Ep. 270: Sanctity of Life, Beginning and End

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to The Indoubt Podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week, we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on Indoubt, visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Daniel Markin:

And welcome to Indoubt. This is Daniel Markin. In today’s episode, I am actually chatting with Stephanie Gray Connors. And she does a lot of work in the realm of pro-life ministry, and so we’re going to be talking about assisted suicide, we’re going to be talking about abortion, controversial topics. But I hope you will find this helpful. Hey, welcome to Indoubt. My name’s Daniel Markin, and today, I’m joined by Stephanie Gray Connors. Stephanie, how are you?

Stephanie Gray Connors:

I am well. Thank you for having me on.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, it’s a pleasure to have you on. And as we were just discussing pre show, we have a lot in common because you spent a lot of time in Vancouver. You, yourself, are a Canadian. Correct?

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Yeah. So I’m actually one of the Vancouverites born in Vancouver in St. Paul’s Hospital in 1980. And then I was raised in the Fraser Valley, actually out in Chilliwack. And over then my adult life, once I went to university, I went to Vancouver, but I also went to Alberta, I went to Ontario. And now I find myself in Florida.

Daniel Markin:

That sounds amazing.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

It is.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, yeah. So you have chosen to speak and do a lot of ministry on topics that are super controversial. And so those are some of the things we’re going to be talking about today. We’re talking about your work in relation to abortion and in relation to assisted suicide. And these are two topics that are deeply, deeply heavy. And so I just want to first off by saying thank you for jumping into those, for making that your work, for taking on that call for stuff because a lot of people were not well educated in how to think about these issues. And I would love to, as we begin discussing if you could explain how some of these views came to be, especially in Canada, with abortion and then with assisted suicide, and actually, where they fall short of the gospel. So if you want to introduce a little bit more of how you came to make these the topics that you get to speak and present on, I’d love to hear that.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Yeah, great question. So I, as I mentioned, born in Vancouver, raised in the Fraser Valley, and both my parents were really involved in the pro-life movement. And my mom volunteered at a pregnancy care center. So all through my growing up years, I was very aware of the issue of the sanctity of life and the gospel call to love the least of these, to love our neighbors, we love ourselves. And I saw my parents doing that and living it out in a very practical way. So that laid the foundation for my conviction. And then the turning point for me was in my first year at university at UVC. I went to a pro-life conference for pro-life university students from across Canada. And the conference was in Toronto, and they brought in an American speaker named Scott Klusendorf, and he spoke all weekend, equipping us on how to defend the pro-life perspective using science, using philosophy, using human rights.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And I was hearing someone who was so reasonable and logical, and I thought, “I can use these arguments. This is what I need. I know that I am pro-life, but he’s telling me why I’m pro-life. And I want to be able to express this to others, and he’s equipping me to do that.” So after I heard him speak all weekend, I actually became convicted by the Holy Spirit that I was meant to do what he does. So he actually began mentoring me from a distance. He went back to the states. I went back to Vancouver. And I finished my degree over the next three and a half years. And then when I graduated in 2002, I went into full-time pro-life ministry teaching apologetics, primarily in the beginning of life. But then as time has gone on, unfortunately, in Canada but also in many parts of the world, including certain states here in America, assisted suicide has also become something that’s normalized and accessible, so that has also led to me teaching apologetics on the other end of life.

Daniel Markin:

Wow. And when you say, just to clarify terms, assisted suicide, can you explain how that’s different from euthanasia? Are they the same thing?

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Good question. I pretty much use the terms interchangeably. I mean, there are slight nuances where people will say, “Well, one is where you are administering a lethal dose yourself,” so someone is aiding you by giving you, let’s say drugs, medicine, that you … Well, it’s not really medicine because it’s not helping you, but drugs that you then put in your hand and you put in your mouth, and you swallow, versus someone injecting you with something and it’s at directly at their hand, which is causing your death.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

But I find that, as with the abortion debate, language really matters. And those who are not in favor of the sanctity of life will often distort and misrepresent things by the words that they use. And the term euthanasia is largely meaningless to a lot of people. It doesn’t create any type of visceral reaction. I’ve heard it said as a joke, but I’ve actually heard young children overhear euthanasia being discussed and saying, “Why are we talking about kids in Asia?”

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

So there’s a lot of confusion over that term. But when it comes to suicide, there’s this universal instinctive reaction of sorrow and sadness that anyone feeling so despairing that they end their life. And so because euthanasia/assisted suicide is really involving someone wanting to end their own life and acting on that, albeit with the aid of others, I think to use the term assisted suicide taps into the instinctive sense we have that this actually isn’t a good thing. I’ll say to people if suicide is wrong, and if homicide is wrong, then blending the two together in assisted suicide, which is kind of like a homicide, but also a suicide, can’t make two wrong things right. So that’s why I choose the terms assisted suicide.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, and I agree with you on that. That is not a thing to be glorified. However, our culture seems to have a perspective on that which says, at least with assisted suicide, you’re going out on your own terms. And so with this idea of individualism, it seems like with assisted suicide, it’s like you can choose when you go out. It’s on your terms. Right? You can actually choose when to end the battle of cancer. Right? And you see this, it reminds me of a movie. There was on called Me Before You. It came out a few years ago. You’ve probably seen it. We watched that with our young adults, and it was such a sinister movie because you have this love story that begins to blossom for this nurse caring for this young guy, who I believe is paralyzed.

Daniel Markin:

And at the end of the film, he’s enormously wealthy, and just to give away the ending, at the end of the film, he elects to commit assisted suicide because he was so fed up with his life. And the way that they craft the ending, the last five minutes of the movie, with beautiful music, not sad music, but hope filled, beautiful music. And at the end, she’s smiling and happy that he’s gone on to be in peace. And we sat there, and the emotional feel at the end of the movie, you’re like, “It was so good that he did that. They’re so happy.” And then you go, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He just committed suicide.” And they just glorified that. And so I found that very, very shocking.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

It is. And it goes to show, it’s an important reminder for believers that Satan rarely, if ever, shows up with a pitchfork and the red horns on his head. He’s more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He comes across making sin look attractive, making a violation of God’s commands look magnetic and pull us in that direction. And so that’s why being equipped is so important. We need the wisdom to discern when something is actually being misrepresented. And unfortunately, yes, when it comes to some end of life issues or positions that people hold, is they try to portray it as a good thing of me making my autonomous, independent decision that has no influence on others. But we know any decision we make, action or inaction, affects others.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

I think even when suicide happens, there typically is a rise in other suicides in that very community. Or if a famous person commits suicide, often when that’s advertised in the news, then you see an increase in that. So our actions impact other people. I often use an analogy that’s not directly related to assisted suicide, per se, but there’s an incredible young woman from Colombia by the name of Zuly Sanguino, who was born without arms and legs. She only has half of her arms, neither of her legs. She’s obviously gone through a lot of suffering being physically different. She faced the loss of her dad when she was two. He committed suicide.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

So here you’ve got this girl without her father, with special needs. Then she’s sexually assaulted. She’s raped at some point in her childhood. In high school, she’s teased so much that at 15, she thinks about ending her life. So praise the Lord, she doesn’t end her life. Praise the Lord, her mom is really supportive of her and tries to encourage her that she can do great things, even with her differences and her suffering. So she’s become a motivational speaker. She’s a beautiful artist. You can find her work online. But my point is that because she’s become a motivational speaker, her story has been aired through the media.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And there happened to be a young man that had gone through a lot of difficulty in his life, and he was so despairing, he was going to end his own life. And he was so close to it, he had obtained a gun, and he was in a room, and he was going to blow his brains out. But he happened to turn the TV on as he was preparing to end his life. And the TV station he tuned into was airing an interview with Zuly. And so this guy just suddenly is captivated by the very visibly different appearance of this young women, who’s physically disabled, the stories that she’s sharing of all her suffering, and how she has a will to live and motivation to find hope, even in dark places.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And as a result of hearing her story, he put down his gun and he picked up a pen and paper, wrote her a letter, and they became friends. And I use that as an example to say, had Zuly had the attitude at 15 by saying, “If I end my life, that’s my independent choice. It doesn’t impact other people,” that actually would be proven false because had she ended her life at 15, her story of overcoming hardship never would’ve been aired on TV at a pivotal moment years later when someone else would have then ended his life because he wouldn’t have encountered Zuly. And it was only because of the choice to continue living that she actually had a positive effect on who had been a stranger, and now a friend. So when people say, “It’s just my choice. It doesn’t affect you,” we can use stories like that to say that’s actually not true. “No man is an island,” as John Donne said in an ancient poem. We are interconnected and influenced by others.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. We are, and especially as believers. We have that relationship with God. But that’s the vertical relationship. But the horizontal relationship comes with that. It’s like the moment that you have that vertical relationship with God, that horizontal relationship with other people, with other believers, is instantaneously there. It’s now part of your life. And I think what you’re describing is the effects of sin because I think that could be applied to anything. Right? You have sin is like a grenade. You can hold it long enough. Right? And you think, “Well, if I hold it, it’ll blow me up.” And it’s like there’s shrapnel that hits everybody, and everyone’s affected by that. It could maim them. It could traumatize them. You don’t know. And that is true. We’re all interconnected in that way.

Daniel Markin:

I suppose with this issue of assisted suicide, has this been getting way more traction? Because I almost feel like it’s gone a little bit quiet. And what are you seeing? Because maybe now that it’s normalized, people aren’t talking about it as much.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Yeah. Good question. I would say that like any controversial issue, it comes in waves. And certainly, I think it was about five years ago where the Supreme Court threw out, the Canadian Supreme Court threw out the law against assisted suicide, and basically these unelected judges told our elected representatives, “You have to come up with a new law that allows for assisted suicide in certain circumstances.” And unfortunately, a majority of our elected representatives did that. The new law was created now allowing for it. And it was just I think in the last year where that law was expanded in Canada to allow more people to be able to access assisted suicide, including coming down the pipe, people with mental illness, which is so distressing to think how many people who struggle with bipolar disorder, or depression will say, “I want to die.”

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And wait, does that mean now because of the new law, that sentence, I want to die, is going to be taken seriously? And they’re going to start to fill out assisted suicide papers instead of being admitted to a hospital where there’s one person in their room the whole time, keeping them on suicide watch, to try to give them suicide prevention. So I would say that whenever there seems to be a slight change in the law that it kind of makes more headlines, and then as that passes, then it seems the debate dies down a bit. But I have been hearing that there’s a group in Canada called the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, and in one of their reports that I got, they were talking about an increase in assisted suicide, particularly in the last year with COVID lock downs.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And I think about what you said about our vertical relationship and our horizontal relationship with God, and then with others, and we by virtue of being image bearers, we are made for a communion of persons. We’re made for relationship because that’s what God is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and this relationship of giving and receiving love. Humans were not meant to be alone. We know that from the Book of Genesis with Adam. Man was meant to be in communion with others. And so when you go against one’s nature, and you isolate and you marginalize, which the last year and a half has done, then you increase despair. And then that can lead to people wanting to end their life, whether it’s suicide by itself, or whether it’s assisted suicide with the aid of others.

Daniel Markin:

As we think about this as Christians, how should we think about this as Christians? My understanding is that we believe that life is God’s, and that he is the author of life. And he can choose to bring it, and he is the one who is to end it. Is it accurate to say that assisted suicide goes against the way of God because now we’re trying to play God?

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Absolutely. It is taking into human hands the power to end life, which as you pointed out, that’s God’s domain. We are creature. We are not creator. And God even tells us in the Old Testament, I set before you life and death. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. Now that doesn’t mean that’s always easy to do. We have to acknowledge that God created a perfect world without sin, and unfortunately, Adam and Eve ruined that by introducing sin into the world. But God is preparing another world to come, where there will be no more tears. And we’re in the middle of the story right now. And in our broken world, there’s going to be pain, there’s going to be suffering. But we have to remember that amidst suffering and pain is an incredible opportunity to love others.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

So I think for example, one of my favorite quotes, I mentioned it in my book on assisted suicide, there’s this little booklet called On a Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. And one of the previous Roman Catholic popes, John Paul the Second, wrote those quote in there in which he said, “Suffering unleashes love.” And I absolutely love that message because if you think about it, when do we, as Thomas Aquinas said, will the others good. When do we step outside of ourselves and focus on the other instead of just me? And isn’t when the other is needy, vulnerable, weak, or suffering? And it’s their vulnerability that heightens our love and affection for them.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And so when someone is suffering, when they’re in pain, rather than eliminate them, we ought to alleviate their suffering, and we do that by love, by being in relationship, by giving them our time and attention, by sitting and holding their hands, recording their thoughts if they can’t communicate by typing themselves, or writing something out. And it is through love that ultimately we find life. And that’s really the gospel message. Man sinned. We were separated from God, so we were suffering. What did that do? It unleashed God’s love through Jesus, who came to the world to die and rise from the dead, so our sins could be forgiven. For what purpose? So we could have eternal life. So suffering unleashes love. Love unleashes life. But assisted suicide doesn’t follow that trajectory. Instead, it says, “I see suffering. I unleash death.” And when you unleash death, you get more death.

Daniel Markin:

I agree. And I think there’s an interesting apologetic for people who, like you mentioned with Zuly, her suffering and her going through the suffering actually helped someone else in their suffering. And it sounds a lot like the words of Paul in Colossians, where he says, “I’m filling up the afflictions that are lacking in Christ.” And it’s kind of a weird phrase because you’re sitting there in the beginning of Colossians, and you say, “Paul, what does that mean to be filling up the afflictions that are lacking in Christ?” I thought Christ went to the cross and faced all the afflictions. What do you mean there’s afflictions lacking? And I heard, actually, it was a long time ago, I remember where I was in college, reading a little biography. I don’t remember who it was about, but it was written by John Piper. And he had a great little series called The Swans are Not Silent, and it was about all these different martyrs and heroes of the faith.

Daniel Markin:

And there’s one person who’s faced enormous suffering. And with that verse, he was just teasing that out a little bit and saying, “Filling up the afflictions that are lacking in Christ,” and not that there’s any affliction that is lacking in Christ, not that he lacked affliction, but it’s that he ascended to Heaven. And now we on Earth carry on in the work of Christ. And some of that work is suffering. However, through our suffering, and how we handle suffering, it actually proclaims something about what we believe. And the way we suffer actually tells the world what we value and what we love. And so through Zuly’s suffering, through friends that we have who are believers who are suffering, we actually see God through that because it causes people to ask, maybe the person in the hospital bed next to them. What is it about them that they’re so joyful in their suffering? Why are they so happy? Who are these people coming with them, visiting with them, praying with them, singing with them?

Daniel Markin:

I’ve never seen this. Right? And as itself, it becomes an apologetic about in a society and a culture so afraid of death, there’s people who actually through their suffering, are glorifying God. They’re unafraid of death, and they’re painting a different picture and telling a different story.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Absolutely. It brings to mind two amazing Christian women. One is Joni Eareckson Tada, who dove into water when she was 16 years old and didn’t realize how shallow it was and became a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. And she has endured so much suffering. I believe now she’s either in her 60s or 70s. And not only has she lived a life of paralysis for the majority of her time on Earth, but although you’re not supposed to feel when you’re paralyzed, she then developed a couple decades after paralysis, chronic pain, where she lives in chronic pain. And then she developed breast cancer. And I mean, it’s just one story of suffering after another. But she’s joyful, she runs a ministry where she serves other people who have special needs and require wheelchairs. And she spreads the gospel.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And so when someone like her can suffer as profoundly as she has, but instead of being bitter, instead of wanting to die, she wants to live as fully until death comes knocking for her. But she’s not going to go running after death. I can’t help but think, okay, if that’s how her attitude is in these difficulties, then that inspires me to have that attitude. Or I think of Elizabeth Elliot, who’s now deceased, who was a Christian missionary with her husband in I believe it was Ecuador. And her husband flew a plane with other missionaries into a tribal land and was speared to death by the people they were to convert to Christianity.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And not only did this woman lose her husband when she had their only child, who was just a baby, but she then moved into the jungle to convert her husband’s killers to Christianity, which she successfully did, and then spent her life in ministry sharing the gospel, and got married again. And then that husband died within a few years. And it’s like one suffering after another, but you read the testimony of someone like Elizabeth Elliot, and you’re like, “Oh, my goodness. She is glorifying God. She is praising God. And if she can have that attitude amidst difficult times, then so can I.”

Daniel Markin:

I want to shift gears a little bit here though because you spend a lot of time also discussing abortion. And we’ve talked about I believe on the program before, something that I think a lot of believers are familiar with, but I want to ask you. As someone who’s a thought leader in the area of abortion, what are some things that you’re seeing now that we should be aware of as believers, but also, what are some things that you think are perhaps helpful for our listeners across Canada to be considering? Meaning just you have your perspective. And what is, not a different perspective, I think what I’m trying to ask is: What’s something that a lot of times a lot of people don’t think about when talking about abortion that actually would be helpful for us to have in our own minds as we begin to share and talk about it with people?

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Yeah. Good questions. So in terms of what I’m seeing with the culture, as time has gone on, it’s become very clear to me that debating people on this subject is so challenging because it’s not just a matter of the intellect. It involves the emotion. It’s not just the head. It’s also the heart. And I mentioned in my own story, having encountered this logical, reasonable pro-life speaker, Scott Klusendorf. But I want to train others to be logical and reasonable as well, and there’s a place for that, and I still do that.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

But as time has gone on, I’ve come to see that you can be super logical, use a lot of philosophy, be very rational, but if the person you’re speaking with has had an abortion, or drove a friend to an abortion clinic, or their mom had an abortion, or they’re a victim of sexual assault, or they went through profound suffering, like maybe they were raised in poverty, for example, any of those circumstances, let alone a blending of them, can cause someone to set aside all reason and logic because they are emotionally tied to wanting to justify abortion because of their personal experience.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And that in no way should change the Christian’s position on abortion because our position ought to be God’s position, which is that humans are so valuable, they’re worth dying for. And we’re made in God’s image, and if God values humans that much, then I have to value even the youngest humans among us that much. And if God said, “Thou shalt not kill,” then I can’t kill. So it doesn’t change our position, but what I often equip now is it changes our interaction. And when dialoguing with others who seem to be resistant to the reasonableness of the anti-abortion position, to ask questions like: I’m curious, where does your passion come from? Or when did you first come to this position you hold now? And did you hold a different position earlier? And why did you change and when did you change?

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And it’s those types of questions that can cause the person to then reveal what their personal story is, which then gives us an opportunity to really minister to them, to for example, express sorrow if they’ve been victims of some type of abuse, and say, “I’m sorry for the suffering you’ve endured. You should never have had to go through that.” And to say, if that’s not our story, I don’t know what that’s like. So what does someone whose experience has been yours, want someone like me, whose experience has been different, to understand? And that person will probably be taken aback by that because they expect the pro-life person to just shove views down their throat. And when they get this open ended question like: What don’t I know? Please enlighten me. Then not only does that cause the individual to share more, not only does it convey that we value them as much as we value pre-born children, but it will also likely elicit from them more of a warming up towards us, so that they then want to understand our position more.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Well, how did you come to your position then? What influenced you? And then you have a meeting of the minds and the heart. And in terms of just kind of across the country, what do Christians need to be aware of, I think first of all, from a Christian perspective of all the passages in the scriptures that really reinforce the humanity of the pre-born child, I think the most powerful is in the first chapter of Luke, after the Angel Gabriel visits Mary and says, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son,” and he says, “Your cousin, Elizabeth, in her old age has also conceived. She is with child.” And the scriptures say, “Mary makes with haste,” and she runs to visit her cousin and stays with her for several months to help her.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And what I find striking about their meeting is that when Mary enters Elizabeth’s home, the scriptures tell us that John the Baptist, immediately in Elizabeth’s womb, leaps for joy. And Elizabeth then puts words to the action of her pre-born child and says, “Blessed are you among women, blessed is the fruit of your womb.” And it’s that last part that’s really key. Blessed is the fruit of your womb, because if we were to pause and ask ourselves, “Why did John the Baptist leap for joy?” It’s because this late term fetus recognized when Mary entered Elizabeth’s home, she didn’t enter alone. She was like a talking tabernacle bearing in her body God himself, in the form of a first trimester human embryo that might not have even implanted yet.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And so yes, we see life in the womb with John the Baptist, but he’s actually pointing, as John the Baptist always did, behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. John the Baptist is always pointing to Jesus, and he’s recognizing this first trimester embryo of God, who’s also man. And that’s why he’s leaping for joy. And so for any Christian who would ever question: Is there life before birth? And is there life in the first trimester? And is there life before implantation? I always say, “Go to the first chapter of Luke and take an in depth read of that.”

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And then of course, from a non-Christian perspective, we look to science. We clearly see that beings which reproduce sexually begin their lives at fertilization. It’s not debatable for other species. We accept it for dogs and cats. And so I just simply point out because humans are like dogs and cats insofar as we reproduce sexually, science has already concluded that life begins at fertilization. So when you take the science and you take the religion, particularly Christianity, and you put those two things together, there should be no doubt in the Christian’s mind that this is an issue that matters and that we have to raise our voices about.

Daniel Markin:

That is one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard on that passage. And I’m totally going to be using that.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Good.

Daniel Markin:

I guess another perspective on childbearing and just to shift gears a little bit, we’re coming kind of in for a landing here on the program. But you are actually coming out with a book on the subject of infertility.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Yeah. So it’s a book on in vitro fertilization and infertility because then there’s the other end. So you’ve got some people that are pregnant and they don’t want to be, and then on the other end, you have people that aren’t pregnant and want to be. And as with the abortion issue, as with the assisted suicide issue, the issue of fertility and infertility really should cause a Christian to pause and say, “What does God think about this? And how ought I orient my life to God’s ways as opposed to just create my own philosophy around my inclinations or desires?” And so I’ve just seen over time a great need to help Christians think deeply on this other issue. And so yes, I have a book coming out on that at the end of the year.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Because I didn’t know this about in vitro, but my understanding of in vitro is the parents of the … They have to decide how many eggs that they want to try with. And there’s a chance that if you say, “Hey, we’ll go with seven eggs,” there’s a chance that all seven of them could be fertilized, and that brings up a ton of issues. It’s like, “Oh, my goodness.” And so then the difficulty there is: Well, what happens if seven’s too many? Right? Now are you going to end those lives? And so that is something that I was never aware of with in vitro, and so I’m happy that you’re speaking into that because it’s something that unfortunately, probably a lot of people are going through alone.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Right. Thank you. Yeah. It’s such an important issue because the idea of having offspring with one’s beloved is so beautiful. I mean, I say this as a pregnant woman who’s about to give birth in six weeks, so to carry in my womb the child of my husband and me is just such a blessing and such a gift. And life is a gift from the Lord. The question we want to ask ourselves is: Do we have a right to create a human? Or do we have a responsibility to receive a human as gift? And those are two separate things. And then once, if we go down the path thinking I have a right to another person, not only a child, but even a spouse, one could even turn a desire for a spouse, let’s say into an idol, for example, or something that they want to grasp at, or make happen. If we claim we have a right to someone, then the problem that arises, as you pointed out, in the IVF industry, is often many eggs are harvested.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

They’re fertilized in the lab with either the spouse’s sperm or a stranger’s sperm. So then we’re also creating individuals who genetically wouldn’t ever be related, were able to come into be through marriage because we’re taking the parts of unmarried people. And then, yeah, our seven, eight, 15 embryos being created, not all of them will be implanted. Are some being killed right away? Are others being frozen? What are the effects on that human being of being put in a freezer? If that human is thawed, will the thawing process kill them? So there are so many questions that come up related to this topic, that when someone maybe begins down the path of exploring what they can do with infertility, they are ill equipped or unaware to realize what that industry does. And so yeah, this book will be an attempt to kind of open people’s eyes as to what actually goes on, to all the while acknowledge the deep pain of infertility and the profound suffering [inaudible 00:32:51] that is.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

And then it also tries to explore. Okay. What are ethical responses to infertility? What is a way we can respond to this situation of the body not working right? And how do we work within God’s design? And so all of that definitely needs to be unpacked and explored.

Daniel Markin:

Wow. Well, I think we’re going to have to have you back on the program because that’s going to be amazing to talk about and talk through. But Stephanie, thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here and just sharing your wisdom and knowledge. I’m sure it’s going to be very helpful. So thank you for your time. Thank you for being here. And we look forward to speaking again.

Stephanie Gray Connors:

Great. Well, thanks for having me on.

Daniel Markin:

Well, thank you again, Stephanie, for being on this episode. And if you want to listen to more content that Stephanie has produced, we encourage you to go to her website, loveunleasheslife.com. On it, she has articles, blogs, but also links to other videos, including a talk she did at Google on abortion, From Controversy to Civility. So she’s definitely somebody who’s leading in this field, and we want to encourage you to check out more of her stuff. Thank you for listening. We look forward to connecting with you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes or Spotify, or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Daniel Markin:

Indoubt is a ministry of Good News Global Media, designed to speak into faith, life, and culture. These are challenging conversations for young men and women who have chosen lives for Jesus, while at the same time, are constantly engaged by the culture and philosophies of the world around them. It causes us to ask about the relevance of the Bible, how to engage our world, how to share the gospel, and perhaps the most difficult question: How does the young follower of Jesus live a holy life? Join us each week as we dig deep into faith, life, and culture. For more information about Indoubt, or to offer a gift of support to this young adult ministry, visit indoubt.com, or call 1-844-663-2424. Thanks.