The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses the surrogate mother who fled to Texas who says couple who hired her wanted her to abort the baby after diagnosis of heart defect, the incongruence of surrogacy with conservatism, and NYC’s immoral reconsideration of bathhouses as ‘safe spaces’ for sex.Part I (00:14 – 11:29)Surrogacy and Abortion Clash in Texas: Surrogate Mother Says Couple Who Hired her Wanted Her to Abort the Baby After Diagnosis of DefectA Fight Over Abortion and Surrogacy Ends With a Baby Born in Texas by The New York Times (J. David Goodman)Part II (11:29 – 22:03)There is Nothing Conservative About Surrogacy: Babies are Gifts From the Lord, But It Does Not Justify Every Means By Which They are ConceivedIs surrogacy ‘barbarism’? Conservatives are turning on their own. by USA Today (Ingrid Jacques)Part III (22:03 – 27:36)More Suppression of Truth in Unrighteousness in New York: NYC Reconsiders Bathhouses as ‘Safe Spaces’ for Sex – This is Immoral and ReprehensibleShould N.Y. Bathhouses Be Allowed to Offer Space for Sex? by The New York Times (Grace Ashford)Minneapolis City Council votes to repeal ban on adult bathhouses, sex venues by MPR News (Sam Stroozas)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Wednesday, August 19, 2006. I'm Albert Moller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Day by day, we try to look at the great issues of the day in terms of urgency, in terms of substantial content, and talk about the things that are most urgent on a day-by-day basis. Some days, multiple urgencies come together. This is one of those days. Multiple issues of consequence, multiple issues of urgency. The first issue we're going to look at is Dateline from Texas because the baby was born in Texas.

This has to do with a baby that was born via a surrogate mother, a contract between a couple who are, at least according to press reports, the biological parents of the child, the biological cell parents of the child. And then you have the surrogate mother who was contracted in order to carry the pregnancy and then deliver the baby. During the course of the pregnancy, according to the woman, hired as the surrogate. The discovery was made in prenatal diagnosis that the child has a very significant medical defect. And it has been described, at least in some media sources, as one that's a cardiac issue. And the mainstream media are reporting the New York Times, to its credit, put this on the front page, boys' birth in Texas, caps fight about abortion and

surrogacy. You bet it does. And the fact that it landed on the front page of the New York Times tells you something because this isn't just a concern to conservative Christians operating out of the biblical worldview, even those operating out of a liberal progressive worldview, understand this turns out to be a big story. It's a story their worldview, by the way, can't handle. It's when we have to take head on and understand what's at stake. In this case, we're talking about a boy's life at stake. And according to McKenna West, who was the woman hired as the surrogate, the biological parents who had made the contract with her, wanted a baby without this heart defect, and basically wanted her to have an abortion.

This is something that McKenna West refused to do. She went to Texas, which offers significant legal protections for the unborn child. That's not insignificant. Let's just think about that for a moment. You have 50 states. The fate of the unborn child could have a lot to do with where that baby is in terms of the pregnancy. Being in, as we saw just recently, the state of Massachusetts basically say all abortions welcome. That's very different than a state like Texas, which offers at least.

some significant protections for the unborn child. So the baby has been born. The medical issue continues. McKenna West wanted to keep the child. After all, according to the reporting, the biological parents said they wanted to terminate the pregnancy. She did not do that. The baby was born, and so McKinette West needs to be recognized for the courage of actually even going to Texas to protect the unborn child so that the unborn child had a chance for life. But according to the legal contract, backed up with legal force, you do have this couple that had contracted with the surrogate mother who now have the baby. And at least according to the media, and it's not just in the United States, this is caught attention in London. The Guardian, which is a liberal newspaper in London, this is how the article begins.

Biological parents given custody of a child born in Texas amid dispute over surrogate mother's claim of abortion request. This is how in London the story is being reported. A two-day old baby with a rare heart defect at the center of a complex surrogacy dispute in Texas has been handed over to the parents' custody and is receiving care. Lawyers for the parents said on Friday. Now, the Guardian goes on and says this is hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a defect that requires surgeries to correct. Quote, the baby was born on Wednesday to be last week to surrogate mother McKinna West of Alaska

after she reportedly refused request to get an abortion from the biological parents who are named here, requests they deny making. Okay, so we have disputed facts, but nonetheless, it is an incredible story. And the mainstream media, on both sides of the Atlantic, have found it interesting, because it has all the elements of a drama. This is almost like a made-for-TV movie. This is something that is likely to get a lot of attention, not only right now in the days after this baby's been born,

but in subsequent reflection. All right. So the surrogate mother, the woman, hired here. And so we have to put quotation marks around just about all these terms because in moral weight, these terms only make sense in order to understand what we're talking about here. They otherwise don't make moral sense at all. Pro-life activists and others have come around McKenna West because she refused to have the abortion. And she said that the biological parents wanted an abortion. And there are those who would rather that McKenna West have the child. But there is a legally binding

contract and at least according to most legal experts, the contract is likely to hold for the biological parents. After all, according to what was signed in the contract to have custody of the child, at least according to most press reports, that couple who McKenna West said wanted to abort the child and basically start over, they didn't want a baby with that kind of significant medical challenge. The fact is that they now have claimed custody of the baby and that the baby is being given care. and that coming from lawyers for the parents. Okay, so at this point, I'll just say some very credible pro-life activists

with groups like Live Action and others have been involved here. The Alliance Defending Freedom has been involved in terms of some illegal issues. And so that adds a lot of credibility to what's going on here. But let's just look at the moral worldview issues here because they are absolutely huge. So we're talking about a baby. And you know, throughout most of human history, that's an uncomplicated development in terms of understanding that the mother is the one in whom the baby is found from the moment of fertilization until birth.

But now you have the category of surrogate mother. Now, when you're talking about the entire industry of surrogacy, you're talking about something that could not have existed in any normal sense until the development of IVF in vitro fertilization. So we just need to track this. This is important. We need to track the pieces of this. So we have the sanctity of life issue.

This baby is made in the image of God. This is a precious life. We also have the quality of life argument. We as Christians do not deny that there are certain human beings made in God's image who bear and suffer from greater physical challenges, and for that matter, it could be other kinds of challenges than others. We do not deny that. But we do deny that that has anything to do with the inherent dignity and sanctity of

that life. That inherent dignity, honor and sanctity, is to be respected by every single human being. And that should start with those who would be the parents. But the moment you talk about this, all of a sudden you're talking about surrogate parent. Again, that's only possible by IVF, which means here's a moral term, the alienation of the fertilization and the embryo. The alienation from the natural context, which would be the husband and the wife together in the natural way, there is, in that case, nothing morally complicated. You have a husband and a wife. You have them coming together.

You have a baby. There's nothing there that's morally complicated. the moment you take those biological cells and those reproductive cells and you combine them in a laboratory, well, as you know, that's an abstraction. That's an alienation. Moral complication inevitably ensues. And you also have issues there where you have the creation and more embryos that are going to be transferred. You have the alienation from marriage now. So as we're going to see, same-sex couples are using this methodology. You also have quality control issues. You have people who are saying, you know, And by the way, this is true increasingly in normal pregnancies as well. With prenatal diagnoses,

there are couples in which there is no IVF and there is no surrogacy. They're simply saying, we don't want a baby with defects. And this is leading to that brave new world in which you have human beings as commodified products. And increasingly, that's what we're seeing. But you also have, in this case, a situation in which you have surrogacy. So you have a husband or wife here for reasons that might be medical, might be otherwise, they have hired a woman. That's where McKenna West comes in as the surrogate mother. Now, you have to put quotation marks around that because in any previous time, when a baby goes through the birth canal, in the most uncomplicated way, you simply say that that birth canal is evidence of the mother. That is the mother, uncomplicated.

This is her baby. But now you have this complication. You you know in the reproductive wild, wild west that the United States and many Western nations, over that matter, also Pacific Rim, this is going all over the world now. You have this wild, wild west of reproductive free-for-all. And so you have people making these surrogacy contracts. This is where Christians need to understand. It's not just, according to the Christian worldview, it's not just that we must do what is commanded and not do what is not commanded or commanded that not be done. So it's not only that we have to obey the thou shales and the thou shalt nots. We also have to use Christian reasoning to understand that issues that were not even understood,

that no one would have understood in the giving of the law. Or in biblical times, as a matter of fact, no one would have understood this in 1930. You're now talking about science fiction that is now medical fact. You are talking about a situation in which Christians have to also reason, and this is where I think a lot of evangelical Christians have a lot of catching up to do. This is one of the reasons why these conversations are so urgent. We have to go back and say, okay, in creation order, here's what's right. When the man and the woman are created and they're put in the garden,

they were told to go and multiply. And that is an uncomplicated moral command within the context of marriage, within the biological creation order, reality of the man and the woman, be fruitful and multiply. fill the earth. And as I say, so there's no moral complication. There is no sin when a married husband and wife come together and a baby is born and it's welcomed into the world. This is absolutely right. This is even in a fallen world, a reminder of God's glory in creation order. This is right. In a world in which so many things have gone wrong, this is right. But when you start to alienate and abstract all

of these parts. We'll just look at the fact that the biggest growth in the surrogacy industry is among same-sex couples. And interestingly, disproportionately, same-sex male couples. And of course, you can actually do the math and figure out the biology behind that disproportionate ratio. We'll talk more about that in just a moment. That's going to be our second issue. But staying on this particular issue, the baby boy born in Texas, we understand that it starts out. It starts out. with the issue that you have the abstraction of human reproduction from the context. And by the way, I don't know if this is a married couple. It is simply identified as a couple, a man and a woman.

So I don't know what else is alienated and abstracted out of this picture. But inevitably, you have the quality control issue. And once again, McKinna West said that they very clearly wanted to abort this pregnancy and start over again. But then you have the entire context of surrogacy. and what is now not only some kind of medical oddity and legal invention, it's now a whole new area of moral complication, which takes us to the second big issue.

And this has to do also with surrogacy, and it is in this case about a baby born here in the United States. And in this case, we have an article that appeared last week in USA Today. It was in the print edition last Thursday. It's by Ingrid Jock's columnist. And the headline is, there's nothing conservative about surrogacy, the words nothing in conservative have quotation marks scare quotes around them. And there's a question mark at the end.

In other words, Ingrid Jocks, in this case, the columnist, is arguing that there could be something conservative about surrogacy. And here's what's very interesting. In this case, we're talking about a specific pregnancy once again. In the column, Ingrid Jocks writes, quote, I was scrolling through Instagram when I stopped at a post from Guy Benson, a Fox News personality and political analyst. Here's the post. Quote, she's here and she's perfect. Benson wrote announcing the birth of his daughter, Madison Halsey. Our hearts are filled to the brim. We're just so thankful.

And then Ingrid Jocks goes on to say, quote, my first thought I was happy for him. So were plenty of others. The post has nearly 18,000 likes, but not everyone was sharing in the joy. And she says that includes some of Benson's fellow conservatives. Okay, this is going to be really important. She then says, quote, Benson is a conservative in the classic free market limited government mold and one of the sharper political observers working today. He's also openly gay, married, and as of Madison's birth, twice a father via surrogate. His son arrived in 2003. Now, the reason this column exists is because the columnist is pressing back against those

who don't consider surrogate parenting to be conservative. And I want to say, I think that's absolutely right. I think it is a subversion of creation order. By the way, one of the things we have to think about is the moral status of the baby. The moral status of the baby is that this is a baby made in the image of God and thus to be welcomed just as a fellow image bearer and is to be cared for and loved and cherished and all the rest. But that does not mean that Christians don't make an important moral point about the moral circumstances of conception and pregnancy as well as we believe very strongly in the moral status of the child, by the way, even before birth. But the circumstances do matter. I mean, in the Old Testament, it becomes very,

very clear. Pregnancy in marriage is very different than pregnancy outside of marriage. And as a matter of fact, that issue couldn't be more clear than to be addressed directly as thou shalt not commit adultery. And, of course, as you look at the entire Bible, there are other dimensions of this that come to the fore as well. In the modern age with modern reproductive technologies, and that's how they're often style. Yes, this is a new issue in that you couldn't have had surrogacy before you have IVF and you couldn't have that before you have the modern scientific revolution. But the point that Ingrid Jocks wants to make is that conservatives should really be real happy about surrogate parenting and real happy about the same-sex couple being able now to welcome a second child. It's hard to even use

the language. Can't say have a child, but to welcome a second child. There's a huge issue here, just in terms of the definition of conservative, and this is a really good time for us to focus on something just immense and urgent. And that is the fact that we have to insist that conservative economics and conservative political theory are not enough. As Christians, that's not enough. We have to believe that in order to conserve what must be conserved, you have to conserve creation order, and you have to conserve the entire moral code, which, by the way, is not only given in the Ten Commandments, it's revealed in now. nature, as Paul makes very clear. It's a natural law. You know, the animal kingdom, you don't get

little monkeys without a daddy monkey and a mommy monkey. That's all there is to it. And the same thing's, same thing's true for whales and you go down the list. This is revealed in creation order. So I'm going to say that if you are a gay male couple and you contract with a surrogate, this is not a conservative act. It's not a conservative context because what's called marriage here, let's just say it out loud. We don't believe it is. marriage. We do not believe that the Obergefell decision at the U.S. Supreme Court actually redefined marriage. It redefines marriage in the law, yes, but not in the natural law. It doesn't redefine marriage in nature. It doesn't undo creation order. And frankly, for believing Christians, it doesn't

redefine marriage at all. Because we acknowledge the fact that the Supreme Court handed down this ruling. But in 1973, we didn't all of a sudden say, you know, that's right. The Roe v. Wade decision. That unborn child, not a moral concern. That is not what Christian said. We said, no. This is an unborn human being who bears God's glory and is to be fully respected. And now we have to say, yeah, the Supreme Court can say that same-sex marriage is a thing, but it's a Supreme Court thing. It's a positive law thing. It's a declared artificial thing. But then you add the complication of surrogacy. You know, the interesting thing coming from this columnist at USA Today is that conservatives should be really happy about this.

Because after all, we like babies and, you know, when it comes to this man, Guy Benzin, who is at Fox News, has been related to them, he's conservative in so many different ways. As she says, quote, in the classic free market, limited government mold, political observations, et cetera. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. This also reminds Christians that conservative is never enough, because that's a comparative term. It's one we have to use over and over again because in the world of the culture we live in, the left-right distinction is a very, very important constant distinction. And it also has to do the distinction that often comes with enormous ontological and moral weight. But it does show you that there are some who would call

themselves conservative who want to undo creation order, which is the least conservative thing imaginable. How in the world are you going to have conservative free market economics if you can't even honor creation order? All right. So I think that's another really big issue. And it is interesting some of the other arguments used. One of them that is used here, it's used against a couple of conservative voices who spoke out. Megan Basham said something that in particular offended her. And by the way, Megan Basham was exactly right in this statement. Quote, Benson is an incisive pundit, but there's nothing conservative about deliberately creating motherless children. I pray Benson and those like him on the right, capital R, as in conservative side,

would consider what they are telling the world about how unnecessary they believe mothers are to the needs of children, end quote. Well, that statement is absolutely right. It's rooted in creation order. It's rooted in the natural law. It should be evident to all. And it's also directed, in particular, to gay male couples who are hiring surrogates in order to, quote, have a baby. But then there's another conservative who gets called out here, Katie Faust. Ingrid Jocks goes back to 2003 in that year, quote, after news broke of Benson's first child via surrogacy, Katie Faust wrote a how-to guide in the Federalist for conservatives looking to oppose surrogacy in IVF, quote,

A conservative position rejects surrogacy based on the natural rights of the child, his right to life to his mother and father to be born free and not bought and sold. The child is the voiceless party in the arrangement who would never consent to the intentional loss of his or her mother. Well, that's absolutely right. Profoundly right. But Ingrid Jock says that's a presumptuous argument without surrogacy. there's no child to have rights in the first place. For Benson's daughter, the real choice is between a living home and never existing at all. Okay, so that sort of sounds like a very important moral argument.

But we have to understand that that moral argument, taken at face value, would say any child born in any context, is basically going to justify the context. And that is something that is not biblical and is not right. But yes, as I said, once you have the baby, even in the earliest stages of, of an unborn baby in pregnancy, fertilization, onward, yes, you're going to have to honor that. But that does not remove the fact that there are sexual relationships and technologies that are contrary to scripture and are not to be blessed. And so, you know, even in the ancient world, even long before anyone could spell IVF, you go back, let's just say outside the context of marriage, you know, you had two young people and there

comes a baby. You know, the people of God were called to deal with premarital sex as a sin. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. But you know, the Christian Church also knew how to help that young couple and how to welcome that baby. Those are two different things, and we have to keep those things morally straight. Now, Ingerjax ends with a very interesting argument. I'm going to turn to it. She says, I'm not a bioethicist. That's true. Quote, and I'm supportive of in-depth discussions about the real moral concerns raised by surrogacy and IVF. I think she probably means that, but she kind of subverted that in the previous paragraphs in her own column. She says, quote, but there's a difference between debating the ethics of family building and treating people like Benson who simply want to be parents as threats to be

shut down. The conservatives waging that fight are just making their own movement smaller, end quote. Well, you know, that is a threat that I think we all have to face. But the bottom line is, do we really believe this is a morally significant issue or not? Do we really believe that? If so, then guess what? We're going to have to live with the consequences. We're going to have to have the courage to say these things out loud. And, you know, I just want to say that when I hear a syndicated columnists say, you know, two men ought to be able to have a baby, I want to say, well, yep, yep. No, they shouldn't.

They shouldn't be able to have a baby. And by the way, I'll just, without going into detail, say they can't. Period. They can't. They didn't have a baby in this situation. they hired a reproductive technology, and then they rented a womb. And if you call things out for what they are, that's at least a part of gaining clarity so we can see them as they are.

Okay, there's a third issue, and it's related to the LGBTQ array. It has to do especially with gay men, and it has to do with a society bearing responsibility for the policies and laws and institutions that it forms, founds, sustains, and allows. And that comes right down to, let's just say, sex-related businesses. Okay, so we're not going to go into any further detail. But the headline in this story from New York is a political push to let bathhouses offer space for sex once again.

Half page, more than that, actually more like two-thirds, three-quarters of a page, full print edition of the Times is telling us that there's now a political push to a lot right out openly advertised and openly conceded space for homosexual men to come together. And it was very infamous as a context in the 1960s and 70s for the development in urban areas of the gay rights movement. And then it became absolutely notorious in the AIDS crisis because these gay bathhouses kind of muddled on the ancient Turkish bank. and things like that. We're not going to go into any detail. But they became the center for the transmission of the AIDS virus.

And I think we can understand that. Thus, in the name of public health, many of them were shut down. Now, there's an early incident here with the infectious disease dimension of the U.S. government. And Anthony Fauci actually was director way back then. And he initially called for shutting down the bathhouses in order to shut down. the transmission, but after meeting with gay activists, he adopted a more liberal position. But nonetheless, public health authorities basically shut these things down simply because

they were clear epicenters of an absolutely deadly contagion. But now they're coming back with political support. They're coming back with political support, not only in places like San Francisco, but Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Paul. And it's Minneapolis in particular that is getting attention for revisiting this. But now this is obviously about New York. New York itself is facing legislative proposals. And this, by the way, is not local legislation. This is the General Assembly in Albany, the state level in New York. And the articles by Grace Ashford in the New York Times, but it's just really clear. Listen to this. At the height of the AIDS crisis some 40 years ago, public health officials in New York shuddered adult sanas and

bathhouses to try to stop the spread of disease. Now a group of gay state lawmakers are spearheading a push to bring back what they describe as vital cultural spaces. One of the sponsors of the legislation said, quote, it's 2026, not 1986. We have modern medicine and education. It's ridiculous that this is legal in Florida, in Texas, but not in New York. The article goes on to say public bans and spas are legal in New York,

but the state's health code prohibits those facilities from setting aside areas, let's just say, for other activities. So what we're looking at here is one of those things that you would think that even people who would commit these acts, you would think that they would understand that having facilities like this in which such things are encouraged and even commercialize, that would just be a bad idea in public health terms. But you know, Paul in Romans chapter one talks about the suppression of the truth in unrighteousness. And I think that's really what we see here.

This is just a Romans one parable, which, by the way, Romans one is about sin. It's about the deceitfulness of sin. It's about the human, sinful pattern of suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. But the Apostle Paul is clear. He goes at both male and female same-sex relationships in order to say this is central evidence of what it means to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And now you see, you would think, well, okay, maybe there was an awakening moment as a public health crisis with the AIDS crisis back in the 80s and the 90s. Maybe that clarified the fact that a sane civilization wouldn't have this sort of thing. But now you see the suppression of truth and unrighteousness.

You know, hey, this is 2006. This is not 1986. You know, we've got drugs now. We've got antivirals now. You know, and besides that, we've got political power now. So deal with it. One professor at Columbia University said, it's hard to make a case on the public health grounds from 40 years ago to say that this prohibition

should still remain in place. End quote. That is the kind of moral logic that leads to absolute disaster, even to death. It's the suppression of truth and unrighteousness. And at least as Christians, we need to be able to look at this

and see it for what it is. And by the way, we're not smart enough to see it for what it is. It's God in the gift of Scripture who tells us what it is. Thanks for listening to the briefing. go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter,

but go to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsketeS.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the brief.