Sanctity of Life 08 03 2017

Hey guys, Kirsten Haglund here. Welcome to Pure Talk. We've got a great episode coming up for you guys. We're so glad you joined us, and we have a very special guest today, my friend Elsa. I'm just joking. We're not interviewing Elsa, but she is sitting on my lap, so she's joining us for the conversation too. This is of course brought to you by PureFlex.com and Faithwire, and we have a great panel. But before we launch into our discussion today, I'm just going to pray for us. So please bow your heads with me. Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity to gather on Facebook, Lord. You use social media in such amazing ways. We just pray that our conversation would be honoring to you, God, as we talk about the value of life, Lord, and how much that means to you and how we as ambassadors for Christ in this world, Lord, can treat this issue with humility and grace and compassion because you treasure us and you treasure life. At every single stage, Lord, and in every single person. So thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for everyone who's tuning in, Lord. I just thank you that they're giving the time to be here. I pray that all the comments would be uplifting, Lord, and edifying, and just that you would guide this conversation through your Holy Spirit. We love you. Thank you for your grace and your mercy. Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

All right. So let me introduce our panelists. If you've been to a Pure Talk before, you know how this goes. So we've got a fabulous group of folks here to talk today. We have Billy Hallowell. He's the senior editor at Faithwire. We have Lauren McAfee. She's the corporate ambassador at Hobby Lobby. And we also have Dan Andros. He's the managing editor at Hobby Lobby. He's the managing editor of Faithwire.

I can manage Hobby Lobby too.

You're an absolute pro. And you know what? We were going to have Andrea Logan White on as a guest today to talk about her new book and her new project. She's in a Christian sitcom called Hitting the Brakes. But as I'm sure you all know, Andrea is a mom, and she had a mom incident come up that she has to attend to. So you can pray for her, actually. Her little boy, she had to take him to the hospital. Nothing hugely serious, but obviously she's a mom and mom duties come first. So she's unfortunately not able to be with us today, but of course we are thinking of her and praying for her and her son as they kind of deal with the situation right now. So keep them in your prayers. So while we're going to talk with her, we decided to kind of shift the topic today to talk about life and the value of life, as we mentioned in our prayer. As I'm sure probably a lot of you have been following the story of Charlie Gard recently. He was the British baby boy who actually just recently passed away. Who was diagnosed with a very rare disease and ran into a lot of difficulties with the British government, who ended up saying that there was no chance for him to live and ended up taking him off life support. Anyway, it's been a story that has just proliferated around the globe and caused a lot of people to have a lot of angst and sadness and raised a lot of questions. So we just wanted to kind of jump into that. We know it's been on a lot of people's hearts. And Faithwire in particular has done a lot of stories about it. Pureflix has got a lot of great films about the importance of life. So we wanted to dive in with that. So I'm going to throw it to Billy first. You have really jumped onto this issue with Charlie Gard and these parents. Talk a little bit about your journey in covering this story.

Yeah, you know, we've sort of covered it over the past few months, and it's just a sad, sad story. Everything about it from start to finish, you know, these parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, they were faced with a really difficult situation of wanting, after their son became ill in October, wanting to get treatment for him beyond what the hospital in the UK was offering. And they wanted to get experimental treatment. And they just hit so many roadblocks. And the government, as you were saying, was not willing to allow them. And I think this was the part that sort of disturbed some people, was that these parents were not able to go and take private money, which they had raised almost $2 million, to take their son to the US for this experimental treatment. And as the months and the weeks wore on, you know, this became a very big legal battle. It was an international news story. And so you kind of had the parental rights issue. But then you had some things about healthcare that were emerging and questions about, you know, socialized healthcare. And there were people on both sides of that going sort of back and forth. So I think it's a story that's sad, but it's also a story that leaves us with a lot of questions about what would have been. Had he had a chance to get the treatment. And, you know, just a sense of mourning for these parents who finally did say, after consulting with a doctor from the US who was going to do that experimental treatment, that there was no hope. He was removed from life support. So it's such a tragic story.

Yeah. Dan, how have you seen this play out on the audience of people that have been reading and following the story? Because I know you're really active on social media, and that's where so many people have gone to vent their frustration or their emotions about this story. What have you seen in the audience and kind of their feelings about this?

Yeah, well, I mean, pretty much obviously everybody universally, whatever side of the healthcare debate they stand on, are, you know, saddened by this whole thing. But interestingly, you're seeing a lot of discussion past the parental rights thing, and people would just be talking about how he didn't have a chance anyway. And so there's a lot of that discussion, which I think you'll find an interesting sort of dichotomy even amongst Christians. About when it's time to just, you know, essentially pull the plug and give up. And you see a lot of people that are very sensitive to that, to that suffering. You're just prolonging the suffering. So for me, that was a little bit of a surprise, was seeing that, that, um, a lot of people commenting on that even though they agreed that, yeah, maybe, uh, Charlie Gard's parents here should have had the ultimate say. I mean, that to me, that's the thing that gutted me, was watching this father just saying, we're gonna have to live. And this is before he before all the final decisions were made, he's saying we don't want to have to live with all the what-ifs. And I think that's, to me, the heart of the issue is he should have had that chance, even if none of this would have worked 3 months ago when they started all these legal battles, that they should have had this opportunity to at least try the path that they wanted to try. But there is, there is a lot, there are a lot of people who are very sensitive to the prolonged suffering argument.

Yeah, you know what was an interesting perspective? I read a column, which I don't know if I necessarily agreed with, but it was interesting about When do we trust or stop trusting the experts? You know, these were the medical, medical doctors, you know, who were advising this. And, you know, there is a lot of— I mean, we see it in our politics, we see it in the church, we see it across all institutions that people are increasingly skeptical of people who they perceive as having expertise. Right. Which is sometimes healthy and sometimes can be unhealthy. So, You know, I think it's just a really interesting conversation to have as Christians. We want to do the right thing. And we think that we always know the right thing. But when do we say, no, actually, this person knows more than me, I should defer to the experts? It's really, really tough. Lauren, I'd love to hear your perspective kind of on this, on this issue. And I know that you have been very, very supportive and your family about issues of life. So I'd love to get your thoughts.

Yeah, no, it is. It's complicated. As you mentioned, there's a lot of different aspects to think about. But, you know, for our family, we were fighting for our religious liberty in a particular case in a very different situation, but wanting to not give up more control, our control, to be able to have to have the government tell us how we're going to live out our convictions and our faith and how we think we should run our lives. And And similarly, this is a situation where these parents had a plan of how they thought they wanted to pursue supporting and health and the health of their child. Yet the government has stepped in and that, and they've, you know, taken that control and really taken away the option for these parents to be able to have the say in what they wanted to do. So I think that that gets into a really slippery slope, because how, how much are we willing to give up And that just allows for the opportunity to perpetuate that and continue to take away our freedoms and our ability to make decisions for ourselves and our family. And in this case, these are parents that are trying to make the best decision they can for their own son and didn't have that opportunity.

Yeah, it's just, it's so incredibly difficult. Greg, I want to, I want to get you in here. But before I do, I also want to acknowledge just how challenging it is when we think of loving parents like Charlie's who were in this situation, but then you also look at social services and Child Protective Services and things like this that go into homes and sometimes have to take children where the parents are, are not loving parents. They're maybe abusive parents, or they're addicted to drugs, and the government has to take children out of that abusive situation. So how, as a society, do we balance this— the need to give parents the right to pursue the best options for their children while at the same time empowering organizations? And should we maybe be empowering the church to go into maybe destructive homes or abusive homes and for the welfare of the child maybe the parent or the abusive parent wants to keep the child there, but the child would be safer somewhere else. Where is this balance of empowering parents and also making sure that children sometimes are safe?

There's definitely been a slow and steady erosion of the parents' rights and the role that the parent gets to play in making decisions about their life, their children's lives, and how they fit into the community. At one point, the church was very active in encouraging and supporting and being part of that support system when parents needed. We've kind of ceded that in many cases to government, and I'm not sure that's really the best path for any of us.

The—

it's interesting, here we were, we thought we were going to do a session with Andrea Logan-White talking about some of the work she's been doing in Hollywood and some upcoming things she's working on, and here we've hit this extremely meaty issue starting with one child and the struggle of parents dealing with that, and At the other end, we're talking now about government and what government should or shouldn't do. And I hate to bring it up, but, you know, at the top level, we also have to remember that in my lifetime— and I know I'm old, but not that old— in my lifetime, there's been in the U.S. alone over 60 million abortions. So when we talk about the value of life, the sanctity of life, it's easy to fall in on a single point, the piece of the news today, but this is something that we as a society have been trying to figure out or come to grips with or have been guilty of, however you want to phrase it, to the tune of 60 million abortions over the one person's lifetime. That's, uh, that raises a really big set of questions, and I think it challenges us regardless of how you feel on that issue, whether it's the, this, this particular case or the government's involvement or the 60 million number. However you feel, we must open up conversations about that because this is real impact. This is real.

Can I, can I add something to that? Because I think it's, you know, we're also in this era of truth and there's so much lying and the accusations of fake news on all sides, you know, whether it's the media or it's the president, whoever. But I think there's a real issue of truth in the, in the statistic, the number that you just brought up. You know, I think we have a really hard time in this country being honest about things. And I was talking with Dan earlier about this, actually, the honesty of saying something is what it is, that something is life. And you might hold whatever view you hold on the issue itself that's associated with that, that we're talking about here, the issue of abortion. But, you know, being able to be honest and have honest conversations instead of shielding truth, and I think that's a really important thing, you know. And this is very different from the parental rights issue or anything else, but I do think we really suffer from that inability and that refusal to embrace what truth is because we don't want to deal with what's actually happening.

Yeah, this is such a great point, Billy. Greg, there is actually a wonderful connection here with Andrea who is going to be on. There's actually a film. I mean, there's several films that Pure Flix has done on miracles and children and all of these issues, but there's one in particular that Andrea's in. Can you tell us a little bit about it and direct people to that?

Yeah, no, I'd be glad to. In fact, two different titles come to mind immediately on this subject. You know, Pure Flix, we're about bringing faith and family entertainment to life and inspirational stories and just positive uplifting stories. But sometimes when people hear that they think that, well, you don't deal with any tough issues, with any real life issues. But there was a movie that Andrea Logan-White did, it was a Pure Flix piece from a few years back called Sarah's Choice. And it has to do with exactly this, the question of abortion, yes or no. And the story goes on to deal with 3 different potential outcomes of what this decision might be. and Sarah has to make this choice. There's also a movie that was released on our platform recently called October Baby, and it also deals with these same real issues. So, you know, one of the things we believe we can do is not only bring the positive and the uplifting, but we can bring some of these more difficult subjects to light in a way that can lead to a conversation. You watch a movie like Sarah's Choice or October Baby with family, with friends, a conversation can happen. You know, when we originally started to talk about Pure Talk and this conversation starter here, it really was as a conversation starter, not a flaming social media battle, I take this position, you take that, but rather a, hey, here are, as Billy said, facts. You just put them on the table and look at them. You don't have to agree or disagree, but they are facts. Now, how do you feel about that? What should we think about that? What might we do? So it's really kind of interesting the way this has happened today in spite of Andrea's mom emergency, and she's a mom first, we're having this really cool conversation right now.

Yeah, you know, and I just want to throw this out because it, as someone who works in television news and I get You know, people raise this issue a lot when it comes to the value and the sanctity of life that Christians talk about so much, especially as it relates to the abortion issue. And a lot of people come back and say, then why don't you care about life at every stage as Christians? Why aren't you involved, more involved in criminal justice reform? Why aren't you more involved with, you know, why don't you support the expansion of Medicaid, which is a totally different issue, but, you know, like healthcare and social welfare and all these kinds of things. They say, why don't you care about life at every stage? And so, you know, I think I think that the challenge to us, even though they might be misinformed about what the church is doing in some of those areas, I think the challenge to us is to be, you know, a lot more vocal about how we are the hands and feet of Jesus in local communities for people at every stage of life, because the church is doing that. And that's what we are called to do. Because life is valuable at every single stage from, you know, a baby, a child in the womb, to a sick infant like Charlie Gard, to, you know, someone who's at the end of their life on life support, you know, to the elderly and those in hospice. So, you know, Lauren, let's to you because I know you're super active in the church and especially with women. How can the church come around people that are in these difficult situations, maybe dealing with these choices, or just in hard, very broken places? How can the church come around those people?

Yeah, it's a great question because there are a lot of people that are dealing with these hard questions or even personally walking through maybe a choice about a pregnancy that they're having to really figure out how, how am I going to make a decision that I can live with? And so I think that the church needs to be the hands and feet of Christ and have love and compassion and be willing to listen well and to lovingly offer support for maybe a woman that's pregnant and doesn't know if she can handle this pregnancy and is considering all of her options. But the church can really step in and care for her. You know, I know a lot of different pregnancy centers too that are doing a great job. I get to serve on the board of one here locally where they are offering all of, all the counseling services, paying for baby shower for women and when they choose to keep this baby, and connecting with churches and pastors locally so that they can have the community, the church community and the body of Christ wrap around them. So I think that that's a good way for the church to walk forward is to really have open arms and welcome them in. With love and support, and that, that's going to give women the ability to see that there is another option besides ending a life.

Yeah, there's so much about community in there. I mean, we've talked about this in previous Pure Talk episodes, and I know we're going to do it in the future. I mean, just how important the body of Christ is in so many of these issues. And if we can be more open and talking about these things, because I know so many Christian women who are now in churches who have had an abortion and have, you know, it was at a time in their life when they were weaker, they were not a Christian, and they don't feel comfortable talking about it with any other Christians in their church. I'm like, no, the church needs to come around those people. And if people feel like they can talk about these issues more, then maybe they won't go down that road. And so the openness among the body of believers is so, so important. Dan, did you want to jump in there?

Yeah, I was just gonna say one of the things we're trying to do at Faithwire, we're all speaking here about like what the church, you know, I think that argument, kind of to Lauren's point, is a bit of a straw man argument. I think, obviously, all of us could do more. But I mean, name a group of people that are more involved in other people's lives than Christians around the world. I mean, just— so one of the things we're trying to do at Faithwire is show what all these people are doing, not just to brag or say, oh, look at what they're doing. It's to inspire you. If you're not doing enough in your life, and you're not doing enough in your walk, well, see what some other people are doing. And maybe that will inspire you. I mean, we've got David Eubank, who moved his family to Mosul, and he's out there dodging bullets trying to rescue rescue people off of the field. I mean, this is a guy that could be— he's a retired military man. I mean, he could be living it up in the mountains in Montana or whatever he wants to do. But he's out there still doing it in some of the harshest places in the world. And, you know, Kate Bartow is somebody I interviewed in Haiti, and she has had a young, successful career going, and she left it because she felt compelled at 23 years old to go live in Haiti for a while and help people after the recent hurricane went through there. So we've got just countless examples of this. And, you know, and again, it's not to just toot our own horns, but it's to inspire people to do more. Because, you know, what do we believe? You know, that this is why the culture of life is important to us, is because we're made in the imago Dei, we're made in the image of God. And so that's why we value life, because, because he made it and it's valuable. So, so that's what we're trying to do at Faithwire, is show what people are doing, the hands the feet of Christ.

Wow, love it. You know, I was just— I just got back from 6 weeks in the UK, and there was a guy in my class of students who just up and moved to Lebanon and served in a Syrian orphanage for like a whole month just because he was moved by the refugee crisis. I mean, there's so— and you know, he's a believer, and he was driven by his love for those people. So it's just— it's so important to tell those stories, and those people aren't They're not seeking to have a news story written about them, you know, but it's so important that we continue to show that we value all human life because we are made in the image of God, as you said so well. You know, we could talk about this forever. Obviously, it's so important. It's the most important thing. But Billy, I just wanted to get you in here one more time. Were there any last thoughts that you had? You've been covering this story of Charlie so diligently, and thank you for your voice in doing that. But were there any last thoughts that you had?

Yeah, you know, I think everything we've talked about here is important, obviously. I think we have a lot to think about. I think the case sort of— we're in the reflective mode now that, you know, Charlie is gone and the family will be planning a funeral. And, you know, we sort of look back on it and say, well, what do we have to glean from this? What do we have to learn from this? And I think we have to really weigh the odds about what is going to happen in this country on health care. And that's not a partisan statement either way. It's sort of me saying, look, we need to think about this Where do parental rights go from here? And there are many questions, but I think we need to live out that commitment to life at every stage. And I think a lot of us do, more of us need to do that, and we need to explain that and show that to people so that they understand why babies' lives are so important to us, the most innocent of all lives. So that's what I would say, just think deeper on these issues.

Yeah, amazing. Guys, thanks so much. Thanks to our panel, Greg from PureFlix.com, Dan and Billy from Faithwire, Lauren, our corporate ambassador from Hobby Lobby. Make sure to check out those films on PureFlex.com about life, October Baby and Sarah's Choice, as well as all the great coverage on Faithwire News of not only Charlie's story but so many issues of life and just Christians out there making a difference and following their heart to serve Christ and serve others. It's just— there's some truly profound stories on there. So thank you guys. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening, and thanks for your prayers for not only Andrea and her son But Charlie's parents, let's remember to keep them in our prayers because they, they're still here and they have a long road ahead. So let's pray for them. All right. Thanks guys so much for joining us for this episode of Pure Talk. We're so glad to have you and we'll see you next time. Ciao.