← Them Before Us
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- [00:02]
Katie Faust
Welcome to Them Before Us on American Family Radio, where we strive to put children before adults. Our goal is to educate the public on a child centric perspective of marriage and family and represent the rights of children on policy matters. Now here's the host and founder of Them Before Us, Katie Faust.
- [00:21]
Josh Wood
Welcome to Them Before Us Radio. I'm your host, Katie Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, a global nonprofit that seeks to defend children's right to their mother and father. I'm joined by my executive director, Josh Wood, and we're going to hit some of the trending news items that intersect with marriage and family over the last week. But as always, we start with a little bit of Bible time. And per Josh's great suggestion, we're going to talk about the fifth Commandment, the first commandment with a promise. The first four commandments in Deuteronomy has to do with our relationship to God, but then the last six addresses our relationship to other people and the first people that God is concerned about. The first relationship that he prioritizes is the relationship between parents and children. Now, oftentimes we think about this command as honoring your mother and father. And those of you who have little kids, think about this as just do what you're told. The biblical command had a lot more to do with making sure that you did not abandon or forsake your parents in their old age. And then a lot of it had to do with the communal understanding that parents needed to have children that were obedient. Because when you are wandering in the desert or conquering a foreign land or establishing a new nation, you need to have a chain of command. And that had to be familial first, right? That you needed to have order within society. And that began with children honoring and obeying their parents. Now we look at this and we say, duh, Obviously this makes so much sense, but this commandment actually has pretty significant implications, and it informs and should inform how we think about a lot of the changes taking place in the world of marriage and family. So Josh and I are going to talk about one of the big headlines coming up, and that is that a prominent Fox News host named Guy Benson just announced that he had a second child through surrogacy. This child will be intentionally motherless. And we're going to talk about some of the response that his pregnancy announcement garnered, especially from conservatives. But what is it that we need to think about as it relates to the fifth Commandment when we're talking about making motherless and fatherless children? This is the first command with a promise. Honor your mother and father so that you will live long in the land. Some of this was a safety issue. Look, kids, I told you, don't touch the cobra. I meant don't touch the cobra. Okay? Like, sometimes you just have to do what your parents are told so that you live long in the land. But what we're going to talk about is this idea that children have a right to their mother and father and that honoring that right, if children are raised by their own mom and dad, we know the studies that say they do live longer, they are more likely to thrive. They are less likely to be vulnerable in the areas of behavioral issues or predators or failing to thrive, dropping out of high school, they're able to form and maintain their own relationships better. But what we're doing in this world, especially this legal and cultural world, where we have normalized the manufacturing of motherless and fatherless children, as we have forbade children, through our new fangled progressive mindset, from ever even having a chance to obey the first command with a promise. When we redefine marriage, what we're saying is our preference for validating adult identities is more important than children being able to obey this first command. There's sort of a hole in their ability to function and relate to other humans as God designed. So, Josh, jump in here. Why do you feel like the fifth commandment is relevant for what we're going to be talking about today and just what's happening in culture in general?
- [04:20]
Katie Faust
Well, I can hear, like, the detractors saying things like, you know, well, that's all they knew. And, you know, there wasn't. What was the other option? And I'm like, good, yes, that's exactly right. There wasn't another option. It's. Everything that we've done since is just an artificial construction. When we've placed a child with two men or two women that still required, A, the opposite sex, but B, it is not, at the fundamental level, the truth of that situation. So I even go back to the scene at the cross where all the disciples are gone. And who shows up? John. And what does Jesus say? Behold your mother and meet your son. What he's doing is he's transferring his duty. I mean, just, you know, stay with me for a second at the. One of the last moments of your entire life where if he was just a man, right, and this was his chance to be remembered, and he's scared that he's going to die, he'd be talking about, you know, all of his ideas and make sure that people remember them, all those different things. He's not. He's the Messiah, the Son of God, and he's concerned with ultimate things. And everything he says is going to be incredibly important. And what does he reinforce at that moment? We believe that his dad was probably dead at this point. So his mother, whom he, as a Jewish boy, has a responsibility to take care of. He is making sure that he is taking care of that responsibility, that most fundamental of all relationships, and transferring it to the disciple that didn't run away. Now, is it any coincidence that the only disciple that's not martyred is that same disciple who had the responsibility of caring for Jesus's mother? There's such symbolism in that. And now we deconstruct that to say that doesn't apply to our times, that we don't need to worry about this command to honor our father and mother. There was a. I go to a little Anglican church in. Where I live here in Charlotte, North Carolina, and this church had a woman, an old Korean woman, and she said. Said this, like, stuck to me. It's like my second Sunday at this church. She said, I come from a culture where the elderly are cherished, not just tolerated. They are celebrated, not just tolerated. She was making a comment about how our society has really lost this value. And I was like, oh, my gosh.
- [07:02]
Jen Byers
Wow.
- [07:02]
Katie Faust
Like, it just struck me like, you're right. This honoring that we might have some duty or responsibility to continue to care for or maintain bonds with our mother and father. It did. It's totally escaped our culture. This is not a value that we cherish. Obviously, we're in the middle of redefining what it means to be a kid so that you don't have any mother and father when you come out of the womb. That's what culture would tell you today.
- [07:27]
Josh Wood
It speaks to the primacy of this relationship. You know, Jesus reinforces it through his behavior. But I think that you're right that we assume that children will have a mother and a father because they always have a mother and father. You know, we have made a few waves across parts of the Midwest because we put up a billboard, our nonprofit put up a billboard that said, no child has two moms, and no child has two dads, and the two moms, two dads is in rainbow color. So you know what we're trying to say. And let me just say it has created a bit of an outrage by people talking about how hateful it is and anti science, anti progress. And I'm like, we are just stating what Every culture throughout history has ever known, recognized by every religion throughout every century. It's not a religious statement. It's not a statement that is applies only to the left or the right. It is a human universal. So, of course, the fifth commandment presumes that children will have a mother and father to honor because they still do. We've just figured out ways to legally eliminate them from the child's life and technologically sever them at the moment of conception. And that harms kids. So, Josh, do you want to tell us about what I feel like has, like, rocked the Internet or at least X where I spend most of my time online with this announcement from Guy Benson?
- [08:55]
Katie Faust
Well, get one second on the billboard.
- [08:57]
Josh Wood
My.
- [08:57]
Katie Faust
I think it was my wife. We were talking about it yesterday about these billboards because they're blowing up. I mean, people are. Everybody has commented on this. It probably gotten several million impressions, thousands of comments. It's everywhere she goes. Does it strike you that this is like the most. 100 years ago, this would have been the most uncontroversial. It would have been to the point of stupidity. Like, no kid has two moms. You know, like, fish can swim. Like, people would have been like, why did you buy a billboard that says that? We've gone so far now that to even say that is, yeah, controversial. It's hate speech, they say. I mean, it's unbelievable. So again, it's the water we swim in. We're in the middle of dealing with this billboard and the good conversations it's providing. It's making people think. And Guy Benson, who is a part of Fox News, he posts. I believe he said something to the effect maybe, you know, the exact caption, Katie. But he said something. I welcomed a little girl, I think, or maybe we welcomed a little girl. And it's a picture of him. He is a gay man. I believe he's married to his partner. And this is the second child they brought into the world through surrogacy. Am I getting all my facts right? Well, it was so interesting. He's a conservative. And so the split was apparent almost immediately. You saw some, like Nikki Haley, Dana Perino, saying, congratulations. And then you saw others going, hey, this child is going to be motherless. And you paid for it. Like, you are the reason that this child is being intentionally deprived of a mother. And, you know, we see this all the time with two women that when they deprive a child of their father, that this intentional deprivation is always wrong.
- [10:57]
Josh Wood
I think that we can definitively say that there has been progress on this. And what I mean by progress is. What I mean by progress is those of us that actually believe that children have a right to their mother and father and they should not be bought and sold on the open market. We're one of the very few voices to decry announcements like this. Five, seven years ago, you know, when Dave Rubin made his pregnancy announcement with his partner about their twins, most of the major conservative platforms were cheering them on. They got official congratulations from the Blaze TV from Prageru, from major. You know, they got onesies sent to them by Ron DeSantis. And now there's fewer and fewer, and there's more and more. Not just the normies who always objected, not just the ordinary people who literally are touching grass. It has been harder for the elites, especially within the conservative circles, to denounce this because it's their friend. And there really is something that will cloud the judgment when there is a personal stake in it for you, whether it's your own romantic or sexual agenda or desire that gets in the way, or it has to do with the possibility of the severance of your social bonds, social connection, friendship. We are relational creatures. We need those connections. God made us to be relational creatures. That's why we've got six commands that speak to right relationship between us and others. And so the thought of weakening, threatening, or losing a relationship with somebody that we love or that is our friend because we disagree with what they are doing, unfortunately, has driven more conservatives, more conservatives, who, with any other issue looking at the major social ills that we've got facing us today, would be the first ones to say, fathers matter, mothers are important until it's their friend. So we've seen a shift. I have seen a shift in the number of quote, unquote elites, the number of conservatives with large platforms that are saying, this is wrong. I condemn it. Our friend Steve Dace over at the Blaze quote, tweeted Guy Benson's picture of him holding the baby and said, adorable, where's the mother? And that was repeated about 100 times, that kind of sentiment by a lot of people with pretty large platforms. So I'm encouraged because I think that we are not the only people that have done it, but we are one of the dominant voices that has widened the Overton window, that has helped people feel like, I can actually say that I don't like this now.
- [13:41]
Katie Faust
Yeah, I think, you know, it's continuing to push the idea that when people see that, they ask the question that Steve did, where is the mother? The children have two moms or sorry, the children have a mother and a father. Not two moms, not two dads. I think even just breaking the cultural fever around that. So people begin to question, where did that baby come from? How did it get here? What did it lose? And pushing back on this, hey, these are two dads. It's like, wait a second, a mother and a father are a fact. You don't get to feel your way into being a father. This is something we have to question. And like we had some really great people pushing back on. They're beginning to say this isn't right. You know, no more.
- [14:26]
Josh Wood
If you are not following our work on social media or on substack, get over there. Because the reason why people feel more empowered to push back and the reason why it's making a difference is because we are objecting on the grounds that this harms children. Sometimes you don't know how to say that. We will tell you exactly how to say that. We are here to equip you.
- [14:46]
Sam
Stay tuned.
- [14:46]
Josh Wood
We're going to hit some more headlines in the next segment.
- [15:02]
Katie Faust
Welcome back to Them Before US on American Family Radio.
- [15:06]
Josh Wood
Welcome back to them before U.S. radio. I'm your host Katie Foust. Here with them before us, executive director Josh Wood. And we're going to talk about two other stories that that caught our attention this week. The first one was this devastating, fascinating news story about two Colorado connected families that are suing a North Dakota hospital after a 36 year old man discovered that he was raised by the wrong parents. So there was some kind of hospital mix up where families went home with the wrong baby boys and nobody knew. Nobody knew for 36 years until one of them took a DNA test. So, Josh, tell us a little bit about what happened in this story and what it actually tells us about the importance of marriage and family.
- [15:58]
Katie Faust
So these two men were switched at birth in 1988 at the same hospital, raised for decades by the wrong family with no cousins, no resemblance and no answers until a home DNA kit unraveled it. Now both sets of biological parents have now met their real sons, though the two men raised in each other's families have not yet met one another. It's a super interesting, you know, point in the story. The hospital says it sympathizes with the families but has no records or staff left from 1988 to confirm what happened. The case asks some good questions about identity and origin, what a hospital's mistake can cost. Two people who spent their entire lives loved by the wrong mother and father.
- [16:44]
Josh Wood
So here's the thought. You guys are listening to this and you hear, these two men were switched at birth. Now, do any of you think, awesome, that's fine. No big deal. All of you know that that is a jaw dropping, stomach churning, massive mistake. You understand the implications. You understand the implications by listening to these men. You know, one of whom said, hey, it was really weird. I never had anybody look like me. I never had any family members or cousins resemble me. And they were both loved. Well, loved by the people that raised them, who believed that they were their own child. But there was some kind of biological identity that was missing. So all of us can listen to that and go, oh, these poor men. But be honest. You don't want to take the wrong baby home from the hospital. You want a specific baby. And if you found out that your baby went home with somebody else and you didn't discover it for 36 days, let alone 36 years, you would be devastated and you would be crying out. You would want heads to roll for that mistake because you understand that there is something special about your children, about the connection you have with your children. So that's a given. We listen to stories like this and we go, duh. Of course, this is a terrible tragedy. And yet we can just as easily turn the page and say, but love makes a family, but biology is irrelevant. But, you know, maybe somebody can use somebody else's sperm or somebody else's wig or somebody else's entire embryo, like unrelated adults. Two men, two women can raise somebody else's baby. And love makes a family. And it's all okay because the child was so wanted and they spent so much money trying to have the child? Isn't that child going to be more cherished than the person, the kid who was conceived by the oopsie in the backseat and the one night stand? No. Like these stories that garner such understandable outrage should actually point us back to the fact that what is going on in the world of big fertility and the demise of the natural family in the name of progress is actually a violation of the needs and the rights of children and the respect for genuine parental rights.
- [19:04]
Katie Faust
So, Katie, but what if I told you some of these guys one thing they have is they are equally upset with their parents, their social mother and father and their biological mother and father. Everybody is angry. Everybody is upset. There's something significant about that. What if I told you
- [19:28]
Jen Byers
that.
- [19:28]
Katie Faust
What if the story had gone differently and what came out was family number one saw family number two's baby and decided that baby has Red hair. So I want family number two's baby. So I went to them and I offered them $50,000. Thank you for birthing him. Now I take the baby home and I'm giving you my baby. Now picture them finding out 30 years later, what would the conversation be then? You financed this. This is your fault. I don't know my parents because you paid them to give me up. And then going to the parents, was I worth $50,000 to you? Like that?
- [20:10]
Sam
It does.
- [20:11]
Katie Faust
It begins to really shift. You go, well, that would be significantly more traumatic. We fail to recognize and see the parallel here that this is occurring every single day in third party reproduction. You do have adults purchasing and swapping their child out for one for the other in this situation and doing it on purpose. So when that kid grows up, they're not mourning with adults. They're saying, this is a tragedy. They're saying, you did this to me. And probably, finally, there's a big difference between us recognizing this is a horrible thing, this shouldn't have happened. And maybe there is a lawsuit because they were negligent. It's a whole different thing entirely to say, no, I think this is fine. This is good, actually. This is no different. We should adjust all of our laws, all of our family laws to accommodate that. So if any adults want to do it this way, be completely unconnected to their child, they should be able to do that.
- [21:13]
Josh Wood
I think that is such a good point. These children are angry. The parents are angry. The hospital is absolutely embarrassed and apologizing for the fact that their records have no indication of who was even on staff at the time that this happened.
- [21:30]
Katie Faust
Right.
- [21:31]
Josh Wood
Everyone's demanding answers and no money changed hands, and yet everybody understands that a tragedy has occurred. So do you think that if the parents wanted it that way and paid for that kind of genealogical bewilderment in their kids, that that would make it better for the kids? Do you think that that helps them feel better about the disconnect that they have with the people that are raising them. It doesn't. At least these two boys could say, my parents are innocent in that they didn't want this to, to happen. And they probably are looking at the child they lost going, oh, no, I missed out on them. That is altogether unlike what children who are conceived through sperm selling, sperm buying, egg selling, egg buying and surrogacy experience they are experiencing. They're going through the same kind of biological identity struggles, the same kind of possible disconnect with the people raising them. But those kids are being told it is good and you should like it because we wanted it that way. It just introduces this whole new layer of psychological burden on behalf of kids. So we just, we've got a schizophrenia going on in the way that we think about this. We look at a situation of a 36 year old, two 36 year old men that were swapped at birth and we mourn and we say, this is terrible, head should roll. We turn around and we say, hey, but you know what? It's great when Guy Benson and his quote unquote husband intentionally sever a child from their genetic mother, pay their birth mother to hand her parental rights over and raise that child in a motherless house where they're going to be losing 50% of their biological identity. That's something we can get behind.
- [23:19]
Katie Faust
Well, take, take for a second. It's important to maybe pause on these parents saying I want to sue. Okay, great. Why? It's like, well, is it because the adult didn't get what they wanted? Is it because there was harm done to the child? I think that's something that we're still working out as a society because again in kind of your point, painting that picture, I honestly think right now our society says, oh well, if the adults would have been okay with it, then the harm didn't exist. What we're saying, what we're advocating for is we have to return back to. It was the disconnect of the biological origin. Because in truth, if these parents had done this differently, if IVF would have been around, they could have swapped embryos, signed the pre parentage orders and those two kids would have gone home. Now if this comes out, it's a tragedy for who? Well, the kids need to get over it. The adults got what they wanted. That's how our whole society functions right now is if the adults got it. And it strikes me because as a 36 year old, now I'm 35, would I be in that situation saying to my parents, I'm only allowed to be upset if you didn't want me? Am I only allowed to be upset because this isn't what you ordered? You know, there's a certain level of trying to center and name and define what is the actual harm in swapping the babies,
- [24:59]
Josh Wood
as many of you regular listeners will know, and if you're not a regular listener, what are you even doing? What are you doing? We are the place where you're going to come to understand why we need to defend children's rights and what the threats to them are. We are spearheading A national coalition to overturn gay marriage. AFA is a part of that. If you go to greaterthancampaign.com you can see all the other incredible national and state level partners that are collaborating with us to retake marriage on behalf of children because it leads directly to the commodification of kids. It leads directly to children being treated as customizable products. The exact effect that these two 36 year old men experienced. But in the name of a new adult civil right with lots of money that took place. And so, you know, I tweeted this morning that with Guy Benson's announcement that thankfully has produced an awful lot of outrage, especially among principled conservatives. I said what did you expect gay marriage to do? Did you just think it was going to be hospital visitations or tax benefits, most of which could be secured through different legal mechanisms or powers of attorney? No. The whole point of gay marriage was to make it easier for unrelated adults to acquire children and customize them. And that leads us to this, the next story that we had to talk about, which is this kind of viral news headline that said that there were two men, a same sex couple, who sued their surrogate because, and I believe she was in Canada or the, the couple was in Canada and they sued the surrogate mother because like most surrogate commissioning parents, they did a DNA test, they did a genetic test, they did some testing after the child had already developed and discerned that the child had a cleft lip. Now that is surgically repairable. Some of them are very extreme. This child's cleft palate, cleft lip wasn't that extreme. It could easily been surgically repaired. But they found out that their product was going to be deficient and they demanded an abortion. And the surrogate mother said no. She said, I love this child. I'm not going to let you kill this child just because it has a defect. And so she carried the child to term. Amazingly, that child is now living with the two men that wanted it dead and they are suing her. They are suing the surrogate for their emotional distress. So takeaways, Josh, on this story that really exposes everything that is wrong with the on demand designer baby industry that is being promoted as family building.
- [27:54]
Katie Faust
Well, the two, the two situations we've covered today actually highlighted the problem. In the first situation, there's a swap that occurs and it's only because the parents object that it's an issue at all. It's not like a child born to unrelated born and then transferred to unrelated adults which is commonplace now through third party reproduction. Is ever able to sue his egg donor, AKA mother, egg, or sperm donor, AKA father. He can't sue them and say, you gave me up. Why? Because our legal system prioritizes right now the parents, whether they're the commissioning parents or the intended parents, whatever you want to call them, it's not centered around the child. In this situation, it's the same thing. Is this child able to sue the two men for trying to kill her or kill him? It's his son. Yeah. Trying to kill him. No, he can't. But those two men can sue the woman who kept him alive for their trauma. Our whole legal system doesn't protect life, and it certainly doesn't protect the connection of the child to the mother. That's why I think what we do is so fundamental, is do we believe at our core that the child comes out of the womb with rights, with the right to life, the right that they belong with a certain two people, a mother and a father, or do we believe that they are just an asset to be allocated and not a person to be protected? That question is the defining question of our day. That this redefinition of the child to make them this nameless, faceless, detached product to be customized and placed, that definition, that redefinition is being pushed by adults because when that child has strong rights and strong protectors, it's very hard to do with them what you want to do.
- [29:50]
Josh Wood
If this is the first time you're thinking through issues like this, and if you're going, what on earth is going on? We are buying and selling children. We are eliminating the undesirables, and we are doing it under legally validated processes. Welcome to our world. Yeah, welcome to the world where it is time to get very serious about defending children, not just from the baby taking industry of abortion, of which you're probably pretty aware and justifiably angry about, it is time to get serious about defending children's rights in the family. Their ability to honor the fifth commandment, their need to be safe and loved by the two people statistically who are most able to provide it for them. Their need to not be eliminated because they're a defective product or eugenically screened out of existence through in vitro fertilization and the mass production of embryos. There are so many threats to children, and it is time for you to understand what they are and speak up about it. And we exist for that. We are working on laws that would criminalize people that traffic in children in the name of family.
- [30:58]
Jen Byers
Building.
- [30:59]
Josh Wood
We are working to retake marriage on behalf of children by overturning Obergefell. We are, we are working to equip you so that you are able to have these conversations with your friends. So go to thembeforeus.com and subscribe to our substack twice a week. We are going to arm you to the teeth to be able to understand exactly what kind of threats children are facing and what you can do to stand between them and the powers that seek to victimize them. Children need defense and unfortunately, even some people within the Christian community don't understand what those threats are. But we, the followers of Christ, are charged with child protection. And it's not just from sex offenders and it's not just from trafficking. It is in these fundamental matters of defending their right to life and the right to their mother and father. We all need to get on board. We have to put them before us. We have to to prioritize child protection.
- [32:01]
Katie Faust
If you'd like to comment on the show, email comments thembeforeus.com hey everyone.
- [32:08]
Sam
Welcome to here for the a Them Before Us podcast series where we dive into the comments and questions we get online and we unpack the children's rights perspective that we use to answer them. I'm your host, Jen by Sam, and we are here for the comments. Sam, tell us what we're talking about to start off today.
- [32:25]
Jen Byers
Yes. Okay, so if you've been listening to the radio, Josh and Katie actually already covered some of this, but we wanted to cover the reaction to it. If you are not coming from radio, you're just coming from maybe YouTube. Basically, we have on X, it says here a gay couple in Canada is now suing a woman who was their surrogate because she didn't abort their baby after finding out that the baby had possible birth defects. And it turns out it was like a cleft lip and there was like a possible heart defect that ended up being nothing. The baby was actually born healthy. And so now this is actually years later. The baby, I think, is already like 2 years old. It's a toddler. The baby is in their care and yet they're still going back and trying to fight this woman, the surrogate who brought their baby to this world and suing her because they asked her to get an abortion and it was in her contract that she was supposed to if they asked, and she chose not to abort. So my first question was, where is this child? Because it's crazy to be suing somebody saying, you didn't kill our child. While being their parent actively. So the baby is with them. Which is so crazy to me that like you couldn't just. You wouldn't be thankful that your baby is. She's the only reason your baby's alive today, your son, your child is. Because she said no. And it was a later term abortion. So it's not like the baby was like six weeks along and you oh, this baby might have like severe heart defects. It was past 20 weeks. This baby was viable outside of the womb. And they did further testing and it found out that it wasn't actually going to be an issue at all. So all just a lot of wild stuff. We wanted to kind of COVID some of the takes from other people because I feel like things have just shifted. I feel like between surrogacy and like whenever a gay couple now announces that they're having a child and. And later term abortion, there is a lot more people on our side than I felt like before. You know, before. I feel like there were so many people who were defending these things and now everyone seems to be speaking out against them.
- [34:35]
Sam
Even more liberal people on Twitter on X are commenting things like what happened to her body, her choice? Or someone said trying to force a woman to get an abortion is the evilest thing I've read in a quite, quite a while. Daniel says, who looks at their child and thinks I need to sue someone because I'm disgusted by your existence. And some folks have pointed out a cleft lip is the kind of facial deformity that looks a little bit jarring. That's actually like a pretty common. I mean it's a surgery that is done semi often. Right. It's not like you're being. You're being born without skin on your face. And this is like some. Because they'll often folks on the left will justify abortion if there's these really horrific disabilities where the child will be in a lot of pain or they will be in more of a vegetative state or those sorts of things. Full disclosure, I think it's still wrong to murder people if they're going to have a disability. But people on the left at least are sort of making some sort of justification like your organs, you're being born with your organs outside your body. That's horrific. But we're talking about a gap in your lips that has some other features and issues that come along with it. I'm sure it makes it more difficult to eat and to nurse and things like that. That is like a common enough surgery that all of us probably know, someone who's had. I've known, like, at least two or three people who've had this surgery when they were children. So they're sort of losing the plot, I think, is the term. And like you said, even the folks who would probably lean a little more toward being pro abortion, it's hitting some of the things even they have an issue with.
- [36:17]
Josh Wood
Oh, it's late term.
- [36:18]
Sam
Oh, I don't know how I feel about men telling women when to abort. So it's kind of getting people on our side just because of how extreme these stories are.
- [36:27]
Jen Byers
Yeah. I mean, again, this. This is what opened the door, though. Like, you have this contract that says if we tell you you have to abort, then you have to abort, which is so crazy to me. Like, that a woman. It was funny one comment that I made, because when you're reading these articles, I'm. I'm really trying to flesh out, like, like, her perspective, their perspective in. And read it from all angles. And one thing that she said is she said she felt used. And I put. I made my own post, but I said, obviously the gay couple is more in the wrong here because they wanted their baby dead and they're mad that the baby's not dead, and they're literally suing the mother of the baby because the baby's not dead. That's pretty. That's the most extreme take you can have. But she also is, like, quote, you know, at f all, because, like, of course you feel used. You literally rented out your uterus and you sold your baby. And you're mad because the contract you signed said that you had to do something you didn't want to do. Like, you literally let them use you. That was the whole. That's the whole point of surrogacy is you're using someone else's body to do something for you. You know, people want to talk about, like, oh, you. What did the pro choicers always say to us? Like, you just want an incubator. And it's like, this is literally that. Okay.
- [37:38]
Sam
Like, you don't care about babies after they're bored.
- [37:41]
Jen Byers
Yeah, yeah. That's literally that. Like, you're like, oh, you just see women as incubators. And it's like, no, we. We quite literally don't. But you guys are the ones who are supporting this practice that uses women as incubators. She's supposed to just be a machine for these men to use so they can get what they want. And so, yeah, it was just one of those things where it's like, you know, if you don't want to feel used, like, don't rent yourself out.
- [38:05]
Sam
There's an idea. Well, and, you know, to play devil's advocate on the side, let's say I'm pro surrogacy. This is a product. They're paying thousands of dollars. You signed a contract. You agreed to do it. So why do you think you can just refuse to follow through on the contract? You're giving us a defective product we paid thousands of dollars for. You've probably gone through, you know, you go through these genetics screening websites, and you've screened your embryo to make sure they're going to be tall and smart and blonde hair and blue eyes. Right? Because you can't have a problem with that if you're. If you're okay with surrogacy and love makes a family. And what's your problem with eugenics? This is the problem. Like, these are all these ethical questions folks who are supporting this stuff would have to come up against, but they want to pretend they won't. They want to pretend you don't have to talk about it. But these folks paid for a product, and she's refusing to follow through on what she committed to. So if you're going to treat humans like products and she's just an employee producing a product, well, isn't the customer always right? So it's interesting how. And this is Canada, I'm pretty sure. So how is the court going to look at this arrangement? How are they going to rule? Are they going to see this as human beings and have to face the qu.
- [39:22]
Katie Faust
Ooh.
- [39:22]
Sam
How do we feel about human beings being bought and sold? Or are they going to see it as a product and contract law? Because then it seems pretty cut and dry. You delivered a defective product and you violated your contract. So you have to pay him $6,000 or $600,000. I forget what they were asking. Something huge.
- [39:39]
Jen Byers
Yeah, 600,000. It was over half a million. Again, this is a poor single mom, which is also the majority of surrogates is poor single moms who need money. And so this is the only way that they can see. It's like the same idea as, like, a prostitute. Same idea as, like, like, you know, these women who are like, well, it's the only way I know how to make money. And I have to. I have to provide for my family. So it's like, again, you're taking advantage of these people. And it's also their own fault. They sign up for it, but at the same time, like, she's poor, she's trying to make ends meet. So it's really. It's really hard. And I know Katie also mentioned, I'm sure she mentioned before this again. Oftentimes it's like you have this woman who isn't even the biological mother of this child, most likely, but because she's growing this baby and she has this attachment to them, it's often that woman who is. Who's in between them and, like, trying to protect them from the people who want their product. Because, you know, it's actually, it's not like, I'd say the majority of cases, but it's not unheard of. It's not uncommon for people who hire surrogates to decide that they want to have an abortion because there's something that went wrong along the way. Usually if there's any incident along the way, they're just like, no, let's stop. I want to restart. Let's, you know, get a fresh baby, a new one that is healthy. And so it's these surrogate women who are attached to the babies because it's growing inside of them who step up and say, actually, no, I want to protect this child. So we've heard many cases about that. It's also funny. I posted a lot about this and I got some pushback about, like, I would call her a mother of the surrogate because she is a mother. She's the gestational mother. She's the birth mother, even if she's not the biological mother. And I had this one guy named Greg, and he said, like, that's not a birth mother. And I said, hold on, Greg, you're gonna have to walk me through this. What do you think happens at the end of a surrogate's pregnancy when the baby needs to be birthed? Who does that? Because if it's not her and it's somebody else who's the birth mother, you're gonna have to let me know because I'm pretty sure only one woman can do the birthing, and it's the one who. Who's been carrying the baby. So that is the birth mother. That's her. Her role in this child's life. And yeah, no, it's people. I am glad to see, again, the reaction because if you look under the comment section of these articles, the vast majority of people. I can. I honestly haven't even seen many people defend it. I think almost everybody is against it. So that's really refreshing.
- [42:10]
Sam
Yeah, I'm seeing a few comments from folks even more prominent Conservatives or blue check marks on X that are saying gay, gay people buying babies, gay surrogacy should be banned. Should be outlawed. Real quick, our position is it should all be banned. It should all be outlawed. We do not care about the identity of the adults. We don't care about who the adults sleep with they are attracted to. That is not the point of why surrogacy is wrong. There's something particularly disturbing, I think, for women when you think of a baby being taken from birth mom and handed to a single dad by choice or gay men. Because even more than a male female couple, you at least have something in your head of like, well, the baby has a mom. It's still wrong. You're still being taken from your birth mom. All of those things are still bad. We still think it should be outlawed. But it's different when you're handed to a woman and you have a man and a woman together raising a child, but when you're handed to just a man or two men and you just know the baby will be crying for that woman, she'll be crying for the birth mom, no matter who's holding her going forward. But it's like being raised by men as. As a woman, I just cannot fathom being raised without my mom on purpose. Like someone paying extra money to make sure I never get to know her, never held by her. And Katie talks about this on the Josh Howerton the LifePoint Church Podcast. If you guys haven't seen it, it was super great they did that. They watched that clip of the baby going, mama, mama. And the gay dads that are like, you don't have a mama. And it's just the most basic need for a child is when they start, their lip starts to quiver and they're looking for emotional connection. Katie points this out. She's like, the dads just kept being playful, she said, because that's what dads do. That's what men do. But in that moment when the baby starts to quiver and wants mama a moment, pulls the baby in and snuggles them. Oh, sweetie, I'm right here. Men don't do that. Not in the same way. Not that they don't cuddle comfort, but they don't do it the same way as women. And of course, they weren't intuitive for that moment. To them, it's a joke. Oh, it's funny. He thinks he has a mom. He doesn't have a mom. He does have a mom. You paid for her to disappear. You bought her egg, you rented someone else's Womb. He's lost two women. Now, that should be one woman. Or he's lost three women. That should be one woman. An egg mom, a birth mom, a social mom. He has a mom. He should have a mom. That's the way God intended it. That's the way nature, natural law intended it. And they can only laugh about it because if you face the reality, it's too gruesome and horrific, I think, for them to even recognize for themselves what they did to children. So we're against it for everyone because a child gets pulled from that woman in a hundred percent of surrogacies.
- [45:02]
Jen Byers
Yeah, no, 100%. We. There's. Again, we have enough studies on this. But also, I feel like it doesn't take studies. You know, anybody who is a mom who delivered a child, who has a baby, it's like, it's kind of common sense, like, about, you know, intuitive is the perfect word you used earlier where it's like a mom would intuitively take that child and cuddle them and comfort them. And that's exactly what it is. Like when I had two children. And like, the first initial reaction, first of all, when you give birth, it's like you're. You're in a whole different placement mentally. Like, you're not even in that room. You're just, like, in the moment. You're focused on just, like, the nature of what you're doing. And when that baby comes out, your reaction is to always bring that baby to you. And that baby's reaction is to want you. And it's because you already have this bond that has been building for nine months, and you already know each other, but you're seeing each other for the first time, and you just want to be closer. And I. I used to swear, like, obviously I was. I was very hormonal after you have a baby, but, like. Like, for months after, I felt like I was so intuitive about the baby's needs, I felt like we were like one person where it's like every time he would, like, make a specific kind of cry, I would know what kind of cry it was. Like, oh, that's his cry that says, I'm hungry. That's his cry that says, I need a diaper change. That's his cry that says that he's tired, but he's having a hard time sleeping. Like, I literally could recognize the type of cries. And my husband's just like, oh, the baby's crying, you know, and like, he. My husband's like, a very, you know, good dad. Like, he's very there. He was helpful along the way. He fed the baby, he changed the diapers. He was excited to be a dad for the first time. All the things he's not like some guy who's just always gone all the time. But he still didn't have that intuition that I had just because I literally have known this baby for nine months in me and delivered them and was connected to them and you know, nursing them and all the things. Like mothers just have such a special unique relationship with their babies. We are the number one person that they are bonded to and that knows them best. And it's just, it's so sad to me to know that like she gave birth and instead of putting that baby on her chest, she had to like hand the baby over to strangers. You know, obviously she didn't know these men. They're not her best friends. It's not her brother. It's literally like two gay men that just hired her. And again, she shouldn't have said yes a little bit on her. But it's tragedy, you know, that baby, we really just wanted his mom.
- [47:24]
Sam
Yeah, 100%. Well, with our final 30 seconds here, let me just plug some of the things you'll find. If you go to thembefore us.com or go to our substack thembefore us.substack.com you'll find stories of kids who've grown up they kids of surrogacy, kids raised by same sex parents, kids of divorce, kids that have been donor conceived. You can find research and studies. So head over to those readings resources and get connected. That's all the time we have for today. Thanks so much for joining us. We enjoy hanging out in the comments with all of you reacting with that children's rights perspective and we will catch you guys next time.
- [47:58]
Jen Byers
See you.
- [48:11]
Josh Wood
The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast do not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.