Stem Cells, Cloning, and Bioethics – Alan Shlemon

[00:00:00] uh okay welcome to educate for life i’m your host kevin conover my website’s educate4life.org and we’re broadcasting

[00:00:06] from down here in southern california and uh we’re on k praise 12 10 a.m every weekend

[00:00:12] and we’ve got all kinds of shows up there that you can listen to and watch and from scientists all over the world

[00:00:19] we have people that have converted out of islam for example we have discussions with experts on islam

[00:00:25] there’s all kinds of stuff you can check them out on my website educate4life.org and uh

[00:00:30] got over 100 shows up there and uh we’ve had greg koko on the show several times and i’ve been blessed to

[00:00:36] have him and joining us today is alan schliemann and alan

[00:00:42] you’ve been with uh standard reason since 2004 is that right yeah that’s right it’s about i guess

[00:00:47] it’s about 15 or 16 years i have been it’s been a pleasure and a blessing and i’m super humbled by it yeah that’s it’s an incredible ministry

[00:00:54] and um i just love the the attitude that standard reason has which is basically being winsome

[00:01:00] and uh but at the same time being uh committed to solid uh logic and thought about difficult

[00:01:06] issues uh from a biblical perspective and so that’s fantastic that’s right yeah so our mission really

[00:01:12] is to train christians to be able to persuasively but as you kind of mentioned graciously

[00:01:18] share their convictions and so um yeah i think we take the model from what scripture talks about where it says

[00:01:24] that we’re ambassadors for christ since we represent jesus we at standard reason kind of ask the question

[00:01:31] what does it take to be an effective ambassador and so we typically will highlight three key areas knowledge wisdom and character

[00:01:37] knowledge is the information that we need to know wisdom is how to communicate that knowledge and then characters having a

[00:01:43] wisdom and gracious approach in in the way we do it yeah i love it i love it a lot of times apologists get a

[00:01:49] reputation for being um kind of cold and factual and so

[00:01:55] some people get turned off they’re just like oh man you just want to argue right but that’s not what what uh you’re

[00:02:01] trying to do that’s right yeah we’re we’re basically trying to equip believers so we’re trying

[00:02:06] we’re about creating a certain kind of person and that is an ambassador for christ so our goal is to come alongside believers

[00:02:13] help them understand you know what we believe as christians why we believe it and how to articulate it again persuasively but also

[00:02:20] graciously yeah and you know um today we’re going to be covering bioethics and this is an interesting subject because

[00:02:27] you know it comes up a lot of times in movies and different things there is a uh netflix documentary that came out not

[00:02:34] too long ago called unnatural selection which talks about gene editing and then but this issue is

[00:02:40] is very old also because um the catholic church uh you know banned banned um

[00:02:46] any sort of uh ability yeah birth control contraception and so it’s interesting

[00:02:53] that protestants don’t hold the same view as catholics we’re you know uh we both say that the bible is the word of god and

[00:02:59] it’s true but yet um the catholic church comes on the down on the side that really that contraception

[00:03:04] um if it’s man-made is evil is intrinsically evil and um would you say that that’s a

[00:03:10] bio-ethics issue alan um well well it’s a theological position

[00:03:16] that touches on a bioethical issue for sure okay i mean they of course would affirm natural family planning

[00:03:22] which is not using necessarily the the kind of technologies that you know like for example uh intramuter

[00:03:29] devices or you know birth control pills and so on and so forth uh so yeah like many topics there’s

[00:03:36] um crossing over of like theology into science and bioethics and so on and so forth so

[00:03:41] a lot of what we’ll probably be talking about today cover you know overlaps into those areas yeah and i

[00:03:47] think this is part of you know the whole thinking clearly issue because a lot of times bioethics issues like you

[00:03:53] said they kind of filter into different areas of our lives and um sometimes when we least expect it

[00:03:58] all of a sudden there’s an issue that’s in front of us and we go whoa i’ve never thought about this before this is something i’ve dealt with before

[00:04:04] and especially with technology with gene editing and what they’re doing now um i i mit i guess is making

[00:04:11] glow-in-the-dark plants i’ve heard and this is going to put the the christmas lights uh

[00:04:17] you know this is going to be a problem for the christmas lights uh industry they’re they’re going to have glow in the dark trees and everything

[00:04:23] and so well if it’s anything like the movie avatar where those plants were just kind of glowing and yeah

[00:04:28] that would actually be pretty cool i don’t have too many ethical consider concerns about that okay i’d be welcome

[00:04:34] yeah yeah they said it’s gonna it’s gonna solve the uh electrical issue for everybody because everybody’s gonna have glow-in-the-dark plants and

[00:04:40] then you’ll have light wherever you go so i thought that was well we already i mean yeah my suspicion is they’re

[00:04:46] probably utilizing uh luciferin uh which is that um i forgot what it is

[00:04:51] exactly but it’s found in a lot of different creatures already my my daughter i know recently did a

[00:04:56] science fair project using dinoflagellates which are these single-celled organisms that have this

[00:05:03] um it’s an enzyme or something but it glows right yeah yeah and uh you know living in san diego we’ve had that

[00:05:10] when there’s a whole bunch of these organisms uh in the in the water when yeah water gets um

[00:05:17] disturbed they glow blue and so you can go at night and see like an entire wave turn blue with these

[00:05:22] things so my suspicion is they’re probably using that particular uh capacity or ability that these you

[00:05:29] know that god’s kind of invested creation with and using it to perhaps put it onto some

[00:05:34] sort of plants i guess so that’s that’s kind of the question is you know where is that line where is the line between

[00:05:40] okay god has given us this and we can modify it versus okay hold on

[00:05:46] um you’re taking that too far uh wha what how do you how do you

[00:05:51] distinguish that allen yeah that’s a great question um i i so i believe

[00:05:56] that and i think this is consistent with the christian worldview that god has given us creation and that

[00:06:02] we are able to use it for our benefit you know for feeding ourselves for clothing

[00:06:08] ourselves uh he’s also given us our minds to be able to take what we see from creation to be

[00:06:15] able to use it for medicinal purposes okay now the the problem occurs when we

[00:06:22] start doing things that not just attempt to help people but in the

[00:06:27] process end up killing innocent human beings uh and so

[00:06:32] obviously when we start experimenting with humans uh and i would you know i would clarify

[00:06:39] that a human being is a human being from the moment he or she is created

[00:06:44] to his or her natural death so once we start taking these human beings and putting them in certain kinds of

[00:06:50] experiments or manipulating them in such a way that ends up killing them well then i think it becomes a problem

[00:06:57] and so uh you know there are all kinds of possible directions that this might come from in terms of

[00:07:04] biotechnologies because with the increase in our capacity to harness

[00:07:09] you know creatures or you know enzymes and proteins and and

[00:07:16] to be able to edit humans in certain ways then this creates more opportunities for there to be abuse

[00:07:22] and so scientists often will ask the question can we do something but oftentimes they don’t ask

[00:07:28] the question should we and that’s when that’s when we can run into trouble i think so so from what you said you know the

[00:07:35] the dividing line is are we hurting an innocent person um obviously scripture teaches that

[00:07:43] that’s you know we should never do that um are there other bioethical lines not to cross

[00:07:51] uh you know it’s been in the movies forever uh that if you uh advance artificial

[00:07:57] intelligence too much robots will take over the world and you know we’ll all be in big trouble

[00:08:02] um are there other ethical uh lines that you know in your research

[00:08:08] and in your studying that we have to be careful of crossing that are directly related to a biblical

[00:08:13] worldview uh well yeah i mean so i would probably put these not as high a

[00:08:20] priority as the protection of innocent human beings but i think that god has called us to be good stewards of

[00:08:26] creation um that may not mean that we pursue the protection of of the created

[00:08:32] world to the degree that you might see someone with a non-biblical worldview pursuing it you know peta the people for the ethical

[00:08:39] treatment of animals sure you know various environmental organizations um again i’m not saying that we

[00:08:46] shouldn’t care about creatures you know and needlessly kill animals or torture animals

[00:08:51] or just pollute the environment not at all saying that in fact i would argue that as christians we can ground

[00:08:58] our concern for creation and our desire and our command to care for creation

[00:09:03] far better than say a naturalist someone who doesn’t believe that there’s a god or or any kind of mandate to do that so

[00:09:11] certainly we’re called to care for creation and be good stewards of creation so i would say that another ethical line

[00:09:17] might be might exist where we might be doing something that is recklessly endangering um our

[00:09:24] environment or uh you know needlessly killing or torturing animals like obviously i think that would be

[00:09:31] wrong we shouldn’t do that yeah does that mean that we never involve animals or creation or risk

[00:09:37] anything in order to try to find cures for disease and disability well no but it also means that we shouldn’t be

[00:09:43] reckless with it as well so there could be those kinds of questions and lines that could be drawn

[00:09:50] but i don’t think that they would take precedence over say a line where we are now endangering or killing

[00:09:56] innocent human beings because from a world from a christian worldview it’s only human beings who are

[00:10:02] made in god’s image not any of the creatures yeah absolutely and that so like you

[00:10:07] said we’re supposed to be stewards over creation um and sometimes you know putting animals to good use in

[00:10:14] in ways that are responsible and um like you said not reckless um so for those of you listening my

[00:10:19] guest today is alan schliemann and he’s with standard reason uh that’s str.org they have all kinds of

[00:10:25] incredible resources on their website um that are a big help in answering difficult questions

[00:10:31] and you know alan um i was looking up you know bioethics issues

[00:10:36] uh some of the issues that come up are uh end of life care you know how do we

[00:10:41] allocate resources to take care of uh those who need them as they’re coming to the end of their life um

[00:10:47] there’s the issue of eugenics there’s the issue of euthanasia um uh possibly organ donation these

[00:10:54] sorts of things um so when you’re dealing with things like i think the big issues for christians

[00:11:01] are eugenics euthanasia probably abortion um are those the main issues that christians need to deal with

[00:11:08] when it comes to um you know identifying where those uh

[00:11:14] ethical lines are uh yes so i would also include and perhaps you meant this

[00:11:19] uh physician-assisted suicide yeah it’s sort of a precursor to euthanasia which you know physicians

[00:11:26] is a suicide is what actually has become legal in several states around the country yeah um uh so yes those

[00:11:34] and then also stem cell research and cloning are are huge huge industries and where we’ve

[00:11:41] had multiple propositions that have been passed into law both at the federal level uh and in

[00:11:47] other levels that you know is moving forward as we speak and especially you know you and i living in san diego county

[00:11:54] there’s a lot of biotech industry and a lot of stem cell research stuff going on there yeah yeah so those will all be included in

[00:12:00] there can we dive right in i was gonna say and then transhumanism is probably the the next thing that’s on

[00:12:06] the frontier where we are trying to modify enhance

[00:12:11] uh humans to be either live longer or be you know faster stronger smarter through

[00:12:17] various biotechnologies so i think that would also be an additional one and how is how is that

[00:12:23] transhumanism how is that an ethical issue can you explain that well uh it can be an

[00:12:29] ethical issue where we are doing experiments on humans and a lot of these experiments involve

[00:12:34] trial and error i mean uh gene editing also some people might hear the term crispr yeah which is an acronym uh cr

[00:12:43] is i think it’s pr but it’s an acronym for a type of gene editing which is

[00:12:48] which is a sub topic or a subheading of transhumanism in general where

[00:12:54] they’re trying to edit the human genome like you would edit say a microsoft word document you know word

[00:12:59] processor you have a sentence and you go in there and kind of edit that sentence well we’re trying to do that with human

[00:13:06] genomes but of course that results in in various trials and errors and a lot of those errors can

[00:13:12] result in the death of an innocent human being because we’re not doing them

[00:13:17] according to the consent of adults we’re doing them on on human beings at the embryonic level and

[00:13:24] so these these are human beings that don’t have the possibility of consent and so that’s

[00:13:29] why i would say certain aspects of transhumanism would be concerning not all of them

[00:13:34] you know i suppose if you try to develop a technology that made somebody’s um

[00:13:41] let’s say they had a disability or an amputation so we gave them an artificial leg you know so they could

[00:13:46] walk better or you know i i don’t have concerns that way but again when the when the technologies

[00:13:52] involve the death of innocent human beings now i’m concerned yeah yeah um

[00:13:58] yeah so the issue so transhumanism uh i see what you’re saying so whenever

[00:14:04] i mean back in the america’s history there was a huge problem with this where they were conducting uh psychological experiments

[00:14:10] on people um without their consent really um even with children and uh you look at

[00:14:16] some of that stuff and you’re like how did they get away with this yeah it was a huge ethical issue um and so

[00:14:24] uh what about you you said that the stem cell industry um where are they crossing the line i

[00:14:30] know for a long time you know that the the argument was you don’t need fetuses

[00:14:36] stem cells in order to do uh research you can you can take um you know

[00:14:43] cells that um stem cells that aren’t necessarily from a uh a baby or a

[00:14:49] god forbid an aborted baby but um you said that’s going on now that’s being advanced

[00:14:56] yeah so so stem cells are being extracted from human embryos

[00:15:03] at the embryonic stage so typically when a human is conceived after sperm and egg you know come together uh that first

[00:15:10] stage is called a zygote okay so when a human beings just had a single cell but within the first week around

[00:15:17] three to five days that human being develops what’s into a stage called blastocyst

[00:15:22] or at the blastocyst stage and at that point a human being you and i would have what’s called stem

[00:15:28] cells or pluripotent stem cells which are which all stem cell is is just a general cell

[00:15:34] in other words you know um you and i as adults we probably have like 200 different types of specialized

[00:15:42] cells like brain cells hair cells bone cells isos well all a stem cell is is a general cell that has not yet been

[00:15:49] assigned a specific to become a specific type of cell and so when you’re just three to five days old

[00:15:56] as an embryo your body quote unquote consists of pluripotent stem cells which are what

[00:16:03] scientists are eager to harvest and remove from the developing human embryo the ethical problem with this is that when

[00:16:10] they remove those stem cells from a developing human embryo it ends up

[00:16:15] killing the developing human embryo because that’s the stem cells those stem cells are what the human’s

[00:16:22] going to use to create the rest of its body it’s brain it’s spinal cord it’s hard

[00:16:27] it’s you know all that stuff so scientists want to extract these stem

[00:16:32] cells but that ends up killing an innocent human being and that’s the problem that’s one of the problems with embryonic stem cell research

[00:16:38] now are they able to get stem cells without killing uh you know killing an embryo or um do they

[00:16:44] uh sorry good i was gonna say you know my understanding at one point in time at least was that um

[00:16:50] you know the the christian argument the biblical perspective was look every all the research that needs to be

[00:16:56] done can be done without taking the stem cells from an embryo

[00:17:02] um we don’t need to do that uh so why are we allowing that to be the case is that is that correct or is there any

[00:17:08] information there exactly yeah so ambient stem cell research was is and

[00:17:13] was a big thing um but as you pointed out many people said look there’s another way to get

[00:17:18] stem cells and that’s to get stem cells from adult human beings and so there was some

[00:17:27] pushback to this because it was it was once thought that adult stem cells that are found on bodies like yours and mine as adults

[00:17:34] were not able to be coaxed into turning into whatever you know so for example you

[00:17:40] take a stem cell from a human embryo that thing has the potential to turn

[00:17:46] into any part of a human body you know any one of those 200 different types of specialized cells

[00:17:51] it was thought at a time that adult stem cells which exist in our body could not

[00:17:56] be coaxed into turning into any particular type of specialized cell now that has since been

[00:18:04] debunked and we now realize and know that you can take a stem cell from your arm

[00:18:09] or my arm and we can coax that into turning into whatever type of tissue we want say

[00:18:16] heart muscle tissue and then we can implant that into a human body that might have a damaged heart as a

[00:18:22] result of a heart attack so yeah that is a way to do that but you

[00:18:28] know um the problem is is that not everybody has a concern with killing innocent human embryos

[00:18:34] it’s only well it’s not only but christians or somebody with a christian worldview or somebody that sees innocent human

[00:18:41] beings as valuable is going to be a one who’s concerned with you know killing innocent human

[00:18:46] embryos but for the scientists that you know just says hey look if it can be done it

[00:18:51] should be done and hey this is a new frontier in science

[00:18:56] and medicine man let’s go ahead and also use embryos let’s let’s look let’s let’s take stem cells from embryos let’s

[00:19:02] take stem cells from adults as well you know and see what we can get yeah because there is no biblical world

[00:19:08] view in that in that regard um so to the scientist who says well alan

[00:19:13] listen um you know we have the potential to solve you know to to deal

[00:19:18] on a high level with uh stopping cancer or stopping hiv or whatever it might be how do you respond

[00:19:25] to somebody who who makes that declaration well i would say first of all um you don’t have okay so

[00:19:32] i’d say there are there’s a lot of ethical problems with using embryonic stem cells namely you’re

[00:19:38] killing innocent human beings and even if you don’t believe in you know god or human beings are made in the image of god you cannot die

[00:19:45] you cannot deny that you are killing an innocent human being because for the most part biologists will agree

[00:19:51] that from the first moments of its existence an organism conceived from human sperm

[00:19:57] and egg is a human being that is the beginning of human life okay now they might not attribute it as viable human life but no without

[00:20:04] question is human life okay so i’d say number one you should you could avoid the ethical dilemma or the

[00:20:09] ethical concerns surrounding killing innocent human beings number one number two you can achieve you can get

[00:20:17] stem cells from adults and indeed adult stem cell research has been going on for decades

[00:20:23] and i could provide you with with with scientific studies that have been

[00:20:29] published in mainstream medical journals that show how adult stem cells have been

[00:20:34] used in treating 73 different types of conditions or diseases

[00:20:39] including things like cancer heart attacks parkinson’s you know diabetes and so on

[00:20:45] and so forth so it has actually been extremely promising

[00:20:50] to use adult stem cells whereas if you look at you know uh the the human treatments

[00:20:56] using embryonic stem cell research the number of successful treatments and to treat

[00:21:02] certain number of diseases has been far less i’ll also add this in order to use stem

[00:21:09] cells from a human embryo you have to um deal with the problem of

[00:21:15] tissue rejection because say kevin you had a heart attack and part of your heart muscle tissue died and i also take

[00:21:21] a human embryo extracted stem cells coax those stem cells into turning into heart muscle

[00:21:27] tissue and then implant it or graft that into your heart kevin your body would mount an immune response

[00:21:35] against that new tissue because your body knows that’s not your tissue so the solution to that problem of

[00:21:42] tissue rejection is human cloning because if we can create a human clone of you kevin

[00:21:49] at the embryonic stage and then extract your clones stem cells from it and then coax them

[00:21:55] into turning into heart muscle tissue then when we implant that human tissue into your body your body

[00:22:01] would not reject it because your body would think it’s simply your tissue so now we’re

[00:22:06] introducing a new technology human cloning in order to avoid the problem of tissue rejection

[00:22:13] and adult stem cell research bypasses that all together because you don’t have to clone anybody

[00:22:18] if i take your own stem cells from your from your skin turn them into heart muscle tissue and then plant them back into your body

[00:22:25] there’s no tissue rejection so that’ll be a an additional benefit of using adult stem cells rather than embryonic

[00:22:31] stem cells because you avoid the whole ethical dilemma of human cloning okay and and do you know as far as human

[00:22:39] cloning is concerned um is this something that people are also still pursuing i mean they’re pursuing um you know embryonic stem cell research

[00:22:46] companies are pushing for that is the whole cloning aspect happening too is this something that christians are

[00:22:51] are having to deal with as far as you know pushing back against cloning also oh yeah i mean 16 years ago

[00:22:57] at the 2004 democratic national convention ron reagan who’s the son of president

[00:23:03] ronald reagan went on to went on national television and basically described although he

[00:23:08] never said the word cloning he described the the most popular form of cloning

[00:23:14] in detail on national television said we need to vote for this funding for it okay so but he

[00:23:22] didn’t use the word cloning because if you said cloning you would freak people out but the description he gave and you can read the

[00:23:27] transcript on this was precisely what’s called somatic cell nuclear transfer which is just a fancy

[00:23:33] term for the type of cloning that scientists use today and they’ve been doing this for years so

[00:23:39] we are currently cloning human beings and then trying to use their stem cells for therapeutic benefits

[00:23:46] and and how does that process take place i mean how do you a clone if i wanted to go somewhere and be cloned i

[00:23:52] mean could i legally go somewhere and be cloned well so so you have to distinguish between therapeutic cloning and

[00:23:58] reproductive cloning reproductive cloning is where we take you kevin and try to um

[00:24:04] we create a clone of you and then that that embryonic form of your clone we implant

[00:24:11] in a woman’s womb in her uterus and then that clone would grow to term

[00:24:17] and then it would be born and then we’d have like a you have basically an identical twin

[00:24:22] that is let’s just say you were i’m just gonna make this up let’s say you’re 30 years old okay you’re that’s good i like that that was

[00:24:28] good your identical twin would be 30 years younger than you

[00:24:34] now that’s reproductive cloning and it’s for the most part considered um unethical by a lot of

[00:24:40] people and people are freaked out by that idea so that’s totally possible that’s not

[00:24:46] that’s not scientific that’s not science fiction that’s that’s real you could actually do that that’s right so currently there the efforts to do

[00:24:53] that have not been successful we’ve cloned animals like dolly the sheep which is perhaps the most famous example of of an

[00:25:00] animal that was cloned but for some reason it’s been more complicated to do that with humans but i would argue that

[00:25:05] it’s just a matter of time that will perfect the technology most human clones for some reason don’t live to be very

[00:25:11] long but nevertheless the ability for us to do that i’m sure is coming the problem is is that we’re still doing

[00:25:18] human cloning but not for reproductive purposes but rather for therapeutic processes

[00:25:23] therapeutic benefits meaning we’re creating human clones but we’re killing them by the time they

[00:25:30] reach a week or so old because we’re just simply extracting their stem cells from them to use them for some sort of therapeutic

[00:25:37] benefit and this is my well one of my major concerns with cloning

[00:25:43] it’s not so much that we’re creating human beings in this sort of non-traditional fashion which

[00:25:49] it could be argued this is immoral in itself the problem with cloning is that every time you clone a human being

[00:25:56] that clone will be seen as less than human it’ll be less than

[00:26:01] valuable and instead and that clone will be simply seen as a means to some other valuable end which

[00:26:08] is you know helping you kevin with your heart attack with the fact that part of your heart muscle tissue is dead

[00:26:15] and it’s not functioning well well how do we repair that create a clone of yourself

[00:26:21] well extracted stem cells which in essence kills your clone and then we use those stem cells for your benefit so

[00:26:27] the goal is good but the the means by which we do it is i would argue immoral

[00:26:33] and so you know from a biblical spec perspective when we look at the issue of abortion when we look at the issue of

[00:26:40] cloning when we look at the issue of stem cell research you know people people say

[00:26:45] hey i mean the justifications are are numerous um this child is

[00:26:52] being born to a mother that can’t take care of it we can cure cancer if we do this stem

[00:26:57] cell research if we do the cloning we add to the the utility of a person’s life in the

[00:27:04] long term um you know from a from a biblical perspective uh the big picture here is

[00:27:11] uh the value of human life is this the big difference here um

[00:27:18] between a between a humanist position and and the biblical pursuit perspective sure i mean like i said i i

[00:27:24] don’t disagree that it’s a good thing to pursue treating disease and disability you know

[00:27:29] children who are born with various conditions and whatever like so to the degree that we can treat

[00:27:35] those people and help them care for them by all means i’m all for that okay the point i’m simply making is we

[00:27:41] don’t have to kill innocent human beings to do it we can use adult stem cells to treat these conditions and just give an example with

[00:27:48] regards to heart attacks um it was published back in i think it’s 2010 in new england

[00:27:53] uh let’s see no i’m sorry the uh the journal circulation which deals with

[00:27:59] heart conditions and so on and so forth you can basically take stem cells from your own hip

[00:28:06] put them in a syringe inject them directly into your heart and those stem cells regrow new heart

[00:28:11] muscle tissue we had a guy and i can again i can point to the uh the article on this

[00:28:17] he had a a cancerous tumor growing in his trachea which is your windpipe where you breathe in

[00:28:22] the doctor said sorry man you’re gonna die you’re you’re gonna die of suffocation before the cancer kills

[00:28:28] you because this tumor is growing in your windpipe but some other doctors said hey you know what we have an idea we can use your own

[00:28:35] adult stem cells to treat you so what did they do they took his stem cells from his body

[00:28:41] you know just which of course didn’t kill him at all just took some stem cells from him they created a scaffolding which is like

[00:28:47] a a form a plastic form that is in the shape of his trachea

[00:28:53] they put his stem cells on this form created a new trachea

[00:28:58] using his own stem cells they surgically removed his old trachea put his new trachea in and now he has a

[00:29:05] near normal life expectancy wow so i mean this is like science fiction we’re literally

[00:29:11] creating body parts from our own stem cells and we’re putting them back into our

[00:29:16] bodies with no tissue rejection no need to clone so i would say why

[00:29:22] don’t we pursue these methods of treatment that are known to be successful

[00:29:27] that don’t have the ethical problems associated with cloning that don’t have the tumors that naturally grow when we create clones

[00:29:34] and then try to use their stem cells i mean there’s so many advantages to this yeah i’m saying let’s use that approach

[00:29:41] to treat disease and disability yeah that’s awesome um now

[00:29:47] you know so when you’re talking to somebody about these sorts of issues and all and let’s say

[00:29:54] you know um obviously as a christian the end goal isn’t just to persuade somebody that um hey this is

[00:30:01] the better way to go um and you said you know you said a humanist can’t ground their morality and

[00:30:07] all they might they might think it’s not right but they have no basis for that um where do you go from there in a discussion you uh you know do you um

[00:30:15] get into this discussion and then come over to how do you how do you um segway into a

[00:30:22] discussion about jesus christ well okay so that’s a great question so

[00:30:27] you know as an apologist somebody who’s involved in teaching others to know how to

[00:30:32] defend the faith or articulate uh the truth of christianity respond to objections

[00:30:37] um i’m not suggesting that when i’m talking to somebody um who’s not a

[00:30:43] christian that my initial conversation or the the lead topic that i’m going to bring up is

[00:30:50] something like bioethics or islam or homosexuality or abortion if

[00:30:55] i’m just talking to somebody and i have the opportunity to to direct that conversation in any direction i’m going to present the

[00:31:01] gospel of jesus christ because that’s really all that matters i i’m not concerned that they would hold

[00:31:06] my view on abortion or bioethics or on homosexuality or whatever because

[00:31:12] even if they were to agree with me about that what i would argue as a secondary matter

[00:31:17] their eternal destiny would still be in jeopardy so i would present my the direction i

[00:31:22] would go is i present the gospel jesus christ if they said no i i don’t want to become

[00:31:28] a christian because and then they raised the subject of say bioethics or homosexuality or some

[00:31:36] sexual matter you know well i you know i’m living with my girlfriend and i don’t want to follow your

[00:31:41] your god’s morality or whatever okay now i’m going to then go and start talking about this maybe

[00:31:47] secondary matter about sexual ethics or bioethics or whatever but that’s not going to be my initial

[00:31:53] sort of lead into a conversation so this is why although i teach heavily

[00:31:59] about things like islam or homosexuality or abortion or bioethics it’s only to equip the

[00:32:04] christian so that in the event that they get into a conversation where the objection is sexuality or

[00:32:11] bioethics they’ll be equipped to handle that particular objection and then hopefully then redirect the

[00:32:17] conversation back to the most important subject which is the gospel you know

[00:32:23] so um i like to be knowledgeable about this so that i can

[00:32:29] present what i believe is a ethical knowledgeable um response uh so that they won’t see me

[00:32:37] as just some you know ignorant person who’s just sort of less you know has a religious acts to grind but rather look i’m

[00:32:43] informed about this i can give an articulate view and i can ground my morality in something

[00:32:48] you know and so hopefully that will give them a little bit of respect for for myself or for the christian who’s

[00:32:53] articulating it and then hopefully that they can eventually redirect the conversation back to more

[00:32:58] substantial matters you know yeah that’s great that’s great uh if you’re just tuning in my guest

[00:33:04] today is alan schliemann he’s with stand to reason and uh with greg coco and he’s been with

[00:33:09] them for since 2004 str.org it’s a fantastic website with thousands of articles up there

[00:33:15] that you can actually reference that cover all kinds of difficult issues my website is educate4life.org we’ve got

[00:33:21] a full curriculum up there it’s a worldview curriculum that’s meant to help you and your family and your friends

[00:33:26] really develop a firm foundation we’re kind of uh kind of uh hand-in-hand here working together on

[00:33:33] this but um alan so along those same lines um i wanted to throw this question out

[00:33:38] which i touched on earlier which is that you know catholicism teaches that contra contraception excuse

[00:33:45] me contraception is intrinsically evil um man-made contraception

[00:33:51] so my question is is why is it why is the protestant view um the evangelical christian view

[00:33:58] different from the catholic view in that particular issue um how would you respond to somebody

[00:34:04] who’s catholic and says well you know why would you endorse uh contraception i mean how can you say

[00:34:11] that’s biblical how would you respond to somebody in that situation sure well so there’s a lot more differences

[00:34:18] than just the subject of contraception when it comes to protestants and catholics yeah and the reason is and this is

[00:34:24] this is the key to understanding why there’s even a difference is that they don’t hold to this idea that we uh

[00:34:31] that scripture alone is the final authoritative um source for all faith and values they

[00:34:38] say yes there is scripture we do believe in the bible but also they believe in the in uh you know the pope’s teaching

[00:34:45] as well as historical historical church teaching as well of the catholic church so they actually have three sources of

[00:34:51] authority that inform their thinking on theology and ethical matters

[00:34:57] now as it pertains to the subject of contraception because of this there is this

[00:35:02] theological tradition that says that sex and procreation cannot be uh

[00:35:08] separated and so this is why they hold to this idea that once you engage in the act of a sexual act you

[00:35:15] have to be open to um to procreation okay now if the catholics ask me well

[00:35:22] why are you in favor of contraception or why don’t you have a problem with it i’d say because in the forms of contraception that i’m

[00:35:29] okay with i don’t believe contraception kills an innocent human being but i would qualify that by saying some

[00:35:36] forms of so-called contraception do run the risk of actually being an abortifacient or

[00:35:43] having an abortifacient property meaning some forms that we think are

[00:35:48] merely contraceptive that we think merely prevent sperm and egg needing actually end up killing an already

[00:35:55] conceived human being and i know this probably isn’t super popular to say

[00:36:00] but um virtually all hormonal forms of birth control like the pill

[00:36:08] or or you know the patch or you know injections or even iuds

[00:36:14] have three mechanisms by which they prevent um birth

[00:36:21] two of those mechanisms are truly contraceptive but one of the mechanisms actually has an abortification property

[00:36:27] and so i think so i would agree with the catholic in some sense that yes some means of

[00:36:32] birth control are ethically problematic yeah but uh anything that is truly

[00:36:38] contraceptive like say a condom or a barrier method of sorts a sponge i wouldn’t have any ethical

[00:36:45] problems because they truly prevent inception but some forms of birth control

[00:36:51] also end up killing an already conceived human being in which case i would agree with the

[00:36:56] catholic that is problematic okay yeah that makes sense and i wanted to touch on one more issue and that

[00:37:01] issue is the issue of um of euthanasia and you know there’s a big

[00:37:09] movement in our um country today which basically says that

[00:37:14] uh you know a lot of people say look once it gets to a certain point i just want to i i don’t want to be kept alive any longer

[00:37:20] i want to be able to die um where as a christian you know wanting to have a biblical worldview

[00:37:27] where do you fall on that how do you how do you have that discussion because because people bring it up all the time by allowing them to live longer

[00:37:34] you’re actually um you’re hurting them or you’re violating their wishes they want to go

[00:37:39] uh you know what’s the biblical perspective there yeah well the biblical worldview says it’s wrong to kill an innocent human

[00:37:46] being and i would add even when that human being is yourself okay so from a biblical perspective we

[00:37:54] we are not the rightful owners of our own life and that’s why it’s wrong to kill innocent human beings

[00:37:59] even when that human beings are yourself physician is just suicide and euthanasia which are

[00:38:05] i would argue morally very similar the only difference is in one case you’re asking someone uh

[00:38:11] you’re taking your own life in a sense by your own hand versus euthanasia where someone else is taking your life

[00:38:18] but in both cases an innocent human being is being killed therefore i would argue in both cases it’s biblically inconsistent okay

[00:38:26] um now the so there’s a lot of problems with with both of these uh the main problem

[00:38:31] is that it kills an innocent human being and i would add also that when it comes to physician-assisted suicide

[00:38:38] which is what has been made legal in several states around the country and will probably

[00:38:43] you know that’s the direction we’re gonna go in before we eventually hit full blown euthanasia but the problem occurs when you say that

[00:38:51] someone should have a right to die the problem is is that very quickly

[00:38:57] turns into what i call a duty to die okay so for example once you say hey you know what um if

[00:39:04] you’re you know elderly or maybe you have some sort of debilitating condition and you want to have this right to die

[00:39:12] the problem with that is that very quickly our society morphs that and that and it kind of

[00:39:18] leads down the slippery slope to a duty to die so for example you know grandpa gets rather old he’s

[00:39:24] now in his 80s he’s got all kinds of medical conditions he’s not expected to live very much longer maybe a year or so

[00:39:30] maybe five years and what happens is family around him says you know what grandpa look i mean

[00:39:36] you know you know it’s it’s legal to kill yourself right you know we have physicians institute you know it’s legal

[00:39:42] so instead of you being a burden on us instead of you squandering your you know

[00:39:48] this inheritance and all of your estate you know i mean that that option is there for you you know

[00:39:54] grandpa you know so notice there becomes a subtle and maybe they wouldn’t say it

[00:40:00] that way but i’m just saying this is what is implied and for grandpa himself he realized that’s

[00:40:07] the case hey look i know i could kill myself i you know physician since the suicide is

[00:40:13] legal here man maybe i i ought to exit you know exit this life and not be a burden on my

[00:40:19] kids and so that pressure automatically begins to occur both in their mind

[00:40:24] and in the mind of those people who remain potentially to inherit his estate and or

[00:40:30] don’t want to be burdened with caring for him yeah so i think physician-assisted

[00:40:35] suicide is a recipe for elder abuse that’s that’s the bottom line yeah absolutely because of this idea where

[00:40:42] the right to die leads to become leads to a duty to die that’s interesting because that that was the practice in india where when the the

[00:40:50] husband would pass away the widow was expected to actually die with the husband on the you know to be

[00:40:57] cremated and because it was her duty to like you said not be a burden on the

[00:41:03] rest of society and to to go away and uh that’s horrible so uh yeah i can see him kevin i’ll add

[00:41:11] yeah go ahead yeah i’ll add you know yeah sorry i was gonna say i used to be a physical therapist uh for

[00:41:16] about 10 years before i worked for stand your reason and during that time as a physical therapist i worked in many hospitals and

[00:41:22] was involved in people who were reaching the end of life and evaluating their capacity and so you

[00:41:29] know one of the things i noticed is we created what’s called nursing homes now

[00:41:35] by the way just full disclosure i’m not here to to say nursing homes are always wrong okay

[00:41:41] yeah but i just want to give this illustration for many years it was expected that we children would

[00:41:48] care for our elderly parents as they got older okay eventually what happened is we developed

[00:41:55] nursing homes or extended care facilities or whatever and so now there was an option a a possibility an option to

[00:42:03] put your father or mother or whoever in a nursing home so someone else can care for them

[00:42:09] well once you give people the opportunity the possibility for that it very quickly evolves into a duty

[00:42:18] to use that care of that option you know yeah so now it’s no longer understood that

[00:42:23] hey when my parents get older i’m going to care for them and love them and provide a dignified

[00:42:30] opportunity for them to pass away under my loving care in my home or in their home rather now

[00:42:36] it’s like oh well hey you now need care and so you have a duty to utilize this option

[00:42:43] of a nursing home to be there you know so that i can be free with my life to carry on and do whatever i want to do

[00:42:48] yeah again i’m not saying everybody who puts their you know their elderly parent in a

[00:42:54] nursing home is doing something immoral i’m just trying to show the the slippery slope that occurs when

[00:43:00] you provide the person an option it very quickly evolves into a duty to take

[00:43:06] advantage of that option yeah and the same thing i believe is happening with physicians with suicide the option

[00:43:13] the right to die leads to a duty to die that’s a great point um yeah so

[00:43:19] i find all of these issues are interrelated and they all have to do with almost this

[00:43:25] kind of um selfishness in the sense that okay i’m going to make myself the

[00:43:31] priority and i’m going to take this convenient road rather than work through relationships

[00:43:37] and the difficulties and the different uh things in in order to you know do the right thing which is

[00:43:44] really be loving and and uh find a way to get get the solutions without

[00:43:49] uh jeopardizing you know your ethics i guess right so that’s awesome well uh alan uh

[00:43:56] we’re just about out of time here um i just want to say thanks a lot for being on the program today it’s a big blessing to have you

[00:44:03] kevin thanks for having me out it’s great to meet you and finally be able to chat about something and yeah these are tough issues and

[00:44:09] you know as christians i just you know we’re at standard reason just hoping to train christians to be

[00:44:15] faithful ambassadors so having knowledge and the capacity to speak on these issues is what we’re passionate about so

[00:44:21] yeah i love it i’m happy to talk about it you know yeah it’s fantastic well um for those of you listening i

[00:44:26] hope you enjoyed the program today um you can touch base with alan if you want at standreasonstr.org

[00:44:32] and he speaks all over the place so if these are this is a particular issue you want to tackle you know look him up and um yeah if

[00:44:39] you’re in southern california he’s here he’s also you know speaking up in la or wherever all over the place so

[00:44:44] please check them out my website’s educate4life.org and we’ll be back with you again next week we have all kinds of amazing interviews lined up

[00:44:52] and uh interviewed beckett uh beckett uh last week a former homosexual man who was in the

[00:44:59] lifestyle forever and uh was connected with all kinds of celebrities in hollywood

[00:45:04] and just felt an emptiness in his life and ultimately met jesus christ and had a supernatural

[00:45:10] experience you can check that out um also along with many other interviews on our youtube channel

[00:45:15] and you can also check out the curriculum on educateforlife.org i hope you have a fantastic uh friday

[00:45:21] coming up here and a great weekend and look forward to being with you again thanks a lot for being here

[00:45:27] see you later alan bye thank you okay bye-bye

[00:45:50] you