August 5, 2025 • 35 mins
When science and policy push the boundaries of God's design, where do Christians stand? In this thought-provoking exploration of today's most challenging bioethical issues, we dive deep into recent developments that force us to confront fundamental questions about life, reproduction, and human dignity.
The conversation begins with an examination of the recent legislation defunding Planned Parenthood and its potential ramifications. While the organization claims this could force closure of one-third of their clinics, our hosts unpack the complex political dynamics at play as states may step in to replace federal funding. What might this "predicament designed to create change" ultimately mean for abortion access and women's healthcare services across America?
We then tackle a puzzling disconnect in American perspectives on adoption. Though 86% of Americans view adoption favorably, the statistics are stark: approximately 50 abortions occur for every adoption. Our hosts draw from decades of experience in pregnancy care to explain why women facing unplanned pregnancies rarely consider adoption, despite its obvious life-affirming benefits. The psychological and emotional barriers prove far more complex than many realize.
Perhaps most disturbing is our examination of emerging reproductive technologies, particularly lab-grown human eggs and sperm. As scientists in Japan claim to be just "seven years away" from creating viable human sex cells in labs, we ask the critical question few are willing to address: should we be doing this at all? When technology enables us to circumvent God's design for human reproduction, what ethical guardrails remain?
The discussion concludes with sobering research suggesting premature infants may experience pain more intensely than previously thought due to their inability to cognitively process it. This raises profound questions about fetal pain perception during abortion procedures and challenges us to consider the full humanity of the unborn.
Join us for this essential conversation that goes beyond political talking points to examine the heart of what it means to honor life in a culture increasingly comfortable with redefining humanity according to convenience and desire. Have questions? Reach us at lifechallengesus where you can submit your thoughts or suggest future topics.
Find strength and courage in your faith at this year’s FEARLESS FAITH Conference. Inspired by Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous,” join us Saturday, September 13, at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, Wisconsin, for presentations on navigating life’s storms, understanding God’s peace, and engaging in crucial conversations about euthanasia, anorexia, abortion, prenatal genetic testing, and more. Hear powerful journeys of faith through loss and hope. Don’t miss this empowering event! $50 in person or $40 virtual. Register now: https://christianliferesources.com/resources/events/2025-conference/
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Episode Transcript
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Jeff Samelson (00:19):
On today's episode.
Yeah, that's a really goodthing, but when it's me and my
pregnancy, yeah, I don.
Paul Snamiska (00:26):
We're here to bring a fresh biblical
perspective to these issues andmore.
(00:46):
Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz (00:54):
Hi and welcome back.
I'm Krista Potratz and I'm heretoday with Pastors Bob
Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson,and today we're going to talk
about our August current events,and we have a good list of
current events to talk about,the things that are going on the
first we'll talk about is Jeff.
(01:16):
Can you fill us in a little biton what's going on with the
defunding Planned Parenthood?
Jeff Samelson (01:22):
We're recording this in mid-July.
We'll see if anything much haschanged by the beginning of
August, but so far it seemspretty certain of a few things.
On July 3rd, the Senate passedthe reconciled version of what
Donald Trump was calling the Big, beautiful Bill, and then he
signed it on July 4th.
And included in this, alongwith many other things, was a
(01:45):
provision that removed allfederal funding for Medicaid
funding for Planned Parenthood.
So basically saying no federalmoney at all is going to go to
Planned Parenthood.
Previously there had beenprovisions that would keep
federal money from paying forabortions through Medicaid and
(02:05):
therefore keeping that moneyfrom Planned Parenthood, but
this was the first time.
They simply said no, none ofit's going at all to Planned
Parenthood in any way.
And that's the reality.
That should be the one thatactually works, because money is
fungible.
If you're giving $100,000 tothis clinic and you're saying,
(02:25):
but don't use it for this thing,it's still going to end up
supporting that thing, becauseyou're just going to move your
money around in order to makesure things get paid for or
whatever.
So that was the big thing.
One thing that pro-lifers were alittle less happy about the
original bill that had passed.
The House banned or removedthat funding for a period of 10
(02:52):
years.
Apparently, it was a provisionof the reconciliation process
that they were using to get thisthrough the Senate that it had
to be changed to just one year.
So that raises some questions.
Are they going to be able tokeep that provision in next year
and in future years when itcomes up?
Will this be in any waysomething that's permanent, or
is this going to be somethingthat has to be fought again
every year?
So lots of big questions there,particularly with Ludd being up
(03:16):
in the air about the Republicancontrol of the House and the
Senate and so forth.
A few things should be madeclear, though that this in and
of itself doesn't cripple ordestroy Planned Parenthood.
In states where the statelegislature is overwhelmingly
pro-abortion, they can decideokay, well, we're going to make
up what the federal governmentisn't giving them, we're going
(03:37):
to fund these organizations.
There are private organizationsthat, of course, could step up,
or even individuals, andreplace that funding, but it is
interesting that PlannedParenthood itself has said that
they could lose or be forced toclose one third of their clinics
as a result of this.
Now, I suspect that a fairamount of that was
(03:58):
scaremongering, trying to telleverybody oh no, you can't do
this because it's going to hurtus so much.
tell everybody oh no, you can'tdo this because it's going to
hurt us so much.
But I actually read somethingjust this morning that suggested
that there might be somereality to that, because
apparently their finances arenot quite as healthy as they
might want them to be and thatthey are, in fact, quite
dependent on federal funding.
(04:18):
So that would be a good thingas far as we're concerned,
because Planned Parenthood isthe number one purveyor of
abortions in the United Statesand does a lot of other stuff
that we're not happy about aswell.
It presented a unique dilemma.
I'll give you a little bitdifferent flavor of it.
There's a requirement that youknow I think it's on the county
(04:38):
level that states are supposedto be also providing for
indigent services like sometesting, some pap smears, sdi
testing, birth control, providebirth control services and so
forth.
And even though the bigbeautiful bill never says the
words Planned Parenthood, itclearly says that any agency
(05:01):
getting over $800,000 and ifthey're involved in abortion
they're defunded.
So it effectively defunds themand that's a good thing.
I mean I'm very good.
I find that the Trumpadministration likes to use a
method of creating change byforcing you into a predicament.
Whether we're talking abouttariffs or whatever else is
(05:22):
going on, the predicament issupposed to create a positive
change.
That's going to hurt a lotright now, but later on it will
become more natural, like in thearea of tariffs Now.
I used to work for a steelfoundry many years ago in the
lab and I remember how we werejust being beat up over foreign
(05:44):
steel, and so eventually thesteel foundry I worked for went
out of business, and notsurprising.
And now, of course, betweentariffs and everything, there's
this big push to try to bringsteel production back to the
United States, america's largestprivate provider of services
(06:05):
that take the life of unbornchildren.
They also have created thisdilemma of how are counties
going to be able to still meettheir obligation to the indigent
?
And so I can see why people arepanicking.
I can see why states are sayingwell then, we're going to fund
it and everything.
The beauty of it is, I believe,when push comes to shove, even
(06:27):
the most liberal states aregoing to finally say we don't
have an endless pot of gold hereOn the county level.
We'll fund STD testing, we'llfund pap smears, we may even
fund birth control, but it'sjust too politically divisive to
fund abortions on the moreintimate state level.
So I think this is going to bea technique that's going to push
(06:50):
counties to be a little bitmore imaginative.
If Planned Parenthood wants tostick to their guns and stay in
the abortion business, they'rejust out.
It's time for them to move on.
They've become obsolete.
So I think that that's kind oflike a grand plan and all this.
I didn't read all thousand pagesof the big, beautiful bill,
which I never liked thatterminology, but I did some
(07:13):
summary work on it and I'vealways even though I haven't
been in the steel industry in 45, 50 years, I still follow what
kind of goes on in that industryand I see the same thing
happening.
It's trying to create apredicament so that it forces
ingenuity to solve it, and Ithink that that's a very good
(07:34):
thing and in the process we'regoing to save some lives.
The Hyde Amendment always wasprohibiting money going for
these purposes and liberals havealways found a way to
circumvent it.
And this big beautiful bill, Ithink, just cut that one off.
Christa Potratz (07:49):
It's hard to imagine though kind of like you
were saying too that this willbe the end of Planned Parenthood
.
Jeff Samelson (07:56):
We've seen them, too, kind of move into other
spaces as well, offeringdifferent hormones and things in
the transgender area, and so itwill just be interesting to see
what happens a more libertarianor constitutionalist bent are
(08:27):
going to be hopeful thatsomething like this is also just
starting to get the federalgovernment out of the business
of paying for things that thefederal government was never
designed to be paying for, andthat would be a good thing.
I think many people would agreeif this is just the first step
in that direction and helping usbeing more of a federal type of
system that we were originallydesigned to be, which brings up
(08:48):
an interesting little sidelightwhich I don't know got a whole
lot of attention.
So Donald Trump signed thelegislation on the 4th of July,
which was a Friday.
Next business day, it wasMonday, the 7th.
On that day, two PlannedParenthood groups I think
Massachusetts and Utah filedsuit in a federal court in
(09:12):
Massachusetts asking for aninjunction.
They got from the federal judgethere Within hours.
There was no opinion.
The judge simply issued atemporary restraining order
saying that the administrationhas to continue paying for all
of these things that the law hasjust said they cannot pay for.
(09:34):
And that is just such aconstitutional travesty.
Courts cannot tell theexecutive to spend money that
the legislature has not actuallygiven them authority to spend.
That's not the way it works andthat's not the way the judicial
system is supposed to workeither.
If it doesn't get overturnedimmediately, it's just going to
(09:56):
blow up in some way or another.
But it just indicates howexistential this is to certain
people with a certain politicalbent on things, and that makes
it's worth paying attention to,or continuing to pay attention
to it and not just thinking, oh,we won, that's it you know I
was thinking of Jeff's politicalscience background when I was
(10:18):
watching the debate going onbetween the big beautiful bill
and the House of Representativesand I went over to the Senate
and how the Senate has adifferent set of priorities than
the House of Representativeswhen it deals with this House of
Representatives.
It's supposedly perhaps theclosest representative to the
demographics of your state,whereas the Senate gets two reps
(10:40):
.
Whether your state is made upof many different cultures and
attitudes, you just have tworeps.
And I always thought it waspart of the genius of the way
the Constitution is structuredand the checks and balances and
so forth.
But as they were going back andforth and then hearing Jeff
comment about getting thefederal government out of
funding all these things, that'sone of the things that's going
(11:02):
to be.
A benefit is that I think whenthese issues come back to the
state to be dealt with and thenget it down on the county level,
when it gets to that level, itgets close enough now that now
you have a real say.
So now you can show up at yourmeeting.
You can say I don't want this,I don't want this in my school
district, I don't want this inmy county.
I don't want you can do that,whereas everything you were
(11:25):
hoping for in the House ofRepresentatives bill got turned
around or undone or modified inthe Senate version and you have
no say you can on the bigelection of your senators.
But it's part of the complexityof how the system works.
So I think anytime we can bringthese issues back into our
communities, especially whenthey're so volatile, like
abortion.
So I think anytime we can bringthese issues back into our
communities, especially whenthey're so volatile, like
(11:48):
abortion, and I mean even otherthings that we get into, whether
it be marriage, gay marriage orporn stores and stuff like that
, I think you get those on thecommunity level.
I think you have a betterchance of getting your voice
known.
Christa Potratz (12:03):
Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see how
everything plays out.
Another article, another topicthat we wanted to talk about was
the role of adoption andwomen's pregnancy-making
decision.
Jeff, can you tell us a littlebit about that?
Jeff Samelson (12:19):
Well, this was prompted by a long article that
was published just within thelast few weeks in a law journal.
It was titled Informing Choicethe Role of Adoption in Women's
Pregnancy Decision Making.
It's interesting because ittakes a close and detailed and
well-researched with statisticsand surveys and things like that
(12:42):
approach to the question of whyis it that adoption is not the
option that pregnant women arechoosing as much, and how does
that relate to, statistically,to abortion, the choice to abort
a child, and why is that?
(13:03):
And the third big part of thepaper is well, what can
legislatures and such do aboutthis?
You know what's the politicalresponse there and that's that's
not so much what.
What interested me, but it wasthe um.
You know the talk of adoption.
I mean, we are pro-adoptionhere very much so, uh, and the
um I after Dobbs, there werelots of people saying, well, we
(13:26):
think it just makes sense thatum adoption levels are going to
go up a lot after that becausewomen who are not able to get
abortions are going to placetheir children for adoption and
haven't been seeing that so much, uh, and we we'd like to see
more of it, but there's still alot of children that are losing
(13:47):
their lives to abortion.
In fact, the rate of abortionsto adoptions in the United
States is currently about 50abortions to every one adoption.
Christa Potratz (13:58):
Wow.
Jeff Samelson (13:59):
And that's despite the fact that 86% of
Americans report a favorable toextremely favorable view of
adoption.
But from the perspective ofwomen with unexpected
pregnancies, adoption is,generally speaking, a non-option
.
Very few women consider, muchless choose, adoption districts
(14:20):
from.
Five years ago, just shy of20,000 infants were placed for
private domestic non-step-parentadoption, in contrast to at
least 930,000 abortions.
Yeah, I mean it's—and the crazything is is it's never changed.
We've been in the pregnancycare business for a long time
now and we knew early on thatyou can sit down with a woman
(14:43):
coming in pregnant and if youtalk to her about adoption she
would rather abort her childthan to imagine somebody
adopting her child.
And our experience has been ona practical level it was almost
kind of like a surge inresponsibility, like I could
never trust somebody else to dothat, so I'd rather have that
(15:03):
child, abort it.
And of course, by theirthinking is you know we'll abort
the child before there's anycognizant understanding of
what's happening.
And then you know we relievethe child of potential problems.
We make things you know easierfor everybody by their thinking
and, of course, the child ofpotential problems.
We make things easier foreverybody by their thinking.
And of course, the child has todie.
In the article that Jeff hadlinked they were talking about
(15:25):
how people will raise questionsabout.
Well, talking about adoptiondoesn't relieve the mother of
the stress and turmoil ofcarrying the pregnancy all the
way through and so forth.
My experience on a verypractical level is that they
(15:46):
don't think that way.
That's not the way they think.
They think in the moment.
And in the moment I'm pregnant.
At this time I'm pregnant.
I didn't want to be pregnant, Iwasn't figuring on being
pregnant, I don't want thepregnancy to continue.
When you're arguing for adoptionand we try everything we can
but when you make the case foradoption, what they're hearing
(16:07):
is the pregnancy continues,you're carrying the baby.
Everything that they came inwith a mindset of being opposed
to.
And so I think you know Ithought the study was great, it
was a good paper, a fascinatingpaper.
But I do think it challenges usto kind of deal with the real
(16:27):
issues at hand, and that issomehow they need to be more
greatly incentivized to carrythe pregnancy through with
somebody who wants to adopt andI know there are plenty of
people out there to adoptbecause we hear from them a lot
but how do you give them theincentive to do it?
Some other of the statisticsdespite three quarters of
(16:49):
Americans having positive viewson adoption, only one sixth of
American women of childbearingage reported that they would
make such a choice.
Of American women ofchildbearing age reported that
they would make such a choice.
So it's in the abstract.
Thinking about other people,it's like, oh yeah, that's a
really good thing.
But when it's me and mypregnancy, yeah, I don't think I
could do that.
And the article discusses whatare some of the reasons why that
(17:13):
is.
Some of it is inaccurateinformation.
Women think, oh well, if Iplace my child for adoption,
then I have no choice, nocontrol, I'll never have a
chance to connect with the childagain.
They have very wrong ideasabout how it works.
They might feel that, well,once I do that, I'm coerced,
which is no longer the case.
And they can address externalthings like oh, if abortion is
(17:38):
available as an option, wellthen, that's a major figure
there.
There is still a stigma for alot of people on adoptions like,
oh, you gave up your baby, youmust have been in really bad
shape, you must have been prettyconfident, you couldn't be a
good mother, and they don't wantthat kind of stigma, which
(17:58):
shouldn't be there in the firstplace, but it's there
Increasingly now.
There's a social pressure to ifyou're going to bear the child,
to be the parent.
You know there's like there'ssomething wrong if you're not
going to do that.
Sometimes people get themessage from their family Well,
you have this baby, don't expectany help from us.
Well, you have this baby, don'texpect any help from us.
And there are trustedprofessionals who might very
well be saying no, no, that'snot what you want to do, that's
(18:22):
not a good thing there.
And then of course, there arethe internal considerations
Pretty much what Bob was talkingabout.
I'm going through a lot ofdistress right now with this
pregnancy and the long-termthing of adoption.
That doesn't sound like it'sgoing to relieve my distress.
And then there's that sense ofwell, what's going to be best
for the child?
Don't I know what's best for achild?
How could I send him tosomebody else and have that
happen?
(18:42):
So there's a lot in the articleand it's interesting and if you
have an interest in adoption,particularly adoption policy and
such, you'd probably find itworth a read.
It kind of inspired me to againexplore how we deal with the
topic as an organization,because there is for the sake of
(19:03):
the child who loses a life ifthere's an abortion.
I'd like to see if we couldmore critically examine how to
help this, because the numberswere, I mean, it is a staggering
statistic 50 to 1.
And how tragic.
Christa Potratz (19:19):
Yeah, another topic that we wanted to talk
about was the lab-grown spermand eggs, and I think this was
an article that was maybeJapanese scientists that were
talking about how far they thinkthey are away from growing
(19:39):
these sperm and eggs in the lab.
Jeff Samelson (19:43):
Well, I think first of all, remember what
they're talking about.
You know we've gone the cycleof surrogate parenting.
We've gone.
You know we're IVF.
This is like one step beyond.
Now we're talking about notinvolving a male and a female,
but actually bringing everythingdown to its what they would
(20:03):
call totipotent level that wouldallow finding the necessary
elements in stem cells that youcan bring the combination to
result in life.
There were all sorts of thingsabout the story that struck me
Like.
First of all, at OsakaUniversity, the professor said I
think we're seven years away.
(20:23):
Every time I see that I alwaysgiggle, because you know how we
talk numerology in the Bible.
You know, like seven or ten,ten's a number of completeness.
It's a little bit like thisWhenever I see the number seven
and ten in ethics, it alwaysmeans we don't have the foggiest
idea when this is going tohappen.
You know, because 7 is forever.
(20:44):
Did they say that seven yearsago?
Do we know?
When you look at some of thequandaries that are going to be
brought up, first of all, thinkabout the benefits.
This is what they tell you.
The benefit of this is same-sexcouples.
They can have a child.
(21:04):
A single parent can have achild.
You combine this with theartificial womb, a man can have
a child.
I mean, it's got all of thesepossibilities.
Almost all of them support aperverted view of the family,
not a biblical view of thefamily, but support a perverted
view of the family.
But as I read it and this didnot come out of the article I've
(21:28):
been reading through the bookof Leviticus, which tells you
how badly I need excitement inmy life, because Leviticus is a
tough read.
You're reading all theregulations and I'm reading all
this and you get through thesexual sins in Leviticus where
you're not supposed to sleepwith a close family blood
relative and all of those kindsof things, and generally the
logic has been there's justproblems with that.
(21:51):
Now, one of the things that theyhinted at could be a problem, a
practical problem not even theydon't call it an ethical
problem, but a practical problemis what are the offspring going
to look like, four generationsdown the road?
Because if I can't and I'mgoing to preface this by telling
(22:13):
everybody I do not have asister, so but if I were to
copulate with my sister, and itraises the possibility of
profound birth defects or birthdefects coming on down the road.
What do you think is going tohappen if I go the only thing
closer and that's essentially tocopulate with yourself?
What do you think is going tohappen down the line when you've
(22:37):
extracted basically your maleand female elements in
procreation out of your ownsystem and that was part of the
design of God and being fruitfuland multiplying and so forth,
and this whole thing is designedto circumvent, is designed to
circumvent.
It's funny because when I readit it's kind of like is there
(23:01):
any other possible way I couldlook at everything God
instructed and say let's do theopposite.
And this is getting prettyclose.
It was interesting that theopening line of the article that
talked about this had theinteresting verb Scientists are
just a few years from creatingviable human sex cells in the
lab, creating as though they aremaking something from scratch,
(23:26):
when in fact all they're doingis working with the powers and
potentialities that God, thereal creator, put into cells and
DNA from the very beginning.
But they want to play God and,like with so many things, it's
(23:47):
the old problem of seeminglyonly being concerned with can we
do this, when they should firstbe asking should we do this?
Is this good, is this right, isthis smart?
And, as you so well expressed,this is messing with things that
we, as Christians, and reallyall humans, should be profoundly
uncomfortable with havinganybody mess with.
The line has been crossed.
(24:08):
It's in the rearview mirror.
We hoped there'd be some way tobring us back at some point,
but they're barreling ahead.
And I've wondered is thesolution to just encourage
everybody out there in LifeChallenges podcast land to get
on your ethics boards and kindof put a stop to this?
No, I don't think that that'sthe solution.
I've thought about what I thinkis the real solution here and
(24:31):
because I've wrestled with thisfor a long time and that is when
you've got people who have goneinto this we can do anything we
want.
And, of course, if you'reliving for the world, I get it.
I can make the logicalconnections.
I see what—let's experiment,let's try If we're living for
this world.
(24:51):
But if you understand yourChristianity, if you're more
than a thimbleful depth to it,you recognize that this is not
all there is to life.
Our entire existence is to beglorifying God.
So, ultimately, how do youhandle where the ethical train
has so passed your stationalready?
It's way down the line.
(25:12):
How do you handle it?
You handle it with the gospel.
You try to connect people againwith an understanding of how
you came into existence, why youcontinue to exist.
Like Jeff said at the beginning, we're recording this in mid
creation of woman.
How that's supposed to beunderstood, all that kind of
(25:39):
stuff.
When you start tying all ofthat together.
It's incredible how far we'vegotten off the track, and when
you're so off the track, yourreality is no reality at all.
You're just looking at a biggiant fantasy land that all
disintegrates, and I think,christians, the only way you
finally stop it is you do whatwe've been called to do from the
very beginning.
Talk about Jesus.
Christa Potratz (26:00):
I mean, I think I, you know, just look at it
too, as it's like you're takingGod's perfect design with man
and woman and creating new life.
And then it's, like you know,it's like a kid, you know, mom
and dad has maybe startedsomething.
Okay, like I want to do it now.
Like you know, I want, knowit's like a kid, you know, mom
and dad has maybe startedsomething.
Okay, like I want to do it now.
Like I, you know, I want to, Iwant to, it's my turn, and even
(26:22):
though, like it's already kindof done, you just you're trying
to do it now, just in adifferent way, and it's, I mean,
it's just it's not the way itgot intended.
Jeff Samelson (26:37):
Reminds me of an old joke, which I'm not
remembering completely so Iprobably won't tell it so well,
but it's basically thatscientists have or this group of
scientists have decided thatthey have figured out the
process, that they know enoughabout how evolution happened and
everything like that that theycan create life on their own.
They've figured out how, and sothey invite God for a showdown
and say, okay, well, you know,if you can do it, we can too.
(26:59):
And he agrees, okay, let's dothat.
So he says go ahead, what doyou need?
And they say, okay, well, firstwe're going to take some dirt.
And God says wait, where areyou getting the dirt from?
The idea being that he createdthe dirt.
They're not starting fromnothing, they're still working
with something that he created.
And yeah, just reminds me ofthat.
(27:24):
Go back to Exodus, Read whenMoses was sent to Pharaoh to let
the people go, and it kind ofreminded me a little bit of the
joke.
You know, the idea is Pharaohbrings out his magicians and so,
you know, he kind of replicatesa couple of these things and
then all of a sudden we kind ofget beyond the ability of the
magicians and it seemeddeliberate.
(27:45):
But my point is is that Pharaohhad hardened his heart and
demonstrated that at every turn.
Pharaoh had hardened his heartand demonstrated that at every
turn.
When you read all of the things, everything that's involved
with this it's called an IVGprocess as opposed to IVF,
Everything involved with the IVGprocess In vitro gametogenesis
(28:07):
yes, that's it Very good, Ipracticed that.
And that's what it is.
But if you read everythinginvolved with it, it's almost
kind of like man is playing therole of Pharaoh.
My heart is hardened.
You tell me I can't do this.
I'm doing this.
You tell me I should do it thisway.
I'm going to do it that way.
I mean, it's like everything isjust outright rebellion and at
(28:28):
some point somebody's going tohave to put their foot down.
The other thing if you want tothrow an ethical wrench into all
of this, just remember if yoursphere of influence is your
community, your county, yourstate, maybe even your federal
government, but it doesn'textend to Japan, china, wherever
they want to work on this stuff.
They're just going to keepplowing ahead in those areas.
(28:50):
So you do what you can do.
And what you can do is, youknow, connect people with God
and let it go from there.
Yeah, one of the scariest thingsin this article was not so much
about what they are capable ofor expect to soon be capable of,
but I can't remember who it waswho made the comment, but it
was somebody who was talkingabout well, yeah, we're not sure
(29:11):
if we should do this, we're notsure if we should do that or
whatever, but basically wascomfortable.
Well, it depends on whatsociety is comfortable with A
never changing mark, yeah, andit's like yeah, that's not an
ethical standard, that's justyeah, we'll do whatever is
permitted, whatever is possible.
Yeah, and that's not comfortingat all.
Christa Potratz (29:35):
Well, the final thing we wanted to talk about
today was an article that Bobhad found on prenatal infants
feeling pain, and I think theymaybe have discovered that they
do feel pain, but maybe theydon't realize that it's pain and
just the ethical you knowfindings with that.
Jeff Samelson (30:00):
Well, and the article dealt with preemies.
So we're talking aboutprematurely born infants, and
when a child is prematurely born, you know, at different stages,
they're basically saying thereseems to be the presence of pain
, but their level of cognition,their level of understanding it,
translating it, is different.
And I think when I wrote thelittle explanation note on it I
(30:25):
even said we've been talkingabout this for years, about
unborn children experiencingpain, and of course everyone's
always taken some sort of solacethat they don't understand it
as they would if they were born.
I thought the article was kindof interesting in that they
suggested that it might actuallybe worse.
It might be a worseacknowledgement because they
(30:48):
don't have the cognitive skillsto compartmentalize, to classify
, to do all that, and I've oftenfelt that way.
I mean it's kind of like fear.
There are things that you'reafraid of and then, as you begin
to understand it, you mightstill fear it but it might turn
into more like respect, likeelectricity.
I remember the first time aneighbor was helping us build a
(31:12):
room in our basement when I wasa kid and he accidentally
touched the metal rule to thetwo screws on the electrical
outlet and it sparks and thepower went out, it blew the
breaker and it terrified me, andthen, after a while, he began
to teach me how it worked, andso your fear becomes respect,
(31:35):
but you're still kind of fearful.
Well, at its base level it mighteven be more torturous of what
we do to children through anabortion and premature children
yeah, what I related that to is,like you know, I, I I have been
blessed that so far in my lifeI have never extreme experienced
the most extreme forms of pain.
(31:56):
But if you ever have had pain sosevere, or you've observed
someone, particularly someoneyou love, with pain so severe
that you're no longer able toengage your brain to deal with
it, which is, you know, and onthat pain scale, when you're
getting into the eight, nine, 10, there there's no ability to
process, you're, you're justfeeling the pain.
(32:19):
That's the only thing on yourmind and you're, you're not able
to compartmentalize it, you'renot able to process it and say,
oh well, this is going to goaway soon, or this is only
happening because of this, oronce that pain medication kicks
in, then I'll be okay, you'renot able to do that.
It is existentially upsettingand therefore, how cruel it is
(32:44):
to inflict that on another humanbeing, to do that without any
way of relieving that oranything like that.
And if that is indeed the case,that these tiny children inside
the womb have the fullcapability of feeling the pain
(33:04):
but have no capability ofproperly processing it, then
that, as you said, bob, thatmakes it even worse.
That's torturous, yeah, and ifyou knew that it was happening
said Bob, that makes it evenworse.
That's torturous, yeah, and ifyou knew that it was happening
to a neighbor, you would dosomething about it.
And it is happening to aneighbor.
Christa Potratz (33:22):
Thank you both for the discussion today and we
thank all of our listeners, too,for joining us, and if you have
any questions on any of thesetopics at all, you can reach us
at lifechallengesus.
And please, if you enjoyed thisepisode, share the podcast.
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Jeff Samelson (33:46):
In the United States.
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Christa Potratz (33:48):
In the United States.
Yep, that's correct, and I justhad seen yesterday that we have
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Anyway, thank you to all of ourlisteners for everything and we
look forward to having you backnext time.
Thanks a lot.
Paul Snamiska (34:09):
Bye is to help you through these tough topics
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(34:42):
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May God give you wisdom, love,strength and peace in Christ for
(35:05):
every life challenge.
On today's episode.
Yeah, that's a really goodthing, but when it's me and my
pregnancy, yeah, I don.
Paul Snamiska (00:26):
We're here to bring a fresh biblical
perspective to these issues andmore.
(00:46):
Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz (00:54):
Hi and welcome back.
I'm Krista Potratz and I'm heretoday with Pastors Bob
Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson,and today we're going to talk
about our August current events,and we have a good list of
current events to talk about,the things that are going on the
first we'll talk about is Jeff.
(01:16):
Can you fill us in a little biton what's going on with the
defunding Planned Parenthood?
Jeff Samelson (01:22):
We're recording this in mid-July.
We'll see if anything much haschanged by the beginning of
August, but so far it seemspretty certain of a few things.
On July 3rd, the Senate passedthe reconciled version of what
Donald Trump was calling the Big, beautiful Bill, and then he
signed it on July 4th.
And included in this, alongwith many other things, was a
(01:45):
provision that removed allfederal funding for Medicaid
funding for Planned Parenthood.
So basically saying no federalmoney at all is going to go to
Planned Parenthood.
Previously there had beenprovisions that would keep
federal money from paying forabortions through Medicaid and
(02:05):
therefore keeping that moneyfrom Planned Parenthood, but
this was the first time.
They simply said no, none ofit's going at all to Planned
Parenthood in any way.
And that's the reality.
That should be the one thatactually works, because money is
fungible.
If you're giving $100,000 tothis clinic and you're saying,
(02:25):
but don't use it for this thing,it's still going to end up
supporting that thing, becauseyou're just going to move your
money around in order to makesure things get paid for or
whatever.
So that was the big thing.
One thing that pro-lifers were alittle less happy about the
original bill that had passed.
The House banned or removedthat funding for a period of 10
(02:52):
years.
Apparently, it was a provisionof the reconciliation process
that they were using to get thisthrough the Senate that it had
to be changed to just one year.
So that raises some questions.
Are they going to be able tokeep that provision in next year
and in future years when itcomes up?
Will this be in any waysomething that's permanent, or
is this going to be somethingthat has to be fought again
every year?
So lots of big questions there,particularly with Ludd being up
(03:16):
in the air about the Republicancontrol of the House and the
Senate and so forth.
A few things should be madeclear, though that this in and
of itself doesn't cripple ordestroy Planned Parenthood.
In states where the statelegislature is overwhelmingly
pro-abortion, they can decideokay, well, we're going to make
up what the federal governmentisn't giving them, we're going
(03:37):
to fund these organizations.
There are private organizationsthat, of course, could step up,
or even individuals, andreplace that funding, but it is
interesting that PlannedParenthood itself has said that
they could lose or be forced toclose one third of their clinics
as a result of this.
Now, I suspect that a fairamount of that was
(03:58):
scaremongering, trying to telleverybody oh no, you can't do
this because it's going to hurtus so much.
tell everybody oh no, you can'tdo this because it's going to
hurt us so much.
But I actually read somethingjust this morning that suggested
that there might be somereality to that, because
apparently their finances arenot quite as healthy as they
might want them to be and thatthey are, in fact, quite
dependent on federal funding.
(04:18):
So that would be a good thingas far as we're concerned,
because Planned Parenthood isthe number one purveyor of
abortions in the United Statesand does a lot of other stuff
that we're not happy about aswell.
It presented a unique dilemma.
I'll give you a little bitdifferent flavor of it.
There's a requirement that youknow I think it's on the county
(04:38):
level that states are supposedto be also providing for
indigent services like sometesting, some pap smears, sdi
testing, birth control, providebirth control services and so
forth.
And even though the bigbeautiful bill never says the
words Planned Parenthood, itclearly says that any agency
(05:01):
getting over $800,000 and ifthey're involved in abortion
they're defunded.
So it effectively defunds themand that's a good thing.
I mean I'm very good.
I find that the Trumpadministration likes to use a
method of creating change byforcing you into a predicament.
Whether we're talking abouttariffs or whatever else is
(05:22):
going on, the predicament issupposed to create a positive
change.
That's going to hurt a lotright now, but later on it will
become more natural, like in thearea of tariffs Now.
I used to work for a steelfoundry many years ago in the
lab and I remember how we werejust being beat up over foreign
(05:44):
steel, and so eventually thesteel foundry I worked for went
out of business, and notsurprising.
And now, of course, betweentariffs and everything, there's
this big push to try to bringsteel production back to the
United States, america's largestprivate provider of services
(06:05):
that take the life of unbornchildren.
They also have created thisdilemma of how are counties
going to be able to still meettheir obligation to the indigent
?
And so I can see why people arepanicking.
I can see why states are sayingwell then, we're going to fund
it and everything.
The beauty of it is, I believe,when push comes to shove, even
(06:27):
the most liberal states aregoing to finally say we don't
have an endless pot of gold hereOn the county level.
We'll fund STD testing, we'llfund pap smears, we may even
fund birth control, but it'sjust too politically divisive to
fund abortions on the moreintimate state level.
So I think this is going to bea technique that's going to push
(06:50):
counties to be a little bitmore imaginative.
If Planned Parenthood wants tostick to their guns and stay in
the abortion business, they'rejust out.
It's time for them to move on.
They've become obsolete.
So I think that that's kind oflike a grand plan and all this.
I didn't read all thousand pagesof the big, beautiful bill,
which I never liked thatterminology, but I did some
(07:13):
summary work on it and I'vealways even though I haven't
been in the steel industry in 45, 50 years, I still follow what
kind of goes on in that industryand I see the same thing
happening.
It's trying to create apredicament so that it forces
ingenuity to solve it, and Ithink that that's a very good
(07:34):
thing and in the process we'regoing to save some lives.
The Hyde Amendment always wasprohibiting money going for
these purposes and liberals havealways found a way to
circumvent it.
And this big beautiful bill, Ithink, just cut that one off.
Christa Potratz (07:49):
It's hard to imagine though kind of like you
were saying too that this willbe the end of Planned Parenthood
.
Jeff Samelson (07:56):
We've seen them, too, kind of move into other
spaces as well, offeringdifferent hormones and things in
the transgender area, and so itwill just be interesting to see
what happens a more libertarianor constitutionalist bent are
(08:27):
going to be hopeful thatsomething like this is also just
starting to get the federalgovernment out of the business
of paying for things that thefederal government was never
designed to be paying for, andthat would be a good thing.
I think many people would agreeif this is just the first step
in that direction and helping usbeing more of a federal type of
system that we were originallydesigned to be, which brings up
(08:48):
an interesting little sidelightwhich I don't know got a whole
lot of attention.
So Donald Trump signed thelegislation on the 4th of July,
which was a Friday.
Next business day, it wasMonday, the 7th.
On that day, two PlannedParenthood groups I think
Massachusetts and Utah filedsuit in a federal court in
(09:12):
Massachusetts asking for aninjunction.
They got from the federal judgethere Within hours.
There was no opinion.
The judge simply issued atemporary restraining order
saying that the administrationhas to continue paying for all
of these things that the law hasjust said they cannot pay for.
(09:34):
And that is just such aconstitutional travesty.
Courts cannot tell theexecutive to spend money that
the legislature has not actuallygiven them authority to spend.
That's not the way it works andthat's not the way the judicial
system is supposed to workeither.
If it doesn't get overturnedimmediately, it's just going to
(09:56):
blow up in some way or another.
But it just indicates howexistential this is to certain
people with a certain politicalbent on things, and that makes
it's worth paying attention to,or continuing to pay attention
to it and not just thinking, oh,we won, that's it you know I
was thinking of Jeff's politicalscience background when I was
(10:18):
watching the debate going onbetween the big beautiful bill
and the House of Representativesand I went over to the Senate
and how the Senate has adifferent set of priorities than
the House of Representativeswhen it deals with this House of
Representatives.
It's supposedly perhaps theclosest representative to the
demographics of your state,whereas the Senate gets two reps
(10:40):
.
Whether your state is made upof many different cultures and
attitudes, you just have tworeps.
And I always thought it waspart of the genius of the way
the Constitution is structuredand the checks and balances and
so forth.
But as they were going back andforth and then hearing Jeff
comment about getting thefederal government out of
funding all these things, that'sone of the things that's going
(11:02):
to be.
A benefit is that I think whenthese issues come back to the
state to be dealt with and thenget it down on the county level,
when it gets to that level, itgets close enough now that now
you have a real say.
So now you can show up at yourmeeting.
You can say I don't want this,I don't want this in my school
district, I don't want this inmy county.
I don't want you can do that,whereas everything you were
(11:25):
hoping for in the House ofRepresentatives bill got turned
around or undone or modified inthe Senate version and you have
no say you can on the bigelection of your senators.
But it's part of the complexityof how the system works.
So I think anytime we can bringthese issues back into our
communities, especially whenthey're so volatile, like
abortion.
So I think anytime we can bringthese issues back into our
communities, especially whenthey're so volatile, like
(11:48):
abortion, and I mean even otherthings that we get into, whether
it be marriage, gay marriage orporn stores and stuff like that
, I think you get those on thecommunity level.
I think you have a betterchance of getting your voice
known.
Christa Potratz (12:03):
Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see how
everything plays out.
Another article, another topicthat we wanted to talk about was
the role of adoption andwomen's pregnancy-making
decision.
Jeff, can you tell us a littlebit about that?
Jeff Samelson (12:19):
Well, this was prompted by a long article that
was published just within thelast few weeks in a law journal.
It was titled Informing Choicethe Role of Adoption in Women's
Pregnancy Decision Making.
It's interesting because ittakes a close and detailed and
well-researched with statisticsand surveys and things like that
(12:42):
approach to the question of whyis it that adoption is not the
option that pregnant women arechoosing as much, and how does
that relate to, statistically,to abortion, the choice to abort
a child, and why is that?
(13:03):
And the third big part of thepaper is well, what can
legislatures and such do aboutthis?
You know what's the politicalresponse there and that's that's
not so much what.
What interested me, but it wasthe um.
You know the talk of adoption.
I mean, we are pro-adoptionhere very much so, uh, and the
um I after Dobbs, there werelots of people saying, well, we
(13:26):
think it just makes sense thatum adoption levels are going to
go up a lot after that becausewomen who are not able to get
abortions are going to placetheir children for adoption and
haven't been seeing that so much, uh, and we we'd like to see
more of it, but there's still alot of children that are losing
(13:47):
their lives to abortion.
In fact, the rate of abortionsto adoptions in the United
States is currently about 50abortions to every one adoption.
Christa Potratz (13:58):
Wow.
Jeff Samelson (13:59):
And that's despite the fact that 86% of
Americans report a favorable toextremely favorable view of
adoption.
But from the perspective ofwomen with unexpected
pregnancies, adoption is,generally speaking, a non-option
.
Very few women consider, muchless choose, adoption districts
(14:20):
from.
Five years ago, just shy of20,000 infants were placed for
private domestic non-step-parentadoption, in contrast to at
least 930,000 abortions.
Yeah, I mean it's—and the crazything is is it's never changed.
We've been in the pregnancycare business for a long time
now and we knew early on thatyou can sit down with a woman
(14:43):
coming in pregnant and if youtalk to her about adoption she
would rather abort her childthan to imagine somebody
adopting her child.
And our experience has been ona practical level it was almost
kind of like a surge inresponsibility, like I could
never trust somebody else to dothat, so I'd rather have that
(15:03):
child, abort it.
And of course, by theirthinking is you know we'll abort
the child before there's anycognizant understanding of
what's happening.
And then you know we relievethe child of potential problems.
We make things you know easierfor everybody by their thinking
and, of course, the child ofpotential problems.
We make things easier foreverybody by their thinking.
And of course, the child has todie.
In the article that Jeff hadlinked they were talking about
(15:25):
how people will raise questionsabout.
Well, talking about adoptiondoesn't relieve the mother of
the stress and turmoil ofcarrying the pregnancy all the
way through and so forth.
My experience on a verypractical level is that they
(15:46):
don't think that way.
That's not the way they think.
They think in the moment.
And in the moment I'm pregnant.
At this time I'm pregnant.
I didn't want to be pregnant, Iwasn't figuring on being
pregnant, I don't want thepregnancy to continue.
When you're arguing for adoptionand we try everything we can
but when you make the case foradoption, what they're hearing
(16:07):
is the pregnancy continues,you're carrying the baby.
Everything that they came inwith a mindset of being opposed
to.
And so I think you know Ithought the study was great, it
was a good paper, a fascinatingpaper.
But I do think it challenges usto kind of deal with the real
(16:27):
issues at hand, and that issomehow they need to be more
greatly incentivized to carrythe pregnancy through with
somebody who wants to adopt andI know there are plenty of
people out there to adoptbecause we hear from them a lot
but how do you give them theincentive to do it?
Some other of the statisticsdespite three quarters of
(16:49):
Americans having positive viewson adoption, only one sixth of
American women of childbearingage reported that they would
make such a choice.
Of American women ofchildbearing age reported that
they would make such a choice.
So it's in the abstract.
Thinking about other people,it's like, oh yeah, that's a
really good thing.
But when it's me and mypregnancy, yeah, I don't think I
could do that.
And the article discusses whatare some of the reasons why that
(17:13):
is.
Some of it is inaccurateinformation.
Women think, oh well, if Iplace my child for adoption,
then I have no choice, nocontrol, I'll never have a
chance to connect with the childagain.
They have very wrong ideasabout how it works.
They might feel that, well,once I do that, I'm coerced,
which is no longer the case.
And they can address externalthings like oh, if abortion is
(17:38):
available as an option, wellthen, that's a major figure
there.
There is still a stigma for alot of people on adoptions like,
oh, you gave up your baby, youmust have been in really bad
shape, you must have been prettyconfident, you couldn't be a
good mother, and they don't wantthat kind of stigma, which
(17:58):
shouldn't be there in the firstplace, but it's there
Increasingly now.
There's a social pressure to ifyou're going to bear the child,
to be the parent.
You know there's like there'ssomething wrong if you're not
going to do that.
Sometimes people get themessage from their family Well,
you have this baby, don't expectany help from us.
Well, you have this baby, don'texpect any help from us.
And there are trustedprofessionals who might very
well be saying no, no, that'snot what you want to do, that's
(18:22):
not a good thing there.
And then of course, there arethe internal considerations
Pretty much what Bob was talkingabout.
I'm going through a lot ofdistress right now with this
pregnancy and the long-termthing of adoption.
That doesn't sound like it'sgoing to relieve my distress.
And then there's that sense ofwell, what's going to be best
for the child?
Don't I know what's best for achild?
How could I send him tosomebody else and have that
happen?
(18:42):
So there's a lot in the articleand it's interesting and if you
have an interest in adoption,particularly adoption policy and
such, you'd probably find itworth a read.
It kind of inspired me to againexplore how we deal with the
topic as an organization,because there is for the sake of
(19:03):
the child who loses a life ifthere's an abortion.
I'd like to see if we couldmore critically examine how to
help this, because the numberswere, I mean, it is a staggering
statistic 50 to 1.
And how tragic.
Christa Potratz (19:19):
Yeah, another topic that we wanted to talk
about was the lab-grown spermand eggs, and I think this was
an article that was maybeJapanese scientists that were
talking about how far they thinkthey are away from growing
(19:39):
these sperm and eggs in the lab.
Jeff Samelson (19:43):
Well, I think first of all, remember what
they're talking about.
You know we've gone the cycleof surrogate parenting.
We've gone.
You know we're IVF.
This is like one step beyond.
Now we're talking about notinvolving a male and a female,
but actually bringing everythingdown to its what they would
(20:03):
call totipotent level that wouldallow finding the necessary
elements in stem cells that youcan bring the combination to
result in life.
There were all sorts of thingsabout the story that struck me
Like.
First of all, at OsakaUniversity, the professor said I
think we're seven years away.
(20:23):
Every time I see that I alwaysgiggle, because you know how we
talk numerology in the Bible.
You know, like seven or ten,ten's a number of completeness.
It's a little bit like thisWhenever I see the number seven
and ten in ethics, it alwaysmeans we don't have the foggiest
idea when this is going tohappen.
You know, because 7 is forever.
(20:44):
Did they say that seven yearsago?
Do we know?
When you look at some of thequandaries that are going to be
brought up, first of all, thinkabout the benefits.
This is what they tell you.
The benefit of this is same-sexcouples.
They can have a child.
(21:04):
A single parent can have achild.
You combine this with theartificial womb, a man can have
a child.
I mean, it's got all of thesepossibilities.
Almost all of them support aperverted view of the family,
not a biblical view of thefamily, but support a perverted
view of the family.
But as I read it and this didnot come out of the article I've
(21:28):
been reading through the bookof Leviticus, which tells you
how badly I need excitement inmy life, because Leviticus is a
tough read.
You're reading all theregulations and I'm reading all
this and you get through thesexual sins in Leviticus where
you're not supposed to sleepwith a close family blood
relative and all of those kindsof things, and generally the
logic has been there's justproblems with that.
(21:51):
Now, one of the things that theyhinted at could be a problem, a
practical problem not even theydon't call it an ethical
problem, but a practical problemis what are the offspring going
to look like, four generationsdown the road?
Because if I can't and I'mgoing to preface this by telling
(22:13):
everybody I do not have asister, so but if I were to
copulate with my sister, and itraises the possibility of
profound birth defects or birthdefects coming on down the road.
What do you think is going tohappen if I go the only thing
closer and that's essentially tocopulate with yourself?
What do you think is going tohappen down the line when you've
(22:37):
extracted basically your maleand female elements in
procreation out of your ownsystem and that was part of the
design of God and being fruitfuland multiplying and so forth,
and this whole thing is designedto circumvent, is designed to
circumvent.
It's funny because when I readit it's kind of like is there
(23:01):
any other possible way I couldlook at everything God
instructed and say let's do theopposite.
And this is getting prettyclose.
It was interesting that theopening line of the article that
talked about this had theinteresting verb Scientists are
just a few years from creatingviable human sex cells in the
lab, creating as though they aremaking something from scratch,
(23:26):
when in fact all they're doingis working with the powers and
potentialities that God, thereal creator, put into cells and
DNA from the very beginning.
But they want to play God and,like with so many things, it's
(23:47):
the old problem of seeminglyonly being concerned with can we
do this, when they should firstbe asking should we do this?
Is this good, is this right, isthis smart?
And, as you so well expressed,this is messing with things that
we, as Christians, and reallyall humans, should be profoundly
uncomfortable with havinganybody mess with.
The line has been crossed.
(24:08):
It's in the rearview mirror.
We hoped there'd be some way tobring us back at some point,
but they're barreling ahead.
And I've wondered is thesolution to just encourage
everybody out there in LifeChallenges podcast land to get
on your ethics boards and kindof put a stop to this?
No, I don't think that that'sthe solution.
I've thought about what I thinkis the real solution here and
(24:31):
because I've wrestled with thisfor a long time and that is when
you've got people who have goneinto this we can do anything we
want.
And, of course, if you'reliving for the world, I get it.
I can make the logicalconnections.
I see what—let's experiment,let's try If we're living for
this world.
(24:51):
But if you understand yourChristianity, if you're more
than a thimbleful depth to it,you recognize that this is not
all there is to life.
Our entire existence is to beglorifying God.
So, ultimately, how do youhandle where the ethical train
has so passed your stationalready?
It's way down the line.
(25:12):
How do you handle it?
You handle it with the gospel.
You try to connect people againwith an understanding of how
you came into existence, why youcontinue to exist.
Like Jeff said at the beginning, we're recording this in mid
creation of woman.
How that's supposed to beunderstood, all that kind of
(25:39):
stuff.
When you start tying all ofthat together.
It's incredible how far we'vegotten off the track, and when
you're so off the track, yourreality is no reality at all.
You're just looking at a biggiant fantasy land that all
disintegrates, and I think,christians, the only way you
finally stop it is you do whatwe've been called to do from the
very beginning.
Talk about Jesus.
Christa Potratz (26:00):
I mean, I think I, you know, just look at it
too, as it's like you're takingGod's perfect design with man
and woman and creating new life.
And then it's, like you know,it's like a kid, you know, mom
and dad has maybe startedsomething.
Okay, like I want to do it now.
Like you know, I want, knowit's like a kid, you know, mom
and dad has maybe startedsomething.
Okay, like I want to do it now.
Like I, you know, I want to, Iwant to, it's my turn, and even
(26:22):
though, like it's already kindof done, you just you're trying
to do it now, just in adifferent way, and it's, I mean,
it's just it's not the way itgot intended.
Jeff Samelson (26:37):
Reminds me of an old joke, which I'm not
remembering completely so Iprobably won't tell it so well,
but it's basically thatscientists have or this group of
scientists have decided thatthey have figured out the
process, that they know enoughabout how evolution happened and
everything like that that theycan create life on their own.
They've figured out how, and sothey invite God for a showdown
and say, okay, well, you know,if you can do it, we can too.
(26:59):
And he agrees, okay, let's dothat.
So he says go ahead, what doyou need?
And they say, okay, well, firstwe're going to take some dirt.
And God says wait, where areyou getting the dirt from?
The idea being that he createdthe dirt.
They're not starting fromnothing, they're still working
with something that he created.
And yeah, just reminds me ofthat.
(27:24):
Go back to Exodus, Read whenMoses was sent to Pharaoh to let
the people go, and it kind ofreminded me a little bit of the
joke.
You know, the idea is Pharaohbrings out his magicians and so,
you know, he kind of replicatesa couple of these things and
then all of a sudden we kind ofget beyond the ability of the
magicians and it seemeddeliberate.
(27:45):
But my point is is that Pharaohhad hardened his heart and
demonstrated that at every turn.
Pharaoh had hardened his heartand demonstrated that at every
turn.
When you read all of the things, everything that's involved
with this it's called an IVGprocess as opposed to IVF,
Everything involved with the IVGprocess In vitro gametogenesis
(28:07):
yes, that's it Very good, Ipracticed that.
And that's what it is.
But if you read everythinginvolved with it, it's almost
kind of like man is playing therole of Pharaoh.
My heart is hardened.
You tell me I can't do this.
I'm doing this.
You tell me I should do it thisway.
I'm going to do it that way.
I mean, it's like everything isjust outright rebellion and at
(28:28):
some point somebody's going tohave to put their foot down.
The other thing if you want tothrow an ethical wrench into all
of this, just remember if yoursphere of influence is your
community, your county, yourstate, maybe even your federal
government, but it doesn'textend to Japan, china, wherever
they want to work on this stuff.
They're just going to keepplowing ahead in those areas.
(28:50):
So you do what you can do.
And what you can do is, youknow, connect people with God
and let it go from there.
Yeah, one of the scariest thingsin this article was not so much
about what they are capable ofor expect to soon be capable of,
but I can't remember who it waswho made the comment, but it
was somebody who was talkingabout well, yeah, we're not sure
(29:11):
if we should do this, we're notsure if we should do that or
whatever, but basically wascomfortable.
Well, it depends on whatsociety is comfortable with A
never changing mark, yeah, andit's like yeah, that's not an
ethical standard, that's justyeah, we'll do whatever is
permitted, whatever is possible.
Yeah, and that's not comfortingat all.
Christa Potratz (29:35):
Well, the final thing we wanted to talk about
today was an article that Bobhad found on prenatal infants
feeling pain, and I think theymaybe have discovered that they
do feel pain, but maybe theydon't realize that it's pain and
just the ethical you knowfindings with that.
Jeff Samelson (30:00):
Well, and the article dealt with preemies.
So we're talking aboutprematurely born infants, and
when a child is prematurely born, you know, at different stages,
they're basically saying thereseems to be the presence of pain
, but their level of cognition,their level of understanding it,
translating it, is different.
And I think when I wrote thelittle explanation note on it I
(30:25):
even said we've been talkingabout this for years, about
unborn children experiencingpain, and of course everyone's
always taken some sort of solacethat they don't understand it
as they would if they were born.
I thought the article was kindof interesting in that they
suggested that it might actuallybe worse.
It might be a worseacknowledgement because they
(30:48):
don't have the cognitive skillsto compartmentalize, to classify
, to do all that, and I've oftenfelt that way.
I mean it's kind of like fear.
There are things that you'reafraid of and then, as you begin
to understand it, you mightstill fear it but it might turn
into more like respect, likeelectricity.
I remember the first time aneighbor was helping us build a
(31:12):
room in our basement when I wasa kid and he accidentally
touched the metal rule to thetwo screws on the electrical
outlet and it sparks and thepower went out, it blew the
breaker and it terrified me, andthen, after a while, he began
to teach me how it worked, andso your fear becomes respect,
(31:35):
but you're still kind of fearful.
Well, at its base level it mighteven be more torturous of what
we do to children through anabortion and premature children
yeah, what I related that to is,like you know, I, I I have been
blessed that so far in my lifeI have never extreme experienced
the most extreme forms of pain.
(31:56):
But if you ever have had pain sosevere, or you've observed
someone, particularly someoneyou love, with pain so severe
that you're no longer able toengage your brain to deal with
it, which is, you know, and onthat pain scale, when you're
getting into the eight, nine, 10, there there's no ability to
process, you're, you're justfeeling the pain.
(32:19):
That's the only thing on yourmind and you're, you're not able
to compartmentalize it, you'renot able to process it and say,
oh well, this is going to goaway soon, or this is only
happening because of this, oronce that pain medication kicks
in, then I'll be okay, you'renot able to do that.
It is existentially upsettingand therefore, how cruel it is
(32:44):
to inflict that on another humanbeing, to do that without any
way of relieving that oranything like that.
And if that is indeed the case,that these tiny children inside
the womb have the fullcapability of feeling the pain
(33:04):
but have no capability ofproperly processing it, then
that, as you said, bob, thatmakes it even worse.
That's torturous, yeah, and ifyou knew that it was happening
said Bob, that makes it evenworse.
That's torturous, yeah, and ifyou knew that it was happening
to a neighbor, you would dosomething about it.
And it is happening to aneighbor.
Christa Potratz (33:22):
Thank you both for the discussion today and we
thank all of our listeners, too,for joining us, and if you have
any questions on any of thesetopics at all, you can reach us
at lifechallengesus.
And please, if you enjoyed thisepisode, share the podcast.
We are currently in the top 25%of all podcasts.
Jeff Samelson (33:46):
In the United States.
We're in the top 25.
Christa Potratz (33:48):
In the United States.
Yep, that's correct, and I justhad seen yesterday that we have
published over 200 episodes,201 to be exact.
Anyway, thank you to all of ourlisteners for everything and we
look forward to having you backnext time.
Thanks a lot.
Paul Snamiska (34:09):
Bye is to help you through these tough topics
and we want you to know we'rehere to help.
You can submit your questions,as well as comments or
suggestions for future episodes,at lifechallengesus or email us
(34:42):
at podcast atchristianliferesourcescom.
In addition to the podcasts, weinclude other valuable
information at lifechallengesus,so be sure to check it out For
more about our parentorganization.
Please visitchristianliferesourcescom.
May God give you wisdom, love,strength and peace in Christ for
(35:05):
every life challenge.
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