Misconceptions About Conception

Darrell Bock: 

Welcome to The Table where we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, executive director for cultural engagement at the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. To my right, probably your left as you're looking at the screen, is Milyce Pipkin, who also works at the Center, our co-host. 

Milyce Pipkin: 

Thank you so much for having me. 

Darrell Bock: 

Glad to have you, Milyce. Our topic today is misconceptions about conception. We want to deal with the way in which conception is often discussed, but also deal with the misconceptions that often come in those discussions, so we have three guests out of the scientific background to discuss this with us. First, is Dr. William Lile, who is nicknamed "The Pro-Life Doc," is what I have here. He's board certified in Obstetrics in Gynecology, he practices medicine both in Florida and Alabama, and founded Pro-Life Doc Inc, and has dedicated his life to stopping abortion. He functions as a member of the Focus on the Family Physician's Research Council, a medical advisor for Priests for Life, and a member of the Heartbeat International Medical Advisory Council. Bill, welcome to our show. 

William Lile: 

It's an honor to be here, thank you very much. We're just going to share how we treat the pre-born as patients. If they're patients, they have rights, and that a patient is a person, no matter how small. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. We'll go there in just a second. My second guest is Dr. Tara Sander Lee, who studied heart development at Harvard Medical School, and for many years, directed Medical College Research Lab investigating congenital heart disease in children. She has spoken out on pro-life legislation and sharing science related to life. When she did this, she received pressure from the university, so eventually founded the Charlotte Lozier Institute. We'll be talking more about the institute in a minute, and I believe she's vice president for… I'll let you fill in the blank, Dr. Lee. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

Vice president and director of Life Sciences. 

Darrell Bock: 

Director of Life Sciences. Great. Thank you for being with us. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

Thank you for having me. 

Darrell Bock: 

Third on our list is Dr. Ingrid… Is it Scope? 

Ingrid Skop: 

Skop. 

Darrell Bock: 

Skop? Okay, yeah. I knew I would botch that. Okay. She's a board certified OBGYN practicing in Texas, in San Antonio, a fellow Texan, we always like to greet fellow Texans, for 30 years and has delivered more than 5000 babies. You keep count as it goes, huh? She has firsthand experience in treating women with complications with the abortion pill, including performing emergency surgery on a woman who showed up in her emergency room earlier this year after bleeding for more than a month. She has done extensive research on the harms caused by the abortion pill and has been part of an amicus brief filed in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine versus the FDA in the chemical abortion lawsuit. She also works at the Lozier Institute and is vice president for… I'll let you fill in the blank, because these are all new promotions that y'all got. 

Ingrid Skop: 

Yeah, vice president and director of medical affairs. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay, director of medical affairs. Great. Thank you for being with us. 

Ingrid Skop: 

Thank you, so happy to be here. 

Darrell Bock: 

Let's start. In the south, ladies go first. Tara, how did you get into your interest in this area? Talk a little bit about your expertise, anything that I didn't already supply. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

You did a fantastic job of giving my background as a scientist. For years, for decades I was knee-deep in science and discovering just the beauty of God's creation. As you mentioned, I focused on heart development at Harvard Medical School after I received my PhD, and then I continued that work into directing my own research lab and then also a clinical lab that then tested children's that, once they were born and they were suspected that they had congenital heart disease, we performed different diagnostic tests. For years, I was doing this work and, the more I started to do in science, the more I started to realize the vulnerable were really not being protected. I started seeing this impact my work and things that I was being asked to do, things that I was being asked to support at the university. 

One day, an email came across my desk asking scientists to support… Actually, to not support legislation that was in the state that was going to ban the use of aborted fetal tissue. Basically, saying that it was okay to use these babies, to take their aborted body parts, just use them for their own benefit, and not even give them any regard and dignity as human beings. The Holy Spirit just convicted me that it was time to speak up. There were many other things that were building up to this, but it was time for me to speak up and be a voice for the voiceless. I started to testify in the state, in either support or opposition of bills, depending on how much protection there was going to be for the unborn. 

That's when I found the Charlotte Lozier Institute. The more I started speaking up, my institution did not like that. They did put pressure on me to stop speaking, they even changed the school policy, so that it would make it more difficult for me to speak, and I just knew that God had really placed it on my heart to not stop speaking and to keep standing up for the unborn. I made a decision with much prayer and, with much prayer, I knew that God was guiding me to step down from my position and to do this full-time. That's what I've been doing for about seven years. I now do scientific research, legislative testimony, presentations, writings that help to educate policy makers and the public on the value and undeniable humanity of every life, from fertilization until natural death. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. Appreciate the background, it's an interesting story. We may come back to some of that, because the whole issue of how to speak to this and the free speech of just the exchange of ideas is an important part of the environment of this conversation. Ingrid, how did you get into this? 

Ingrid Skop: 

From birth, I've been a member of a pro-life family. I'm the oldest of six children, now 21 grandchildren. My family always welcomed children and I adored children. As an obstetrician, I feel like I have the best job in the world, because I have two patients, a mother and her unborn child. Over the years, I have advocated for both of those patients, but I've been saddened, of course, that so many obstetricians don't see it that way and consider the unborn child to be their patient only if the mother wants them to. Over the years, I've become more and more outspoken, I've done a lot of research, writing, testifying on the issue. Similar to Tara, as I became more and more outspoken, I received more and more dissatisfaction from my partners about my outspokenness. 

As a result, I also was called to join Charlotte Lozier Institute full-time. Two months after I joined, the Dobbs decision came down, so it has been nonstop. I'm so glad that I do have the opportunity to do what needs to be done to advocate both for the unborn children, but also for their mothers, because over the years, I've seen so many women hurt by abortion. That's the story that I want to tell, it's not just deadly for the unborn child, but it is absolutely devastating for the women who undergo abortions. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. Bill, your background, how'd you get into this? 

William Lile: 

I fell in love with the obstetrics and gynecology in med school, because it's the only time somebody is excited about going to the hospital. In 1999, the practice that I took over was actually the largest provider of abortions on the Florida panhandle. We had a restrictive covenant that he signed, so when we took over the practice for the next two years, he couldn't practice any medicine at all in our tri-county area. It was on a Sunday after church, went to the office to tour the upstairs, which is where the abortion clinic was, and all the surgical abortions were performed, saw all the instruments, suction machine all laid out for the next day of abortions. I just knew that we were always planning on stopping all abortions and all referrals, but it was that moment that I realized there was a lot more that we had the ability to do. 

We're on the same road as Pensacola Christian College, 1000-member churches across the street, so we started to speak at different local churches and now we will be out of state probably 50 times this year, sharing at pregnancy resource centers, doing expert witness testimony, and legislative bodies, but also churches, because this is a spiritual battle. One of the things we'll focus on is how we treat the pre-born as patients. If they're a patient, they're a person. We are doing blood transfusions to babies in the womb at 18 weeks, open heart surgery, spina bifida corrective surgery, laser vascular surgery. The way that medicine has advanced, where we aren't just visualizing these babies in the womb that were created in the image of God at that moment of conception, not when they were born, but at conception is when they were created in the image of God. They're our patients and patients have rights. We're there to educate our viewers and our listeners, and to teach and to train to give them new tools to defend God's pre-born. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay. That's a great introduction as to how you all are interested in this. Let me ask one pre-question before we actually talk about the process of conception and how we should think about it. That's this. Dobbs represented the reversal of Roe v. Wade, but how much have things changed and how much have things remained the same? I'm not sure who to direct this to. Tara, why don't you take that on? As we think about what's happening legally and where we are… Because I think some people think the reversal of Roe v. Wade was the end of the conversation, it's actually, in some ways, the beginning. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

Right, yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

Go ahead. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

Yeah, it definitely is just the beginning, because the battle that we had at the federal fund is now at the state, so now we have this battle going on in every state where people are trying to reach consensus on where they believe they should stand when it comes to this issue. We see that some states are standing firm and saying, "We are going to try to enact these laws that we wanted to before Dobbs, and we're going to go as far back as… Whether it be at the time we can detect a heartbeat, at six weeks, at the time where we can detect pain, where we know that babies can feel pain, as early as 15 weeks." Every state is trying to find that place where they are reaching consensus to protect the unborn. 

Of course, we see some states that don't want any protections, they want to allow abortion up until the moment of birth. The battle is continuing in that we are going into the states, we are educating these legislators just like we were before, but it's now a ground game. It's a real ground game in helping the people, because who they elect is going to have serious consequences as to the laws that are passed in their state. That's the major difference, it's just much more of a ground game now. What's the same thing is that the human being hasn't changed. This is the same human being that was before Dobbs, that we were advocating for, that was created in the image of God, that is a human being from the very moment of conception, and that has a heartbeat by six weeks. 

There's no difference in that sense, so we continue to advocate for that unborn child and then, God willing, that as many children are saved as possible. It's also important to just realize that what also hasn't changed is the deception from the left. In order to continue to advocate for the deliberate destruction of an unborn child inside a mother's womb, they still continue to try to convince others that the unborn child is not a real human being. We see the same rhetoric, the same lies being told that, "That baby at six weeks doesn't actually really have a heartbeat." Despite publications, textbooks that say otherwise, continue to say that, "Actually, the unborn child, even at conception, that's not a real human being." Those are the same, we're still combating those same- 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, we're going to come back to sorting that out for people. Just to explain the background here and why this is a ground game, and Bill, you can comment. What's happened with the decision, of course, is that, as was noted, the federal level was reversed, but now this has been passed on to the states as a legal issue. Each state is now deciding what its policy will be with regard to mothers carrying children and all the laws that you're hearing about, and how do I say this? The different termination points or inception points for the legal process are being debated state by state. That's basically what's going on now. Right, Bill? 

William Lile: 

We're back where we were in the 1860s as a nation. In the 1860s, if slavery was evil and bad in New Jersey, then it was just as evil and bad in Mississippi, and we ended up going to a civil war over the issue. Now we're looking at abortion, and if abortion is evil in Mississippi, then abortion is evil in New Jersey as well. A lot of the battle is education, letting the voters realize that these are our patients. They are genetically unique, they are our patients that we are treating both medically and surgically, we're healing them, and diagnosing them, but if something is evil, it's evil. It doesn't, all of a sudden, become good just because it crossed the state border. Evil is evil in the sight of the Lord, and that's where the battle is going to be, but this is a spiritual battle. 

As far as the basic foundation, we know that we are created in the image of God, and abortion is an attack on that image of God. It's the same thing as, if somebody hates the United States, they can't destroy the United States, so what do they want to do? They want to burn the American flag. Why? Because the American flag represents the image of the United States. From the moment of conception, the baby represents the image of God, so an attack and killing the image of God is their way of attacking God himself. It is a spiritual battle and it's great having doctors, gynecologists, and politicians being engaged in this, but this should really be led by our pastors and our pulpits, because it is a spiritual battle. Yeah, let the gynecologist and the politicians come in, but the spearhead should really be coming from the church. 

Darrell Bock: 

Let's turn our attention to some of the science here, because I think this is important. One of the challenges, of course, that we have in this conversation is that you have people for whom there is no theological orientation to the conversation. They are operating either out of a secular background or whatever, so thinking about the religious dimensions of this works for Christians and helps Christians, but it's a challenge for someone who doesn't have a theological bone in their body. At least in terms of the way they see the world. Let me ask it this way and let's talk about conception scientifically. The classic question is, when does life begin and when does it start? Ingrid, I'm going to let you take a shot at this since the other two got their turn on the last round. When does life begin? Then I'm going to have you all speak into this, because this is actually the key starting point for this conversation, even from a scientific point of view. When does life begin? 

Ingrid Skop: 

Yeah, absolutely. At the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg, a new human life begins. It has its own unique genetic makeup unlike either of its parents, because it's a combination of their genes in a different way. He immediately begins to display all of the signs of life that we know it. He begins rapidly growing, the cells begin dividing, he metabolizes, he utilizes nutrients, and differentiates. It goes back to the whole euphemisms. The abortion industry likes to call that process, "A fertilized egg," giving it ownership to the woman, but at the moment of fertilization, it becomes a zygote. The first stage of an embryo, the first stage of a new human life. All these lines that we draw are sometimes lines that are drawn pragmatically, a heartbeat, pain, or areas where people are able to get on board and say, "I'll protect the life at that point," but there is no scientific debate. In fact, 96 biologists surveyed, 5000 biologists said, "This is the beginning of a human life," so it is not scientifically controversial at all. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. I'm going to ask you others if you want to add in, but I'll just say I'm on the Wheaton board and we had a lawsuit that we filed as… We were Amicus members to this, about coverage for aphasia medicines, and we wanted to be exempt from that as a Christian institution. We did, as a board, the study on the science side of how conception is viewed. One of the things that I learned, in the midst of doing this, was from a scientific point of view, the idea of a life being a life from the moment of conception was scientifically accepted as a given, which struck me in light of the debates that I was hearing in the public space as not what I was necessarily expecting. Tara, do you or Bill want to add anything to the question? When does life begin? 

William Lile: 

The only thing I would add would be to change the question slightly as far as, "When does new life begin?" Because the sperm is obviously alive, because my goodness, it's swimming. The egg is a living cell from the mother, they just each happen to have half of the genetic material, because they are gametes. There is life, but then when they come together, there is new life. The first thing that new life starts to do… The genetics of that new life, even at that one-cell level, are unique from mom and dad, they're unique from the other 7 billion people on the planet. Then they start to divide. One, two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64, and then amazingly, even though they all have the exact same DNA, they start to do something called "Differentiate." 

Cellular differentiate, where a cluster of cells will say, "You know what? I don't want to just be an exact copy of you. I want to start forming the GI system, the neurologic system, or the cardiovascular system." I can tell you what's going to happen on day 18 and what's going to happen on day 19, but how these individual cells know what pages of the DNA they're going to start to follow, it's like there was a blueprint, and they are going to follow page this and then page that. That is an amazing miracle that just says there was an amazing architect and designer. As believers, we know that's God, but as scientists, we know that there is structure and there is form. It's not just a life, it is a new life. Even at 10 weeks, there are 1 billion cells in that new life that is growing and developing. 

Darrell Bock: 

The point that is being made here is that everything that leads to life, and if I can say it this way, the independent life of the child coming when the child is born, is already all there from the very beginning. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

That's exactly right. 

William Lile: 

Absolutely. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

Yeah. I would just add, too, that there are what are called these "Carnegie stages of human development," that were first established in 1942 and they've since then expanded, but they remain the standard use by all biologists to describe the first eight weeks of the baby's human life, that first embryonic period. Guess what? The very first stage is the moment of fertilization, sperm-egg fusion like we've talked about. That indicates that's when that human life begins. A human being meets the description of what an organism is, a living organism. Features of an organism are the development, autonomy, adaption, and integration, and the human being meets all of those criteria at the very moment of sperm-egg fusion. 

Darrell Bock: 

I've heard you all say, in fact, you did this when you were saying how you got into this, that you are carrying, in your mind, for two patients when a woman walks in and says, "I'm pregnant." That's an important concept as well. We're dealing with misconceptions about conception. Obviously, one of the misconceptions is that, somehow, life comes later than the moment of conception. That is one misconception. What other misconceptions do you think people have about the conception process? 

William Lile: 

One of the things that's- 

Darrell Bock: 

Go ahead, Bill. 

William Lile: 

One of the things that's amazing, as far as scientific advances, is that it used to be a big thrill to be able to do an ultrasound and see if it's not going to be a boy or going to be a girl, but if it's a boy or if it's a girl, right then. We can do that with an ultrasound 16, 17 weeks. Now we have a blood test that's taken from the mom, it's called a "Panorama test." What's amazing is, actually, you can look at little fragments of DNA from the baby, because from the moment of conception, they are unique, mom and baby. 95% of these fragments came from the mom, but we can now separate out and see the five fragments that came from the baby that are in the mom's blood, that cross over into her circulation. 

With more than 99% accuracy, seven weeks after the moment of conception, I can tell you if that is a boy or is a girl. Unfortunately, some people will use that information, if it wasn't the gender that they wanted, to use the abortion pill to terminate that pregnancy, but science is always catching up with where God is. If we can do tests that are safe, that can determine "Boy, girl," if we can do surgical treatments to cure babies in the womb and save their lives… That is advancing on a regular basis, whether it is blood transfusions or any of the other amazing advances in surgeries, a patient's a person, no matter how small, and your geographic location does not either give you your rights or deny you your rights. 

Just like if you have twins, there's something called a "Delayed interval delivery," where you can have one identical twin that's born and goes to the NICU and the second identical twin from the same egg and sperm stays on the inside. There have been cases where you have identical twins, one is in the NICU, one is in the womb, and we try to keep them them in the environment that they do best in. There have been cases where there has been a six-week separation of the delivery of identical twins. The baby that's in the NICU has rights and protection, the baby that's in the womb couple hundred feet away should have the same rights and protection. 

Darrell Bock: 

Let me ask a question this way, and this is a variation of the first question, but I think it's the way sometimes it might get asked. The way I ask the question will probably prejudice the question, but that's okay. Why is viability not the answer to this question, about how we treat the child in the womb? 

William Lile: 

I would say it comes down to patient's rights, because we are doing life-saving surgery on babies in the womb before they're quote, unquote "Viable" on the outside. If we can perform open-heart surgery, we can perform spina bifida corrective surgery, laser vascular surgery, and even give them blood transfusions way before they can survive on the outside, viability is no longer a threshold. It really comes down to patient's rights and individual rights. We're created in the image of God, even our Declaration of Independence says that we are endowed by certain rights from our creator, and that's capitalized in our Declaration of Independence. Patients have rights. Whether they're in the womb, outside of the womb, whether they are viable six weeks from now, they're still a patient and we should protect them. 

Milyce Pipkin: 

I absolutely love this conversation, and thanking you all once again for being here. Hearing what you're doing in the world of science to bring forth medical research, medical proofs that life begins in the womb. For all of us here, as believers, as Bill has stated, we look to Jeremiah 1:5, of course, where we find the scripture that everybody knows so well, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you and I ordained you a prophet to the nations." It's so important to us, theologically, to look also that, yes, life is created, life is in the image of God, but God does this even before the child is even conceived. God already knows this is coming to pass. The reason why I'm jumping in here, and my time is going to be limited here, we do want to get out the science information, but theologically, we want to educate people, as Dr. Bock just earlier stated, that so many times people make the disconnect. 

It's like they use this as an excuse, that it's not life yet. They use the life for that to justify the means. My thing is, how do we get to a point where we educate people, women, to help them to see that this is life, this is God's love, and it's not to be disregarded? Theologically, we can do that if you're in the word of God, but how do we do that on the ground? You guys are probably looking at some type of barrier where you can share the word of God to some degree. I'm just looking at, how can we get there? Because, to me, that's very, very important. 

Tara Sander Lee: 

It's a really good point and I think you're right, especially because we know, like you said, that the word of God says that these are God's children. These are God's children that he created and they're not even our own. What ends up happening when we're talking to people scientifically that don't believe in the word of God, it's really important for us to help them understand that the form or the function of a human being does not determine their value. We have to remind them sometimes that, if we put that distinction on the value of the human being, on whether how well they're formed, how well they're developed, how well they function, then we're basically saying that we're not equal just because we're human beings, we're equal based on our abilities. Then we're saying that maybe an individual that has all of their abilities and maybe in the prime of their life, in their twenties, are somehow more valuable, and we know that that's not true. 

We have to remind people that even human beings, their brains are not fully developed until they're about 25. That doesn't somehow make them more valuable, a person's form and function does not determine a value. That's where I think we do have to remind them that, where does our dignity come from? It is an amazing opportunity then to preach the word of God and really let the Holy Spirit work in their lives, because at the end of the day, this really is a heart issue. This isn't a pro-life or a pro-choice issue, this is changing hearts and minds about the humanity and dignity of every human life. Not because of what we say, science just confirms what scripture says. It really is what God says and this really is an opportunity to preach the word, but you're right, it becomes a challenge when we have somebody that is going to deny the word of God. 

Milyce Pipkin: 

We know that this is a lie, or at least we believe it's a lie, that the enemy can tell someone… I love Bill saying that this is spiritual warfare. For me, I wonder how much of this has to do with fear. I know we're talking about the misconception of conception, so we want to be right there, but I just want to move it a little bit further, even if we go back and forth, to how much of this is the woman in fear of what comes after the life that she gives, and what can we do to quail or squash that and replace it with the truth, that truth that sets her free, that may help her to embrace the life that she's carrying and not want to abort it? Does that make sense? 

William Lile: 

Yeah. Pregnancy resource centers have really been leading the way. Pregnancy resource centers were, at first, just doing pregnancy tests, now you can get them at the dollar store. Then they started to use ultrasound to show that life on the inside, even at just six weeks gestation, but now they're really meeting the needs. They're meeting, yes, they're spiritual needs, they're meeting the spiritual needs of the dads, but they're there with them during the pregnancy, providing them counseling, providing them with the physical needs that they're going to need to support that baby. A lot of them even have maternal homes now, where they are bringing them in for housing, job training, education, and then allowing them to stay there afterwards, until they get up on their feet. 

Yeah, pregnancy can be scary, but this is the role of the church, to look at somebody with a need, meet that need, be there for them, and help them to become independent. Yes, step one is sharing the gospel with them. Step two is going to be to meet their needs, to realize that they love them, Jesus loves them. In this spiritual battle, if we don't lead with love, then we're just not going to be victorious. It's about love, it's about truth. 

Milyce Pipkin: 

Absolutely. I'm so glad you brought that up, Bill. The only thing I would say, and I love, love, love the resources that are available today, that may not have been available days gone by with this. For me, it's almost the reverse. We know that we meet the person's need and then we share the gospel, because we eradicate some of that fear where a person is… Maybe they're not a believer, or maybe they are a believer, but they're believing the lie instead of the truth. We have to put forth… Kill the fear and replace it with what is being done to give the woman the dignity, not take it away from her, remove the fear, and encourage her that there are programs, there are plans there, there are homes, there are opportunities, there are resources here that you don't have to have that fear. Personally, I feel like we need to reach that part of this, because if those things are available now, then they need to know that, there are options. 

William Lile: 

The resources are not just for believers. It's like John Quincy Adams says, "Duty is ours, results are God's." Yes, we provide those resources, we meet their needs, we do share the gospel. If they accept the gospel, fantastic. Maybe they won't accept the gospel, now maybe we just planted a seed, but our duty is to share. Yes, we're going to meet their needs, every need that they have, and every excuse they might have out of love. That starts the conversation. Then, of course, follow up with the gospel, because that's going to be not just the treatment, that's going to be the cure. 

Darrell Bock: 

Our time is flying. I know I've got at least two other issues I want to address, but I want to stay here for just a second. It also is the case that there are many options for a woman beyond termination. In other words, rather than choosing to get an abortion. What some people fear in having the child is, "I'm not prepared to raise a child," or, "I'm not in a situation where I can raise a child." Those kinds of reasons can sometimes come in as a reason for getting an abortion. In fact, there are all kinds of possibilities for the woman who carries the term, who thinks that she's in that a situation. One of the things that the pregnancy resource centers do is to help a woman think through that process of decision making, et cetera, and to provide support to her until she brings the child to term. 

A quick question, I want a short answer to this, because there are a couple of other issues I want to be sure we get to. That is, what are the options besides termination for a woman? In other words, that means that she isn't going to terminate the child. There might be an obvious answer to this question, but I want the obvious answer. Ingrid, I'm going to let you answer this one. 

Ingrid Skop: 

Yeah, absolutely. As has been discussed, with support, many women do feel like they now can carry their child to term. The support of the man is probably the primary reason that women opt for termination, that fathers have been negligent in their duties. Of course, the other option is that a woman can make a plan for adoption, which is a hard thing to do, but in the last 10 years as an obstetrician, I've probably had only one or two women that I've cared for that have placed a child to be adopted. There are so many families desperate for children, and unfortunately, it is something that so few women do consider, but with the support of the church and of these crisis pregnancy centers, these women can fully explore all of these options. 

Milyce Pipkin: 

Awesome. 

Darrell Bock: 

That's great. That's actually the point I wanted to be made, that there is an option for a woman carrying a child to term, and if she really feels like she can't care for the child or is in a situation she couldn't care for the child, there are lots of people who would be willing to take in a child and raise it. The life ends up being preserved in the process and, hopefully, finding a home that will care for the child well in its life. I want to come to the other end of conception in some ways, because one of the controversies that now is swirling around the abortion discussion is what has been nicknamed, "The morning after pill," things that are associated with that, and the effect of women who decide to get an abortion. 

Those are the two issues I want to get on the table and discuss before we wrap up. Let's deal with the morning after pill. In particular, I have a specific question, and that is, most people think that the after morning pill is, I can say this, irreversible. Let me ask, is that true? Bill, this question is for you. 

William Lile: 

First, we have to differentiate and define the difference between the morning after pill and the abortion pill. They're very different in their mechanism. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay, good. 

William Lile: 

The morning after pill is indicated for the morning after a woman has had intercourse, and it works by forcing her to have a menstrual cycle. If an egg and a sperm happened to get together and they're making their way through the tube down to the lining of the uterus, the pregnancy will not be able to implant, because the lining of the uterus will shed. How is that different from the abortion pill that we are hearing so much about? The abortion pill is not the morning after, the abortion pill is indicated for up to 70 mornings after. It blocks a very important hormone called progesterone. If you get a big word, break it down to little words, understand it. Progesterone, it's a pro-gestational steroid hormone. When a woman gets pregnant, her body is celebrating and the conductor, the coach of the pregnancy, is a hormone called progesterone. Everything that's good about a pregnancy is because of progesterone. 

The abortion pill blocks the signal from that hormone. Progesterone levels were going up, which is normal, and now they're going down. How do we reverse that? We reverse that by replacing the progesterone. The same hormone that we use when somebody had a miscarriage and they got pregnant again, have a miscarriage, she might have a condition where her body is not making enough progesterone, so we give her supplemental progesterone. It's made from yams and soybeans, and it is bioidentical to what the woman makes. Whenever somebody has triplets and quadruplets, standard of care, give them progesterone to keep the pregnancy going. When somebody has IVF, they have embryos that the body wasn't expecting these embryos to get transferred into the uterus, we get them progesterone, because it's pro-gestation. It keeps the pregnancy going. When a woman makes the wrong choice, she regrets it, and says… Just like if somebody took fentanyl and they overdosed, we reverse that with Narcan. It is the antidote. 

When a woman makes a decision and she takes the abortion pill, we can reverse the effect of the abortion pill safely for the mom, safely for the baby, and we are successful 70% of the time. We have a network of over 500 doctors that we've trained in these protocols, and we have documented over 4000 successful reversals, which from a spiritual standpoint, this is the message of redemption. We were all heading to hell, an eternal separation from God, but we are bought back with the blood of Jesus. When it comes to the abortion pill, this baby is facing a 98% chance of dying. Do we buy it back? Yeah, but we buy it back with… In our area, it's $109 worth of this medicine called "Progesterone, Prometrium." We buy the life back. I've delivered quads and triplets, and it's amazing, but I remember every single one of the reversals, because that baby was heading to death and we safely reversed that. 

That is something that's very special. The abortion pill is now the dominant method of abortion here in the United States. At least 54% of all the abortions are with the abortion pill. In some countries in Europe, it's over 90%. It's dangerous for the baby, but it's also dangerous for the mom, because the number one killer of women in the first trimester of pregnancy, that's pregnancy-related, is still a ruptured ectopic or tubal pregnancy. We're having more and more cases of women who took the abortion pill, thought it was going to solve their issue, but the pregnancy was not in the uterus, it was in the tube. That happens 1% of the time. They're told, "You're going to have bleeding, cramping, and pain. Here are your pills." They have bleeding, they have cramping, they have pain, but it's not because of the abortion pill, it's because of a life-threatening ectopic tubal pregnancy. That's the difference between the morning after pill, which is the morning after, and the abortion pill, which is 70 mornings after. We can safely reverse it and redeem the life of that baby. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay, so that's an important detail. I can't believe how fast this has gone. The last thing that I want to cover is the effect on women who either decide to get an abortion or who are impacted by the procedure of abortion, either way. Tara, I want you to speak into that, because there is an afterlife to this decision, if I can say it that way, that most people don't talk about very much. Let's talk about that dimension of this equation, and I'm sure all of you have experience with women who've gone through a process that they've either come to regret or it's produced problems for them as a result of the procedure, et cetera. Tara, what can you tell us about that? 

Tara Sander Lee: 

Yeah. Just real briefly, I'll tell you the summary and then I might ask Dr. Skop, because she has worked specifically with these patients. The literature has showed us that there are significant harms of abortion. We know that this can affect women not only physically, but emotionally. We know that, from a physical perspective, she is in significant harm of hemorrhage of infection, if there are some of the retained products. I'm a scientist, not an MD, so I'll let Dr. Skop and Dr. Lile talk more about this. Also, on record, we know from the research that there is a significant risk of mental health issues related to depression, anxiety, even suicide. I'll let Ingrid maybe talk more specifically about some of those numbers. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. Ingrid, go ahead. 

Ingrid Skop: 

Yeah. We could talk all day, because there's so much to be said, but it's very important to recognize that the data in the United States is terrible, because we don't mandate reporting of anything. When we look at good quality data from European countries, we discovered that women are six times as likely to commit suicide in the year following an abortion than following childbirth, and other causes of death are higher, too. Death is higher for them, complications are higher. Bill was talking about this chemical abortion process. These women, and in many cases, young girls, because there is no lower age limit, often will see their child in the toilet. At 10 weeks, he's about the size and shape of a gummy bear, clearly identifiable as a human being. What are the emotional ramifications of that? We have no idea, but they must be quite dramatic. A lot of women fall into an abortion in crisis. They have relief that the crisis is over, but you know what? With time, their regret grows, and along with that, anxiety, depression, substance use and abuse, self-harm. 

We see all of these things, and fortunately, many women do get cared for in the crisis pregnancy centers after the fact, but many women don't. Many women suffer alone. They're embarrassed, they don't want to talk about their abortion, and yet internally, they're suffering for years over what they've done. 

Milyce Pipkin: 

I wish we had more time to talk about that. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, it's probably a separate podcast all by itself. This is actually one of the things that we want to cover. I'm going to try and summarize here, because our time has gone. We've talked about the misconception that deals with conception, per se, and that life begins from the very… New life. Bill, I'm listening. New life begins at the moment of conception and all the potential for life that one needs is there from the very beginning. Viability is not a category to apply to this conversation, because in one sense, viability is a function of what has been generated in creation, in the relationship between the developing child and the mother, and that's designed to work that way. The second thing that we've done is we've talked about a distinction in the efforts that are made to stop an abortion, whether it be the morning after pill taken right after intercourse, or a pill taken several weeks afterwards that's designed to reverse the gestation process. 

The fact that that can be reversed if a person makes a decision and says, "I've made a mistake," is an important thing to realize. We've also discussed the way in which this has now become a state by state issue socially and legally for us, despite the morality that undergirds the idea of, "No, this is a human being that's precious in the sight of God from the very beginning." The last thing that we've dealt with, and I really do think this is under-discussed, is the impact on women who make a decision for an abortion and then have to go through, what I would call, the aftermath of that decision in order to cope with what it is that's taken place, and the impact that that has had on them. Either physically, because of the way the abortion has taken place, or emotionally, because in their soul, they know that they've made a decision that they have come to regret. 

The last question I'll ask all of you briefly is, did I miss anything? Those were the big four that I got out of this hour. Did I miss anything? Anything you want to add to the list that I've given? 

Milyce Pipkin: 

That's good- 

Darrell Bock: 

I'm in the moment of a committee meeting, we're hearing no objections. We move on. 

Yeah. 

Milyce Pipkin: 

I absolutely love this. I thank you, Ingrid, Tara, Bill for joining us for this Table podcast. I would love to do something in the very near future to talk about the impact that abortion has on women, because sometimes when we can see, yes, that the gospel is on the top front, from the womb to the tomb, life is life and it's important to God. On the back end, you will go on without the child that you had is an altogether different story, and women need to know what that means to them, so that they don't walk in shame and so that they still walk in freedom with dignity. Hopefully, you offer some information to a woman before she gets to the point where she even wants to terminate. I really think that's where the ground is for this, to eradicate the fear and to replace it with the truth of God. You all are helping us to do that, and thank you for being here. 

William Lile: 

It was an honor to be here, thank you. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. I also want to add my thanks for you joining us and helping us with this topic. I'm sure we'll come back and discuss part two, but this has been helpful. Hopefully, those who've listened have benefited. I'm sure they've benefited from the conversation. We thank you for being a part of The Table, we hope you'll join us again soon. If you want to see other episodes of The Table Podcast, you can go to voice.dts.edu/tablepodcast and you can get over 600 hours of discussion on issues of God and culture, which is a nice way of saying we discuss anything and everything. We thank you for being a part of our day today, and we wish you all the best.