out and manufacturing a human person by a third party is part of the problem.

A (22:43)

Well, and I think it's California changed some of their laws around insurance. So infer infertility was previously defined as, I think about a year of heterosexual sex without being able to have a successful pregnancy. I think that was kind of a traditional definition. And I think in California, a single woman, gay men, two women, can also qualify as infertile. And what you said just made me think they're in essence saying, now we have a right to children as well, but since we cannot produce one on our own, you're basically saying they have a right to other people's bodies or gametes. And we've just opened up a huge can of worms with that.

B (23:24)

Yeah, that's right. If someone inherently, by virtue of their, for example, same sex relationship, could not procreate in an act of sex, but we say you have the insurance coverage, you have the right to a child, then we are creating a situation where society is saying, you have a right to enlist other people because it's inherently impossible for you to do so. So then what does that mean? And what are we saying about another human person? And then you have all these crazy situations that have arisen, even down to people who have plans to abuse children and traffic children, you know, just going, they don't have to disclose their motivations and their reasons. They just need to go to an IVF clinic and find their surrogate and pick their people. And then they create children and then what's going to happen to those children? And this isn't made up. There's news stories as of the last few months. I read about recently of two men overseas who were arrested for that.

A (24:18)

Yeah, well, and there's a big bust in California. A couple found with 21 children. And he was a member of the Chinese. Yeah, Chinese Communist Party. Yeah. So it's very interesting. And people don't have to pass a background check for much of that. Even though with adoption, such high levels of screening and money, you have to pay so they can come search your house and things like that. Not so with. With a lot of the big fertility industry.

B (24:42)

Exactly.

A (24:44)

All right, in our last few minutes, I'd love to shift a little bit more just to. I'd asked if I could talk to. To you about this because you shared your story a little bit with Lila Rose and just that, because I think this will really encourage a lot of people in our audience. But you are someone who is single for. For quite a bit of your life. You got married and had kids later in life. And I don't know if you're like a lot of us other gals and, and guys who are single. When you look at the stats, it does not look good. They're like, hey, if you're single in your 30s, there's a 50% chance you'll never get married. I mean, there's a lot of these really, really sort of. And we need to hear the stats. We need to hear the ideal. But especially for people of faith, you know, we don't. We can know that there's more going on than just here's the stats of what might happen to you. But I'd love. We'd love to hear. Yeah, just your story of how, how you went through your career and being single, balancing those things and then how God provided for you. Just marriage and family.

B (25:39)

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And it's one of those things in the secular world, people often will encourage women, you know, prioritize your career and leave babies for later. And I think, you know, in. From a Judeo Christian perspective, that shouldn't be our attitude. Our attitude should be that actually women and men at the height of our maturity are actually called to fatherhood and motherhood, that maternity and paternity is where we are most fulfilled. That doesn't mean, however, that it will be fulfilled. As biological motherhood or fatherhood. We all can find fulfillment in some spiritual motherhood or fatherhood. But for the vast majority of people, the reality is, in addition to any type of spiritual motherhood, fatherhood we could, we could have, we likely will have biological motherhood and fatherhood. So I would say for, for many years. I didn't get married Till I was 40, so, and I started my full time pro life work at the age of 21. So pretty much two decades it looked like, well, she's just prioritizing her career. But what I was doing was prioritizing God's call in my life and it was ministry work that I was doing. And I actually very much longed to have a life's companion and be married and have journals to Jesus. You know, that I started in my 20s being like God, where is my husband? But in the absence of the right relationship, you know, coming along where it was mutual, I went on lots of dates and had various boyfriends. But there was never a time where, you know, it really felt long term, like it's, he likes me, I like him, this is, is this is going to happen. And so I thought, okay, well, in the absence of a spouse, then I'm going to continue to throw myself into ministry work. And I, I was fulfilled certainly to a degree in a type of spiritual maternity, caring for the child in the womb through my arguments and apologetic. But even just, you know, people, women and men that I would encounter, often broken college students, being able to minister to them in a way that was very maternal in a sense, and have conversations and encounters that, that felt that I was tapping into a nurturing aspect that fulfills a woman. But that longing was still there. And so by God's grace and actually by my friendship with Lila, who set me up with my now husband Joe, my husband and I married in 2020, when I think it was three weeks after I turned 40. And so one of the questions we had was how likely will it be that, that we get pregnant at my age? He was even older at 45. But of course men maintain their fertility. It's women who have a narrowing window of fertility. And so the first month we didn't get pregnant, but by month two, I got pregnant. It's like, wow, this is amazing. Like, thank you, God. And I was joyously pregnant for about six weeks and then we miscarried that baby and then we got pregnant again right away. And that's, that's my daughter Violet. And then shortly after she turned, actually just before she turned one, I got Pregnant again and had three more pregnancies in a row and miscarried each of those children. So I've lost four to miscarriage in total. Then had my daughter Molly, who's now 16 months. So I gave birth to her at the age of 43, right before I was 44. So in my experience, yes, I've been very lucky to have gotten married and to have gotten pregnant and to have had two live births at my age. But certainly I'm at the age where people would say, especially because of your high repeat miscarriage rate, a lot of people would recommend IVF for someone like me, saying, you know, you want to find the most viable embryo. So by doing ivf, you can select that in a lab and you can insert those embryos. And of course, I was. I was never going to do that. I was just going to, you know, receive the life that God would give for as long as God would give it. Remembering our goal in life is not length of life. Our goal is heaven. And so for four of my children, they have achieved heaven. And I look forward to that day of reunion. And the rest of us, you know, by God's grace, are still together and experiencing life on this earth. But I will say, in the world of kind of reproductive technologies, one of the things that I became aware of is the importance of not only rejecting ivf, being open to God's will, even if that might mean loss or, you know, dreams not fulfilled, but also seeking help that is ethical. And so that's where the world of restorative reproductive medicine was very helpful to me. And through blood tests, I was able to see that I was low in progesterone. And that can increase your risk of miscarriage. So I credit progesterone as saving the lives of Violet and Molly, which I had to be on for not all, but most of my pregnancies with them. And so something as simple as that, having your blood checked, having a physician oversee your, you know, administration of progesterone, and monitoring whether your levels have to go up or down based on your blood work going up or down. And so it's possible to achieve a healthy pregnancy that comes to term in an ethical fashion that still works within God's designs for children coming as the fruit of. Of sexual intimacy not being manufactured in a lab.

A (30:44)

Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, amazing. We are so thankful for your work and your story and just, yeah, the testimony of you were being faithful to what God was calling you to do in the moment, and God had those other things Ready for you. And you know, we've talked. I talked to a woman from the Netherlands who she was able to get pregnant and her baby only survived outside the. Outside the womb for 10 weeks. And so she was married later in life, but has not been able to. To have a live birth. But she said too, you know, God is faithful and good and still gives good things even when he doesn't give you what you think he's going to give you.

B (31:16)

Yeah, well, yeah, that just reminds me. So. So in the book I wrote on ivf, I really wanted to be able to not just reference my own experiences I just did for you, but talk about the stories of other people who have faced infertility or repeat miscarriage and haven't always had the outcome that would be considered the fairy tale ending. And one of the stories I share is of a friend of mine who I give her a different name in the book. I call her Bethany in the book. And she's very high up in a Christian ministry that if I were to name it, everyone would recognize it. And she and her husband have been married decades and have never conceived. And one of the things she shared in her interview with me that I write about in the book is how she realized she needed to wrestle with the fact that she had turned having children into an idol. And whatever we make our idol is a problem and we need to reject that because God should be the priority of our lives. And she talked about in her interview with me, the moment she came to terms with that, she realized, okay, then I can find fulfillment. I can find my maternity, my motherhood. Not in a way I expected, but still in a different way. And through her work in this Christian ministry, she is a spiritual mother to people all over the world. World. And then she even talks about how in her direct relationships mentoring young women, she experiences what it means to be a mother, even though she's never had her own biological children. So she has found fulfillment. But yeah, not in the way that she would have originally liked and, and which most people would expect, but. But it goes to show that if we're faithful, God can fulfill us. Yeah.

A (32:53)

Beautiful. And I was just going to say you've done so much amazing work. You've got your website, books, speaking events and interviews about all sorts of different pro life topics. I'll make sure all of those are in our notes for people to go and find you. Is there anything you're working on right now that we can be looking forward.

B (33:11)

To in terms of going forward? I do have various book ideas but they're still, I would say, in the. The gestating stage very early trimester. So nothing. Nothing to mention yet. But, yeah, maintaining a degree of involvement in the movement with talks and interviews and. And some writing, while at the same time primarily focusing on. On my two girls who are 16 months.

A (33:34)

Oh, that's amazing. I mean, that's some of the best pro life work there is, is the raising of new human beings.

B (33:39)

Human beings? Yes.

A (33:40)

That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time and all of your work. I'm so grateful we got to speak to you.

B (33:46)

Well, you're welcome. Keep up.