Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 877 | Should Gay Couples Adopt? | Guest: Katy Faust (Part Two)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

Starting point is 00:00:19 We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. There are over a million embryos, little tiny image bearers of God, frozen on ice in the United States, created through IVF. What's the answer to this? Should Christians be adopting these embryos? We'll be getting into this question, also talking more about the ethical problems with surrogacy,

Starting point is 00:01:04 surrogacy contracts, IVF in general, and then answering some policy questions for centering on children and their welfare in this episode of Relatable, which is with Katie Faust, founder and director of them before us. This is part two of a two-part conversation. Go back and listen to part one for the full context. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Goodreachers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use Code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com. Code Alley.

Starting point is 00:01:43 So for these a million, you said, a million embryos. And as pro-lifers, we believe that those are human beings made in the image of God. We know that those are human beings made in the image of God. What do you think about, I'm sure you get this question a lot. I do too. What do you think about adoption of these frozen embryos, their people? So are all of those babies that you just talked to. about at these orphanages. So what's what's the right answer? If someone wants to adopt one of these

Starting point is 00:02:12 frozen embryos, they're deciding between that and maybe, you know, a five-year-old or a child who already, who is, you know, walking around in the world, like what's what's the right and moral way to think about that? So the first thing that we need to realize is that when conception occurs, the people responsible for that child are the child's parents. And, you know, I would say in the world of an unplanned pregnancy, the solution is not adoption and it's not abortion. It's parenting. If you have a child that you have created through sex, the solution is for you to parent them, for you to reorient your life, you and the father around the baby. So the child's right to life is protected and the child's right to be known in love by their mother and father is protected.

Starting point is 00:02:59 So the same is true with children who are frozen, surplus children, the ones that are on ice. It's not somebody else's job, right? We don't want to kill the child because they are a surplus kid. And it's not the job of somebody else to come in and raise the child. They are your babies. You made them. Go get them. You might have to take out a loan, buy a bigger house, re-organize your career plan.

Starting point is 00:03:24 I know, I know a lot of even Christians who made $20,000. 12 embryos and because you need to have multiple embryos available for a bunch of different tries. And the first two tries were successful. And some of them didn't make it. And now they've got two kids and they're busy and they're spending money on those kids and now their career is taking a different turn. They're paying the storage fee for these seven kids. The solution is not to donate. So here's, all right, here we go. The American Society for Reproductive of medicine has some recommendations for what you do with those surplus embryos. The first option is to thaw and discard.

Starting point is 00:04:09 So I mean, like, think, I mean, the dehumanizing language is already just crazy, right? Thaw them and discard them. The second option is to donate them to research, right? Destroy those little lives so that we can better figure out how to increase our fertility rate successes in the future. the third suggestion that they have is donate the baby to another couple. Okay. So none of those three options honors children's right to life and right to be known and loved by their mother and father.

Starting point is 00:04:39 The only option where children are not bearing the burden for adults, further bearing the burden for adults is for the adults who created them to go back and get them and put them in their womb and give them a chance at life. That is the only child honoring option. Now, we've got a million kids on ice in this country. By some estimates, 20 to 40% of them have been functionally abandoned. Some of them have been on ice for 30 years or more. Some of their parents have died. Some of them are not paying the storage fee and they can't even track them down. So what do you do for those kids?

Starting point is 00:05:14 Well, the answer is not to thaw and discard them or donate them to research or donate them to another couple. In that situation, the extreme cases where there's no option to protect the right to life or to protect the right to their mother and father, the only child honoring option is not embryo donation. It's embryo adoption. And that is where the prospective parents go through an adoption process and they are screened. Like every other adoptive couple has to be screened, where whenever possible we opt for an open adoption where the child is going to have access to their birth parents and at least information about who their birth parents. parents are, if not an ongoing relationship. But then in those situations, you need to be aware that that is not a cost-free situation for the child. And in that situation, when we are properly understanding embryo adoption, not embryo donation, that is adults doing hard things on behalf of children. Those couples need to go in with the mindset of, I am here to shepherd you through

Starting point is 00:06:17 what is going to be the kind of questions that children in our species have never had to ask ever before, right? Why is it that I am older than I'm genetically older than my own mother? Right. You're going to have to answer those questions to your kids. Why is it that, you know, I was born and, you know, my parents had already died by the time that I was born. And we are going to have some incredible struggles parenting those kids. So parents who are mothers and fathers through traditional adoption, we already know that these kinds of questions are coming for our kids, right? We already know that they're asking us, why? Why did my mom or dad give me up? You know, why is it that I was removed from my home? And we've already recognized that part of what we're going to do as a mom or

Starting point is 00:07:02 dad is shepherd our children through what's very often painful questions. So people who are adopting embryos are going to have to prepare for a whole other level of that. So it is, it is not a baby needs of womb. Parents can, you know, help out. ding problem solved kind of thing. It is, first of all, the people who made the baby need to go get the baby. But if there's no other option, then embryo adoption is the way to go. Now, the sperm and egg donor children that I know, most of them don't support embryo adoption at all because they are concerned that both on a public level but also in terms of the industry,

Starting point is 00:07:45 that it won't do anything to stem the tide of the mass creation of surplus embryo. If there's a perception that, oh, no problem, the surplus embryos are just going to get adopted, then there's really no stop, right? There's no reason for either the public to say, that doesn't seem right, or for the fertility industry to say, maybe we shouldn't do this very often. So it's a very complicated question. All I can say is that if you do go into it, it has to be with the child in mind, not because it's solving a problem for you.

Starting point is 00:08:21 Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling

Starting point is 00:08:52 to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch. watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. And I would also say that you should be able to implant if you are going to do that, which I agree there's, you know, it's very complicated. And while we don't say that the five-year-old's life is more important than the embryo's life, we don't say that. That's part of why we're pro-life.

Starting point is 00:09:25 But also like there's a, I was just say like there's a lot of questions when you're deciding also like why you want to adopt. an embryo versus why you wouldn't want to adopt the five-year-old. There's even some heart individual things that I think someone should pray and think through. But I think that you would agree that you also need to be able to implant that embryo in you as the mother. Because I've heard of couples. I got a message the other day saying, okay, here's a couple. It's actually their own embryo, so it's a little bit different. I could see a scenario where it's not the own embryo. So this couple, they have an embryo on ice, but the mother has been told you cannot carry a child anymore.

Starting point is 00:10:06 You can't, she might have even had a hysterectomy. She can't carry a child. So they are considering hiring a surrogate to carry their embryo. That's a very difficult situation. As someone who is not for indefinitely freezing that child, discarding that child, and also not for a surrogacy. That, really my answer is like, well, that's why we shouldn't have gotten into this. problem in the first place, but you're there. Okay, so whether it's that situation or you've got a couple that maybe they're older, they're 45, and they're like, you know what, we want to adopt this embryo, but we need to hire a surrogate to do it. I would say no, at least in that second situation, no, you shouldn't be adopted an embryo. I don't know the answer to the first situation

Starting point is 00:10:51 when it's your own embryo. I just don't know the answer. Well, it's, you know, I get Google alerts every day for surrogacy and for a variety of different, you know, tags. And regularly things will come up. Like right now, there is a couple whose baby is stuck in Mexico. You know, this New Jersey couple created a child using an egg donor. The father's sperm, they went to Mexico because it was a lot cheaper than using a white womb to go, you know, gestate their child. But now the courts won't let the baby come back to the United States and they're stuck.

Starting point is 00:11:24 Why? Why are they stuck? Because they have participated. in a practice that is virtually indistinguishable from child trafficking. Right, right. In adoption, right, there's a lot, you know, we talk at them before us, we talk about how, from the children's rights perspective, adoption and reproductive technologies are polar opposites in terms of the way that the practice is conducted.

Starting point is 00:11:48 And one of the big differences is in adoption, you can never, never pay the birth parents for the baby. Right. That's like there are all kinds of safeguards to ensure. that money never goes from the people that are going to be adopting the child to the people that are the child's first family. You can't pay the birth mother, you can't pay the extended family, you can't pay the father. If you do, it's no longer an adoption. It is trafficking. So what happens in surrogacy is the mother and father, the intended mother and the biological father are directly paying the surrogate for the baby. And from international practice, like especially when you're

Starting point is 00:12:26 looking at inter-country adoption. That is child trafficking. And so, of course, as always, the news is framing this as, oh, my gosh, this couple is suffering so bad. They can't get their baby home. And the reality is it's his baby, but it's not her egg. It's never been her womb. And so, like, is it her baby?

Starting point is 00:12:47 Right. They are paying two different women, the genetic mother and the birth mother, to hand over her baby to somebody else. And so these conflicts come up. Oh, what do we do? Now we've got this child that's stateless and can't, you know, go home to their parents. Maybe we should legitimize commercial surrogacy. No, when you come into challenges like we have an IVF child, now I don't have a womb, should we use a surrogate? The answer is not, let's legitimize, incentivize, and endorse these scenarios. We need to step back and say, how do we never get into this scenario ever again? This should never be happening. But instead, you take these. sort of problem cases and say, look how hard this is on adults. Maybe we should make this easier on them. The answer is no. We need to go back to the reality that you should not be violating children's right to life through these technologies. You shouldn't be violating children's rights to their mother and father. So there's confusion about who the mother is. And you shouldn't be

Starting point is 00:13:44 violating children's right to be in relationship with the only woman that they know and paying her to sever that bond. No. Like when there are troubled scenarios, you need to be a say maybe we should cease the activity and the practice is creating these troubled scenarios. Yeah, exactly. Paris Hilton a few months ago, I'm sure you saw this story. She said that she has, there's so many problems just in this headline, just in this quote alone, that they have 20 embryos on ice. You know, they have unlimited money so they can do this. They have 20 embryos on ice. The reason that they're not implanting those, though, is because they're all boys. And she's waiting for a girl. So obviously there's a problem. She's not going to implant all 20. She's probably going to

Starting point is 00:14:29 discard them, donate them, whatever. Maybe she'll definitely pay for them to stay on ice because she has some kind of guilt, although she probably doesn't know fully why. But a lot of people don't understand, one, how common it is to have at least one or two children still on ice when it comes to even Christian IVF couples. But also, you mentioned this earlier, the eugenics process that goes into this. Oh, this is a strong embryo. This embryo doesn't have genetic anomalies. This one is a boy.

Starting point is 00:15:00 I'm always so, I'm always so stunned at how many, for example, like when two men are using the IVF and surrogacy process, like how lucky they get to have two twin boys or to have a boy and a girl or to have, I mean, it seems like the gender they want is. the gender they get. I think people don't realize, like, how often eugenics actually plays a part in the IVF process, not for everyone, but I think it's a lot more common than we realize, and we don't call it eugenics. I don't know what we call it. We just call it, again, meeting the parents' desires, but this is pretty common, right? Yeah, and, you know, IVF costs like $12,000 to $20,000 per cycle, surrogacy pregnancies are going to definitely run you in that six figures. When you're paying that

Starting point is 00:15:51 much money for a baby. You need to get your order exactly right. And so you do want to select the sex that you want. In fact, you know, there's a, there's a situation in California where you've got a lesbian couple that is suing the clinic because they implanted the wrong embryo, right? They ordered a girl, but they got a boy. And you've got a similar situation with a gay couple who ordered a boy, but got a girl. And so now they are suing the manufacturer, right? Because in this case, you can actually return the product, but you can sue them for faulty, you know, design. And so what happens when we are making children rather than begetting children? Well, we think that we own those children, right?

Starting point is 00:16:32 And if children are begotten, but not made, we go into it with the mindset of, this is a gift that I'm going to receive. I don't get to decide the hair color of my child. I don't get to decide if it's a boy or girl. I am going into it with the mindset of, really, I exist for them. but you go into it with the mindset of I am making the child. It's very easy to get into the mindset of they exist for me, right? So there's unfortunately no shortage of cases, both celebrity couples who are, you know,

Starting point is 00:17:03 waiting to implant the child that they want or gay couples who are discarding the unwanted children that didn't come out exactly that they want. You probably have heard about the situation with the woman who was pregnant as, the surrogate. The Center for Bioethics and Culture, Jennifer Law,'s organization broke this story just last week where she was pregnant with the child of two men, the child of two men, right? And what that means, anytime a child has two fathers, you're really just talking about a child that has been separated from their mother and is going to be raised by an unrelated man. That's really what that means, you know, from a children's rights perspective. Which is statistically dangerous, as you've mentioned.

Starting point is 00:17:45 which is always statistically risky for the child. And the surrogate got a cancer diagnosis at 24 weeks, realized she had to have very serious chemotherapy at 26 weeks. It was going to put the life of the child at risk. She sought to deliver the baby rather than abort the baby. But the gay couple threatened to sue her into oblivion because they did not want a premature baby. They did not want the health problems that could go along. with a baby being born at 26 weeks.

Starting point is 00:18:18 So they insisted that she abort. And we don't know exactly how that story ended. If she found a place to deliver or if she found a place to abort. But the baby is no longer alive. And the couple did not want the baby delivered early either because they did not want their DNA out in the world. They would rather have their own child, which was the genetic child of one of those two men, die than alive and being. loved by somebody else. So that mindset that this child exists for me, if they're not exactly right, to my exact specifications, sue them, kill them. I mean, really what we are talking about

Starting point is 00:19:01 is we are returning to the commodification of human beings that we fought a civil war to end. I mean, that is really what's going on in the world of big fertility right now. That's not all that uncommon, as Jennifer Law has talked about before, some of these surrogacy contracts explicitly say, if we want you to terminate, as long as it's legal to do so, you have to terminate. And I think, you know, what the irony is is that a lot of these couples, I would bet if I were a betting person, that this gay couple that pushed the surrogate into termination is probably pro-choice, probably has uttered the phrase, my body, my choice. So it's your body, your choice, until it comes to surrogacy, then all of a sudden what really matters is that it's, now you acknowledge it's baby, but that you don't want the baby to exist.

Starting point is 00:20:01 And it's actually killing a child. I posted about this. And actually, as we're recording this, I have not interviewed that surrogate. As we're recording this, I am interviewing her tomorrow. But the episode will probably be out before yours and mind us. So I can't say how the story concludes yet, but those listening to this now have probably already heard it. So it's kind of confusing with all these pre-taped episodes.

Starting point is 00:20:26 I'm glad you found her. I'm glad she's going to talk to you. Yes. We need more stories highlighting the reality of surrogacy, and especially when it comes to abortion, you know, in surrogacy, abortion functions as quality control, which she experienced and quantity control, right? And it's so fascinating because you're right,

Starting point is 00:20:48 the whole my body, my choice thing goes out the window. It's very interesting when New York legalized commercial surrogacy. One of their big triumphs was that in New York, if your surrogate is pregnant, and she wants to terminate the pregnancy, she can. Right? That was their women's lib sort of triumph of their commercial surrogacy bill. And so now in the state of New York, you can kill your own child and you can kill somebody else's child and contractually there's no problem. Wow. And you know, speaking to that,

Starting point is 00:21:21 when I posted about this, I got a couple messages, probably more than I even saw. But here's one message, to your point. A friend of mine's mom was a surrogate and three embryos took. The biological parents said they didn't want the risk of three babies and had one of them aborted. The surrogate, my friend's mom, one of the third baby, and offered to adopt him or her. But it was in her contract that she had to have an abortion and kill the third baby. And, you know, this isn't just true in surrogacy that I didn't realize, honestly, until maybe a couple years ago, that reduction was something that was very often recommended when moms become pregnant with multiples, especially through IVF because it's more likely to get

Starting point is 00:22:03 pregnant with multiples. And so very often in IVF, moms themselves will abort selectively reduce one of their children because they don't want, you know, they don't want quintuplets or they don't want quadruplets or even twins. But this is certainly true in surrogacy and the woman carrying really doesn't have a say. And then I got another message from someone who said, I'm an ultrasound tech and had a patient in a similar experience. But in this case, the baby had a very minor finding, a slightly abnormally curved spine like scoliosis. The dads forced her to terminate at 22 weeks. She begged to adopt the baby, but they refused.

Starting point is 00:22:41 She was horribly traumatized and broken. So many lessons in this that one thing that I see is that these women who are not biologically related to these babies have formed a bond with these babies at 24 weeks. That they are willing to say, I will raise this child and that the parents don't have a bond. They don't have a connection. Even though they do have that biological matter there. And they're, you know, they just say, just, you know, kill the child because we don't. want the inconvenience. I feel for these women and obviously feel very much for these children. Well, we need to recognize that that surrogate is doing exactly what she was made to do.

Starting point is 00:23:24 She was made to love that baby. And if we can, I think, especially most of us who have been moms, recognize, well, obviously she loves those babies. How much more so the baby loves her back, right? Because that is the only person the baby knows, you know, even after children are on this side of the womb. They go through a phase, you know, from like four months to seven months where they're growing in their awareness of the world and they think that they're their mother, right? That's why you start to have the separation anxiety when the mom leaves the room because the baby thinks, I've left the room because they can't distinguish themselves from the mother. They're that closely bonded. How much more so when the child is literally inside of her that he is bonded to her.

Starting point is 00:24:08 And so the whole premise of surrogacy is founded on the idea that the baby's like a magnet. You know, you can just, they'll just attach here or separate them and then easily attack somewhere else. That's not how babies are. That's not how mothers are. Yeah. That's not how babies are. So it's, it really is insisting that children sacrifice something that they aren't made for. I mean, like, think about it.

Starting point is 00:24:33 Like, it is the only relationship in our life where we are connected by a literal cord. You have to literally cut a cord to separate the child from the mother. You don't think that there is going to be a massive emotional bond between that baby and that mom. We can see it in the moms and the babies. So that's, you know, that's our appeal is we want people to be champions of those children because they are losing something that they not only have a natural right to, but that they long for and they crave. Yeah. You and I were both going back on a post that I had posted about Christyagan's surrogacy on Instagram where someone said, you know, I'm a Christian and I've been a surrogate. And look, we know, we understand the terms before it starts. But that's not

Starting point is 00:25:21 really the point. Is it the baby doesn't understand the terms. The baby didn't sign on the dotted line. The baby doesn't understand, oh, okay, I'm not supposed to bond with this heartbeat, with this smell, would this feel with this woman. Again, it's just amazing how even Christians, I mean, all of us have probably been at this place at some point, but we really need that perspective shift. It's not about parents understanding the terms. It's not even about what parents very, very strongly desire. It's about the needs and the well-being of the kids. Go ahead. You absolutely see the limits of the consent arguments here. Yeah. Right. Because in a lot of these situations. Like I think about Chrissy Teigen's surrogate pregnancy, right? She's talking about how

Starting point is 00:26:08 we're like best friends. She's going to be in my child's life. I love her so much. She totally freely consented to this. We're both so happy with the results. I mean, both women are happy. They all consented. The biological father obviously consented to. Who didn't consent? The child did not consent. The child will never consent. A child will never consent to the commercial intentional separation of them from their birth mother, from their mother. The child always has a right to and longs for and seeks to know and be near the woman that just gave birth to them. Sometimes in tragic situations, the baby loses that relationship, right? But to inflict it intentionally and commercially is a massive injustice. Yes. Okay, I just want to end on this because

Starting point is 00:26:58 I meant to talk about this earlier and then and then we didn't. But what do you think about, just from like a policy perspective, what do you think about what's going on in Italy right now? We've got a conservative prime ministers, Georgia Maloney, that she has pushed through parliament a bill that would make it a crime for Italian citizens to try to become parents through a surrogate's pregnancy abroad. It's already illegal there in Italy. By the way, surrogacy is illegal in a lot of places for some of the

Starting point is 00:27:28 the reasons that we that we listed but this would actually you can't even go abroad to get a surrogate and to carry a child um and then she also this is according to reuters and the ap her government has ordered city council councils to stop registering the children of same-sex couples saying the move applies to a ruling by italy's top appeals court this would limit recognition of parental rights to the biological parent only in families with same-sex parents. Maloney says that for a child to grow up while they need a mother and father, even if decades of research say otherwise. Of course, that's according to a left-wing perspective. So tell us what you think about this. From a policy perspective, ensuring the rights of a child

Starting point is 00:28:14 in this way, you think it's good? Absolutely. Maloney's right on. And, you know, I'm reading articles that talk about how, I mean, it's hilarious. They're quoting gay couples who are saying, you know, Maloney's ban on surrogacy is the new, using gays as the new target of the far right. But the reality is that the ban on surrogacy in Italy applies to everybody. It's not just gay people that cannot use surrogates abroad and bring them home. It applies to married heterosexual couples as well. So it's not anti-gay. It is pro-child.

Starting point is 00:28:46 And that's actually what we're always talking about is it's pro-child. And the answer is if it's pro-child, then yes, that is good policy. So it's amazing to me because I hear, I like, I read these quotes of gay couples that are saying, this law will sterilize gay couples in Italy. And it's just fascinating that they think that it's the law that is making them sterile and not the very realities of their bodies, right? But they're in a sterile relationship. And that is why they're struggling with pregnancy right now, not because the law is prohibiting them from getting pregnant. It is the physical realities of their own bodies that are saying, look, you both have the same half of the reproductive system. If you want to have a baby, you need to find the other half of your reproductive system, right?

Starting point is 00:29:33 But because, again, what biology is prohibiting the law, they want the law to accomplish. And Maloney has said no. She's also said that two women can't be on birth certificates. This is correct. Because the birth certificate does not exist for adults. And that is honestly how a lot of same-sex couples see it. I want the validation of both my biological child and my wife's, you know, my partner's name on the birth certificate, because that validates me, right? But that's not what the birth certificate is for.

Starting point is 00:30:06 Children actually have a right to have their identity preserved on their birth certificate. This is something that's outlined in the UN Convention on the rights of the child. The birth certificate exists to anchor the child's identity, the biological family, facts of their birth so that they can, because the child's going to need that information later on. And one of the best ways that children, one of the best chances they have to access their biological identity, the knowledge of both people to whom they have a natural right is that piece of paper. But in the name of adult equality, right, and progress for adults, many adults are now using that not as an instrument to serve the rights and well-being of children, but almost

Starting point is 00:30:47 has like a second marriage license. So that's not what it's for. Biological parents need to go on birth certificates. Adoptive parents should have their parental rights secured in another way. But what's so interesting is we have been putting adopted parents on birth certificates in this country for a long, long time. And that originated because they didn't want the stigma, right, of adopted children having parents that were not listed on their birth certificates, raising them. And so they did that thinking, this is going to be helpful to adoptees, right, for us to erase their first family from their birth certificate, and we will issue them a new birth certificate with their adoptive parents. But what's so fascinating is adoptee groups here in the

Starting point is 00:31:31 United States have been lobbying for decades to get access to what? To their original birth certificate. Because that is one of the main ways they can find out the question, answer the question, who am I? Because that will tell them who's am I. So birth certificates exist for kids. They don't exist for adoptive parents. They don't exist for gay parents. They exist to record the facts of children's birth. And if an adoption needs to take place and if you need to secure parentage, you need to do that in a way that does not adulterate the child's birth certificate. So I'm a Maloney fan. If you're watching this, Georgia, hook me up, hit me up. I want to know. I want to cheer you on because you She is standing firm, right, against the commodification of children and insisting that kids need a mom and dad.

Starting point is 00:32:19 Yes, Prime Minister, come on the show, too. Reach out to Katie, but also reach out to relatable. I would love to have her on the show. What do you think about gay adoption? Do you think it should be legal for two men or two women to adopt? So let's be very clear about what adoption is. A lot of people say, do gay people have a right to adopt? And the answer is, no, not at all.

Starting point is 00:32:54 but that's because nobody has a right to adopt. The sweet Christian heterosexual couple that is dealing with infertility, they don't have a right to adopt either. No adult has a right to adopt. Children who have lost their parents have a right to be adopted. So this is again where adoption is drastically different from third-party reproduction. In big fertility, the adult is the client. The goal is to get them a baby no matter the cost.

Starting point is 00:33:24 No matter the cost to their checkbook, no matter the cost to the child's life, to their rights to their mother and father, to their health, it doesn't matter. The adult is the client, you get them the baby. In the world of adoption, the child is the client. When I was working at the adoption agency before I had kids, the founder would say, Katie, the adults are paying us, but they are not the client. The goal is not to give every adult who wants them a baby. the goal is to find loving parents for every child that has lost them. So if we are successful, every child will be placed in a home. But not every adult who wants a kid who applies to this agency is going to have a child placed with them.

Starting point is 00:34:02 So what does it look like for the child to be the client? That means that, and this is reflected in adoption best practice, that the rights and well-being, the best interest of the child is elevated to the highest good. That is what dictates agency decision making. So what is the best interest of the child? Many things. Number one, that they be placed with relatives whenever possible, whenever it is safe and healthy for the child to be connected to relatives,

Starting point is 00:34:32 grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins so they can remain in relationship with their kinship network. That is a high priority. The next thing that's a high priority is to be placed with a man and woman because the child is going to benefit from maternal love and paternal love, their development is going to be maximized in the complementary ways that mothers and fathers interact with their children. The child would be placed in a married heterosexual couple because marriage advantages children in the sense that it is the way that children experience stability in their lives. Then you also have to evaluate, is this couple ready to take on a sibling group so the children can remain together

Starting point is 00:35:11 if there's a sibling group, for example, in foster care? Are they able to care for the child's special needs? If the child has a cleft lip or a cleft palate or some kind of hole in their heart, it's going to need repair? Are they financially ready? All of these kinds of things. So that is the list that you go through to determine the child's best interest. Now, sometimes you don't have a heterosexual couple who's financially ready,

Starting point is 00:35:37 who's able to take sibling groups, who understands that special need, especially in this country with foster care, there are not enough moms and dads that are making themselves available for some of these children. And in some of those cases, a single or a same-sex couple may be the best or the only option for kids. So my suggestion is for the Christians who oppose, who think children, who think gays shouldn't be raising kids, go adopt. You go get in line. and don't get in line for the white drug-free infant, go for the kids that nobody wants, go for the older kids,

Starting point is 00:36:15 go for the sibling groups, go for the kids with special needs, right? If you're going to, sometimes same-sex couples take on kids that nobody else wants. So the solution is, want them, go and get them. And that's a hard message to hear, right?

Starting point is 00:36:34 Because those are challenging cases. But if you have a problem with gays adopting the answer, or as you adopt instead. I've never thought about it to the conclusion that you went to that basically you should be adopting the kids that really don't, most people don't want to adopt. I'm sure that's going to be difficult for some people to hear. But I mean, obviously I agree with you. We should that, I mean, I typically say we should do everything possible to make sure kids

Starting point is 00:37:06 have both a mother and a father. ideally their mother and father but if not a mother and father is the next best thing if we have expended every single resource and every single effort to ensure that every kid has that and has access to that right then i will say it's hard for me to say no you know two men still can't adopt the child who is languishing in an orphanage even while knowing that the ideal is for that child to have a mother and a father. So I agree with you, but I don't think I've articulated it as explicitly as you did at the end. So thank you so much. Where can people find your book, learn more about them before us, maybe even follow your speaking dates. You're a busy woman. So tell people how they can follow you.

Starting point is 00:37:55 Twitter is the place you get all of my opinions. Advocatvo underscore Katie. Them Before Us.com is the place you can find us online. Subscribe at the bottom. We just launched a podcast. you'll be getting all kinds of children's rights information headlines. We're going to be interviewing some incredible family scholars as well. So we will fortify you. I think, though, if you want to be an expert, if you really want to understand all of these issues, how they're really manifestations of the same question.

Starting point is 00:38:25 Are you protecting or are you violating the rights of children? The book will make you an expert. Then Before Us, Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement. you are going to be confronted with, you know, over 100 stories of kids who are raised in modern families. You're going to have to look them in the eye at the struggles, identity struggles, the mother hunger, the father hunger, the primal wound, the instability that they experience when children are forced to sacrifice for adults and not the other way around. And the reality is you're some of their only hope. Like the politicians have abandoned these questions in a lot of ways. Celebrities, obviously, are not going to be any.

Starting point is 00:39:03 kind of moral leader or offer us any kind of clarity on these questions. It's really just you, ordinary mom and dad, you Christian woman, who is going to be able to champion their rights and speak out on their behalf. And the book is probably the best tool you're going to find to be an effective advocate. Thank you so much, Katie. I am so thankful for the work that you do. Please keep going and God bless you. And may he continue to multiply your message. Appreciate you being on. Thanks for having me again. Hey guys, if you love this podcast, please leave us a five-star review wherever you listen on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.

Starting point is 00:39:55 And if you haven't yet, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

Starting point is 00:40:26 We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 877 | Should Gay Couples Adopt? | Guest: Katy Faust (Part Two)

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