Ray Alexander Williams | The Dr. J Show
In this episode of the Dr. J Show, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse sits down with Ray Alexander Williams, a passionate advocate exposing the harms of the Sexual Revolution and standing boldly for faith and truth in today’s culture.
Ray shares his story, his mission, and his insights on how Christians can respond to the lies of our age with courage, clarity, and love. Together, they unpack the real human cost of radical sexual ideologies and what can be done to push back.
00:00 Welcome to The Dr. J Show
00:12 Introduction of guest: Ray Alexander Williams
01:00 Ray’s personal journey of transformation
05:15 Finding healing and hope
09:40 Role of faith in Ray’s testimony
14:25 Struggles with identity and cultural pressures
19:50 Encounter with truth and change
24:10 How family and community responded
28:30 Current work and mission
33:05 Advice for others struggling
37:40 Discussion: cultural lies vs. lived reality
42:15 The importance of resources and support
46:30 Call to action: Visit ruthinstitute.org
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Transcript
(Please note the transcript is auto-generated and likely contains errors)
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (00:01)
The Roman Catholic Church is one of the last holdouts against the sexual revolution. The Church maintains the traditional Christian prohibitions on contraception, abortion, and sex outside of marriage. The Ruth Institute proudly upholds this body of teachings as being reasonable and humane, especially in comparison with the toxic sexual revolution. Sadly, this teaching, which is the common heritage of the entire Christian tradition, has opponents even within the Catholic Church. But,
A courageous group of scholars is fighting back, updating the arguments and defending these important principles. Hi everyone. I’m Dr. Jennifer Roback-Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love. Today’s interview is part of our ongoing series of conversations with scholars who have contributed to this important volume.
lived experience, and the search for truth, revisiting Catholic sexual morality. My guest today is Elizabeth Kirk, who will help us understand the Church’s teaching on IVF and other forms of assisted reproduction. Elizabeth is an assistant professor of law at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law. She co-directs the Center for Law and the Human Person. Her scholarship focuses on law and the family, including issues such as parental rights,
reproductive technologies, abortion jurisprudence, child welfare, and adoption. I know you’re going to be fascinated by this conversation.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (01:34)
Elizabeth Kirk, welcome to the Dr. J Show.
Elizabeth Kirk (01:37)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (01:40)
Yeah, so tell us before we get started, tell us about your academic field and where you teach and work.
Elizabeth Kirk (01:49)
Sure, so I teach at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. ⁓ I also direct, co-direct the Center for Law and the Human Person at the law school. ⁓ So my areas of research and the areas I tend to teach in relate to the family. So whether that’s marriage or parental rights or reproductive technologies, adoption, child welfare, ⁓ a kind of broad ⁓
array of topics all related to the family.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (02:21)
Yes, and you when I read that in your bio and kind of remembered what all you’re involved in, it brought to my mind some years ago when I first started getting into this issue when I was debating gay marriage all the time, I ended up at a lot of law schools doing debates, you know? And I was shocked, I was shocked by how much family law is dominated by the worst kind of radical feminists. I mean, just really out there. know, not, let’s let women have careers, feminists. I’m talking.
Elizabeth Kirk (02:34)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (02:50)
out there, know, feminists. So I’m really so glad that there are people like you and Teresa Collette and Lynn Wardle and these people, you know, who are in the family law field, who are, you know, bringing forward some sensible views of the human person. So.
Elizabeth Kirk (03:06)
Yeah, I mean, I’ll
mention two of my, you know, the sort of ⁓ people I look up to the most in addition to the ones you’ve just mentioned, Helen Alvarez and Marianne Glendon. it’s a small band, but it’s a mighty one. So yeah, we’re very blessed to have their example.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (03:18)
yeah, yeah, yes.
Yes.
Exactly. I remember one, can’t remember what was, Lynn told me this or Theresa told me this. Lynn teaches at BYU Law School and Theresa was at St. Thomas or something. And they told me, one of them told me that they were at some meeting, some family law gab fest, you know, and they, some crazy, somebody said something crazy and the whole room is like, yeah, yeah. And Lynn and Theresa are looking at each other from way across the room going.
my gosh, what just happened? And I think the typical person, when they think about conservative problems or conservative issues, everybody’s aware of the free market kind of stuff. But people, don’t think, realize just how much has gone on on the family law side of things that has proven to be very destructive and not grounded in reality, one could say.
Elizabeth Kirk (04:06)
Hmm.
It’s true. I tell people when they ask
what I teach, I say I teach all the hot button issues, know, marriage, abortion, ⁓ contraception, parental rights, all these things that are currently in dispute. And as you say, where there’s a tremendous ⁓ lack of connection to the reality of the human person. ⁓ And it’s extremely challenging, right, to think about how we can recover.
that understanding of the human person in law, given where we are, but that’s probably for another day to discuss that.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (04:53)
Yeah, right,
right. But that’s where we are as a culture, as a society, and not just in the US, but really across the world. And that brings us to this volume. You and I are both contributors to this volume. And so before we go into your particular contribution to this volume, I’d like you to just say a little bit to the audience about what this book is about, why is it needed, why does today’s Catholic Church need a book like this?
Elizabeth Kirk (04:58)
That’s right. Yeah.
Bye.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (05:21)
And does your particular, well, we’ve already said your discipline needs to hear these Catholic truths, but why does the church need a volume like this, Elizabeth? What’s your perspective on that?
Elizabeth Kirk (05:33)
Well, I mean, maybe just a word first about what the volume was responding to or what it’s about. ⁓ You the book, you held it up as entitled Lived Experience and the Search for Truth, Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality. the book was really a response. know, Pope Francis would often remind us rightly that we need to go to the margins, right? We need to meet people.
where they are and really listen. And he would use the word accompaniment to listen to people’s experiences, right? Lived experience of their sufferings, of their struggles. And that part of what it meant to evangelize included that. the problem, that’s all beautiful and true, but the problem is so often that call to attend to lived experience or to meet people where they are.
is a sort of excuse for watering down the church’s teaching or excusing people who are disobeying the church’s teaching, et cetera, ⁓ or disconnecting the beauty and the wisdom of the church’s teaching, especially on sexual morality, which is how it relates to what I study and work on. ⁓ Disconnect the beauty and wisdom of those teachings from the real lives of people, right? Like surely nobody can
live up to these teachings. And so I think the goal of this book was to push back at that misinformation or that false dichotomy and to say, let’s attend to people’s experiences. My chapter is about our own family’s struggle with infertility. ⁓
our discernment with respect to IVF and then eventually our path to adoption. But many of the chapters, you know, they’re on different topics, but they’re all getting at the same thing, which is by listening to the sufferings of the faithful, right, we can actually see the beauty and wisdom in the church. And so there is no disconnect between the truth and the lived reality.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (07:46)
Yes, and there was a whole volume that was produced by the Pontifical Academy of Life that we were all responding to that was doing the very sort of thing that you just mentioned. And I think that the thrust of this volume and the contributors to the volume is to say, look, you’ve got your set of victims here and you’re acting like there’s no other side to the story. But the truth is that the people who either disregard the church’s teaching or who were in someone in their life.
Elizabeth Kirk (08:05)
⁓
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (08:13)
disregard of the church’s teaching, there’s a tremendous amount of suffering on the other side. And so if you’re going to talk about lived experience, let’s get all these voices into the mix and give everybody a turn at the microphone, wouldn’t you say?
Elizabeth Kirk (08:26)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, was really meant to be a genuine.
response to the Holy Father’s call, but one that was ⁓ marked especially by fidelity to the Church’s teaching.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (08:40)
Yes, and John Paul used to say that the church always has a yes, so anything that seems like a no is actually a yes to something else. Can you speak to that? You’re nodding, you know exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. What’s the big yes?
Elizabeth Kirk (08:54)
Well, I yeah,
I taught, mean, in this chapter, and I think we’ll get here as we unpack it, but in this chapter, I talk about Humanae Vitae, which of course is, for those who don’t know, ⁓ it’s the ⁓ letter of Pope Paul VI, now Saint Pope Paul VI in 1968, that is sort of famous for being against contraception, right? So it’s a big no. And the reason I was smiling is because when I…
talk about it, especially to young people, one of my goals is to try to get them to see that ⁓ while yes, the Holy Father in that encyclical did affirm the church’s ⁓ rejection of contraception, ⁓ it’s really a beautiful kind of unpacking of what our yes to our spouse and marriage, but just to Christ should look like. And so I like the way that you put that, that so often these teachings that are characterized as
restrictions are actually ways for us to live more fully.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (09:55)
Yes, and well, thank you for saying that, but I didn’t make it up myself. I mean, I got that from John Paul, know, and the big yes, I think we could summarize the big yes by saying what the church is saying yes to is lifelong married love with the attachment of children to their biological parents wherever that’s possible, you know, and that’s the big yes. And if you really break it down,
Elizabeth Kirk (10:02)
Sure, right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (10:22)
and look at all these things that we’re supposed to positively do, forget what we’re not allowed to do, but what are we positively supposed to be doing? Those are the big interests that are being protected. And I know the word interest has a special legal meaning and I’m probably not using it correctly, but the child has a legitimate interest in the stability of their parents’ union. For example, I think we should be allowed to say that, that children benefit from that, they need that. And if you take all the church’s pieces,
Elizabeth Kirk (10:33)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (10:52)
different teachings and put them together, what you get is a system that systematically does its best to protect that interest of the child. And so what’s the lived experience of children who don’t have that? that then opens up a whole branch of conversation.
Elizabeth Kirk (10:58)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I think that’s in part what this whole volume is meant to connect, right? Is the, ⁓ you know, the interests of the child in various ways, in the marriage of their parents and in their upbringing. ⁓
you know, all of these things have consequences in the social sciences, right? The social sciences, you know, sort of reveal to us the ways in which the church is teaching, right, which might seem theoretical and esoteric, like actually is good for the human person, right? So that, again, what this book is meant to connect is what might seem to people to be
⁓ either difficult, right, big no’s or ⁓ irrelevant, right? Like too ⁓ theoretical, you know, doesn’t have anything to do with my life. What this book is meant to do is to reject that dichotomy and to say, the lived experience ⁓ of persons trying to live out these teachings or grappling with the fallout from not living with these teachings, prove, if you will,
the wisdom of the church’s response.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (12:27)
Yes, and I go at this from the social science end of things, which is statistics. And statistics, in a way, is a collection of the experience of lots and lots of people. Right. So you can’t just blow it off and say, well, that’s just one flaky Elizabeth Kirk over there. Who cares what happened to her? You know, but you’ve got the big numbers. It’s like, OK, you can’t dismiss that. But on the other hand, it’s not very human. Most people don’t respond to tables of numbers. My colleague, Father Sullins and I are aware that we are not normal.
Elizabeth Kirk (12:31)
Yeah, right.
Right. Right.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (12:56)
in this respect, you know, that most people want to see a human face on it. And I think your story, I’m going to ask you about your story in a moment, but what we have in this book is a lot more stories and human faces than the hard numbers. We got the numbers, the numbers are in the background, but the face, the face on it. So I want you now, now that people know you a little bit, Elizabeth, ⁓ tell us about your journey of married life, infertility, how you resolved it.
Elizabeth Kirk (13:01)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Thank
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (13:26)
and how the church’s teaching fit into that whole process.
Elizabeth Kirk (13:30)
Wow, well, I’m gonna have to summarize about 30 years of a story here. ⁓ But what I focus on in the chapter ⁓ are a couple of features. One ⁓ is my husband and I, ⁓ I think I refer to this at the beginning of the chapter, my husband and I, when we were dating, had a disagreement about the continued relevance of Humanae Vitae. And ⁓ I tell this story often and it, ⁓
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (13:34)
Yeah, right? Okay.
Elizabeth Kirk (13:59)
What it resulted in was ⁓ my husband going back to his house ⁓ and reading the document, which he had never had done, ⁓ and calling me after he had read it with this sort of ⁓ real astonishment and just saying, I had no idea how prophetic this was, right? And so he was very struck by the prophetic quality of the document. And there’s different things we could talk about.
with respect to what Pope Paul VI was up to in this document. ⁓ So that was the sort of beginning of our
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (14:36)
Roughly
what year was that? What year would that have been?
Elizabeth Kirk (14:39)
So this would have been about 2001.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (14:43)
Okay, so a good 25 years have gone by. A good period of time has gone by since the thing was written and the time your husband read it. so, okay, good, good, go ahead. That’s important.
Elizabeth Kirk (14:48)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Yeah, and I don’t think that’s uncommon.
Most Catholics, and we’re both Catholic, ⁓ cradle Catholics, are not unfamiliar with the fact that the church opposes contraception, but very few have read it. And so I think I was grateful that he was willing to go home and do that and really give it a chance before rejecting it outright. And so that conversation really, in retrospect, formed
a foundation for our marriage that was really important when we eventually ⁓ struggled with infertility and miscarriage. ⁓ Because while that conversation came up in the context of contraception, ironically, we never needed to worry about that because we realized very early in our marriage that we were going to have trouble conceiving. ⁓ And so one of the things I recount in the chapter is our discernment about whether or not to pursue IVF.
⁓ which we did not, instead what we pursued was what is now known as restorative reproductive medicine. ⁓ So we visited Dr. Hilgers, who is the pioneer of this approach to reproductive medicine out in Omaha. ⁓ And ⁓ although we did conceive a baby, we miscarried it. And so we were never able to carry to term.
⁓ a biological child, but through that process, and in fact, while we were out in Omaha, ⁓ we had all of these little experiences of another way that our marriage might be fruitful, and that was adoption. And I don’t say, and in fact, I’m always really clear to say, I don’t think every couple that struggles with infertility is called to adopt. I don’t think that’s a band-aid or an answer or a cure to infertility. I mean, it remains a cross. ⁓
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (16:45)
you
Elizabeth Kirk (16:49)
⁓ but for us, we were given this little glimpse. were staying when we were out in Omaha, we were staying with a couple. I’m sorry. We were visiting a couple for dinner out there. And while we were there, ⁓ they got a call that they had been matched to adopt a baby boy. And, know, just, we had really never experienced, well, there’s ways in which we had experienced adoption.
⁓ in my own family life, et cetera, but we had never been with somebody who learned that news at that beginning part of their journey. And it was just such an incredible, beautiful witness, not just the obvious joyful moment, but just the way in which it was clear that their home, because we were there for dinner, their home was meant to be a place that was welcoming, right? That was a place to receive others. And that’s, of course, what we do.
most profoundly when we’re welcoming biological children, right? And so it was just a very concrete experience for us of what that might look like in adoption. And so it planted the seed for us, which we continued to discern. And then ended up, we now have four children through adoption. So that’s the quick summary of 30 years of, know, yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (18:08)
That’s it.
But that’s a very beautiful
story. mean, you when you get to be our age, you look back on moments and you realize this is what it was about. When you’re going through it, it could be incredibly painful and confusing and everything else. so anybody who’s watching this, anybody who’s Googled Catholic infertility, something, IVF, you know, and you stumble on this chapter, I want you to understand Elizabeth and I both know what you’re going through. It’s not like…
Elizabeth Kirk (18:24)
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (18:38)
those celibate men telling us what we can’t do. No, that’s not what we’re dealing with. And you had the infertility experience. I had an infertility experience. We have an adopted child. We were blessed with a birth child that wasn’t supposed to be possible. And then we did foster care. And that joy that you’re talking about is, ⁓ you know, and not everybody’s called to do foster care for sure. And we were only called to do that for a few years.
Elizabeth Kirk (18:54)
Okay.
That’s it. That’s it.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (19:08)
But it’s still that the receptivity, the welcoming, that’s a beautiful part of this story. I want to go back to one other thing that you mentioned. You mentioned that not every couple that’s going through infertility is really called to adopt. Could you say a little bit more about that in case somebody needs to hear about that? What are your thoughts there?
Elizabeth Kirk (19:08)
Mm-hmm.
So.
Yeah,
I I guess I would say a couple of things. One, just to reemphasize that I don’t think it’s adoption as a kind of substitute or second best parenting, right? I think it’s its own unique call. so, I mean, infertility may be the occasion to discern that call.
⁓ But you’ve already quoted Pope John Paul II, who I think I quote a lot because he’s so one, mean, he’s so ⁓ tuned in, right, to the human heart. And he talks about how there are many ways in which a marriage can bear fruit. adoption is one of those ways, ⁓ the biological ⁓ conception and.
and birth of, you know, the birth of biological children is another, but it may take other forms, right? Like service to your community, ⁓ service within your family. I mean, I wouldn’t want to begin to catalog it because it really is unique, I think, to each individual couple. ⁓ But I think it’s really important. So often people would say to me, well, you can just adopt, right? Like it somehow just would erase
the suffering ⁓ that we ⁓ encountered in our marriage, or the kind of reverse, which also is very painful to hear when we did adopt, you know, like, ⁓ you’ll probably now get pregnant with your own child.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (20:52)
Yes.
Yeah, right, right. Which is, in fact, what happened to us, but I know exactly what you’re feeling about that. It’s like, yeah, but no. Even so, no, that’s not what it’s about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth Kirk (21:08)
I’m like, well, yeah.
Yeah, mean, right. It happens and, and, and yeah, but I mean, certainly
it happens, but I think, you know, one, I mean, it, it’s sort of framing it that way, your own child, like sort of lessons, right? What adoption is. And then I think also it sort of makes that adopted child a kind of means to the, to the real thing. Right. And again, we always see this sort of tendency to, to,
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (21:31)
Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth Kirk (21:43)
instrumentalize the human person, right? To see them not as a gift, but to as a means to something. So, yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (21:50)
Yes, yes.
Yeah, and you know, the last time we talked about this, I know you and I have had this conversation before that as adoptive parents, we have to have in our minds kind of two things, know, that adoption for the child, adoption begins with a loss. And it doesn’t take anything away from us as adoptive parents to say that and to admit that, you know, the best thing for our son would have been.
Elizabeth Kirk (22:08)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (22:17)
If none of this had happened to him and his mom and dad could have taken care of him in Romania and he never had to be in an orphanage and all that, that would have been the best thing for him. But I’m glad he’s with us. We love him. You know, it’s a beautiful thing, but you have to have both of those things in your mind. And I think not everybody is called to that, you know, and I think people’s, it’s a, to get to that point is a process. Do you know what I mean? I mean, it just, it’s like, first, yeah, yes. Say more about that if you would.
Elizabeth Kirk (22:43)
Absolutely. Yeah.
I mean, I think ⁓ so. I think I might even be more particular about the way I would put it.
you said adoption begins with a loss. And I mean, there’s a sense in which that’s true. ⁓ But I think the way I sort of prefer to think about adoption is that it’s the kind of, ⁓ it’s meant to be a kind of healing response to brokenness, right? So the brokenness is not really part of adoption. And I’m not saying that there can’t be, you know, ⁓
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (23:16)
Yes, yes.
⁓
I get what you mean.
Elizabeth Kirk (23:24)
unethical
practices of adoption, surely those exist. And I’m not trying to say that. I’m not trying to be Pollyannaish. But all of us experience brokenness in our lives. so, and in the case of children who need a mother and father, it manifests itself in a particular way, right? And that brokenness is there, whether they languish in foster care, whether they… ⁓
stay with a single mom who does her best or whether they’re placed for adoption. Those broken circumstances are there. But adoption is meant to be a healing response to that brokenness, right? To provide a mother and father for a child who lacks one. And I think anytime we think of adoption as anything other than a healing response to the child, we risk it becoming something that again, objectifies the child.
objectifies the birth parents, right, for our own ends. And it’s really important, I think, not to do that. Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (24:23)
Yes, yes.
Yes.
thinking about it, I think for adoptive parents, sometimes there’s a process of going, wait a second, this actually isn’t about me. I mean, I feel like it’s about me because I want a child so much. want to be a mother so much. So I think it’s about me. But at some point you get over that. I mean, I think it’s important to get over that. Yes, it’s wonderful, but it’s not fundamentally, it’s about this child and what this child needs.
Elizabeth Kirk (24:39)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (24:58)
It’s process for us as parents to get there.
Elizabeth Kirk (24:59)
Yeah, and I think
exactly. And I think it’s okay to admit you desire a child. I mean, that’s part of what being open, right? That receptivity that you talked about, I mean, that’s a good and holy desire. And John Paul, again, always nailing it, ⁓ calls adoption an exchange of gifts, right? So the adoptive parents do give of themselves, right? And part of what they give is this open home and open heart.
⁓ And to deny that would be kind of a cold ⁓ way to describe what adoptive parents are doing. But they have to have the good of the child at the center of the whole process, right? And so, for ⁓ example, if a birth mother in the end decided to parents, right? And not go through with an adoption, that might be a really painful
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (25:35)
Right.
That’s right, that’s right.
Elizabeth Kirk (25:56)
experience for the adoptive parents who are hoping to bring home a baby. ⁓ But their view in the end has to be about what is best for the baby and her parents. And that in fact may not be to come home with the adoptive family. ⁓ So, yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (26:14)
Yes. Yes. And, you know, as foster
parents, we had to deal with that because when we did foster care, our kids were school age. And so we fostered kids who are about the same age as our kids. And we understood that our family was complete. We were doing this because we wanted our kids to have siblings. We knew we had the skill set, you know, because we had already dealt with a lot. And so we thought, well, let’s just do this for a while and see what happens. But we came into contact with other foster parents who were really hoping to adopt.
Elizabeth Kirk (26:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (26:43)
And so they were invested in it in a different way than we were. It was so much easier for us to release the outcome. Like you just said, you know, that this is for the good of the child, that they go back with their dad or they go back with their both parents or they get adopted. We had all of those things happen, you know,
among the kids. But it’s like, mostly it’s a great thing. know, sometimes we’re like, no. But, but in general, but it again, it was not about us. It was not about us and our family.
Elizabeth Kirk (27:07)
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (27:13)
It’s about what’s gonna, and I feel like the couples who went into it with the idea of this is our path to adoption, they were vulnerable in a way that my husband and I were not. And I say nothing against these couples, you know, because they were, these were good people, you know, and I loved them, you know, but they had a level of vulnerability that we didn’t have because we were ready to let go of the outcome.
Elizabeth Kirk (27:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think you’re right to bring up foster care because that is, I think, ⁓ the most obvious context in which ⁓ the good of the child and your own desires might come into conflict, right? Because the goal of the foster care system is to reunify a child with his or her natural parents.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (27:42)
it
Elizabeth Kirk (28:03)
you know, being able to both welcome a child into your home and love them fully while all the while being ready to let go of them is really difficult emotionally, psychologically, and I think spiritually.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (28:17)
And not everybody’s called to that. For sure, not everybody’s called for that.
Elizabeth Kirk (28:19)
I think that’s right, yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (28:52)
So in your chapter, you talk about why not IVF? We’ve now been talking about the positive side of adoption. Your mother-in-law was telling you, well, why not just go to use IVF? Well, why not? Why didn’t you do that?
Elizabeth Kirk (28:55)
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that conversation is just really burned in my memory. We were cleaning up after dinner and doing dishes and, ⁓ you know, talk. She was being respectful of our private journey, but also sort of talking about things. ⁓ And, you know, she’s of a different generation. So she didn’t know a lot about IVF. She was just sort of like, what about this thing I’ve heard of? And,
So I explained to her, first of all, all of the ways in which IVF involves death, be quite honest, right? So ⁓ she didn’t really know about what IVF involved, right? The procedure of it, the risk to the woman who has to be hyperstimulated for her ovaries to produce many eggs.
the way in which the sperm is obtained, typically through masturbation. And then, you know, the joining of the gametes in a lab somewhere by a technician. So she didn’t really know all of that, but she also didn’t realize the extent to which the process involved, ⁓ you know, what the church calls a kind of violence and destruction. ⁓ And so, for example, you know, if…
when these embryos are created, not all of them survive, right? Just naturally, there’s a lot of loss of life in that way. ⁓ When many times they are subjected to eugenics practices, in other words, ⁓ the clinic will examine the embryos to see which ones are the optimal ones to implant, which ones will take, right?
And so they’ll only choose those and destroy the others. ⁓ Once they’re implanted, if too many are implanted that would be safe, multiple pregnancies carry their own risks. Oftentimes it will be recommended that you selectively reduce, which is a euphemism for aborting one or more of the fetuses. too many embryos are created, the excess will be stored and cryopreservation, freezing them has its own risks, et cetera.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (30:54)
Right.
Elizabeth Kirk (31:22)
So, I I saw recently some studies that say that of embryos that are created, well, two, the, let’s see, yeah, two to 7 % of them result in a live birth. So, of embryos created, two to 7 % of them result in a live birth. So, if you put otherwise, the death rate, right, is 93 to 98%.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (31:40)
Wow. Wow.
Elizabeth Kirk (31:54)
I just find that astounding. no matter how badly I desire a child, in what universe would I be willing to accept any death rate, but 93 to 98 % death rate, right, of the embryos that I’m creating of my own children? Right. And so, and this is an area…
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (32:09)
of your own children, of your own children. Yeah. See, and that’s, that’s
the thing. If you could just stop right there on that point, because this point is so, is so potent. And we have interviewed other guests about this. There’s actually a, a ⁓ ministry now to help people who have, who have done IVF and who have come to regret it, who have come to understand all the things that you’re talking about. So people will find that in the show notes if that’s, if that’s a concern for you, but, let’s just stop here.
Elizabeth Kirk (32:17)
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (32:38)
Because when the child is born, you’ve humanized that child. This is my child. The child has a name. The child has my father’s nose or whatever it is. But all those other babies also were just as much your child and might have had your mom’s ears or your dad’s freckles or whatever it is. There’s a process of dehumanizing before you get to the
Elizabeth Kirk (33:00)
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (33:08)
where you have the live baby and what are we doing to ourselves? Elizabeth, what do you think, what are we doing? I know this is off the track a little bit, but what are we doing to ourselves when we accept a 97 % failure rate?
Elizabeth Kirk (33:15)
you
You know, I mean, a terrible thing, you know, I mean, a terrible thing. think the the cognitive dissonance that has to exist in order to hold these things, know, IVF, especially it’s in the news now and political, you know, scene is hailed as a a pro-life, ⁓ you know, medical sort of gift.
and without any recognition that it involves this kind of destruction and death. And I think it’s so interesting because in the IVF context, it’s really almost impossible, I think, to kind of give into this silliness that embryos are not humans, right? That they’re not your children. Because that’s what the whole thing is about, is creating these children. And so…
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (34:18)
Yeah, right.
Elizabeth Kirk (34:20)
And you’re so, if you follow any of these women on social media who are documenting their IVF journey, right? From how many eggs were harvested to how many embryos were created to how many passed the eugenics screening part. ⁓ It’s clear at every step of the way they’re rooting for these embryos, right? And they’re viewing them as their potential children. And so to be able to both view them as their children
and then also be, ⁓ you know, so ⁓ really kind of cavalier about their destruction. It’s hard to understand, quite frankly. I mean, I think it’s just some kind of complete cognitive dissonance that allows people to go down this path. ⁓ Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (35:09)
And do you know, I think
the controversy over the Alabama Supreme Court case involving the frozen embryos, ⁓ that really highlighted it. When that first happened, we interviewed one of the fellows from the Catholic Bioethics Center, the National Catholic Bioethics And he helped me to understand, to see this point that you just made. It’s like, and I’m gonna put it like an economist would put it, okay? The reason this industry exists,
Elizabeth Kirk (35:15)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (35:39)
The IVF industry is selling a product and the product is a live baby made with your genetic material. That’s the product. But, and so it wouldn’t exist if you didn’t value that, if you didn’t believe that, so on and so forth. But in order to keep costs down, we treat the excess ones like medical waste. And we’re all supposed to be good with that. And that right there is the cognitive, and so the way people reacted to that.
Elizabeth Kirk (35:59)
Right. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (36:08)
court decision. It’s like John DiCamillo said to me, well, what do they want? Did they want the parents to not receive any compensation for the fact that their babies were killed by this knucklehead dropping them? That would be the consequence of not holding the lab responsible for what happened.
Elizabeth Kirk (36:32)
And that’s largely how the legislature quickly responded was by making clear that clinics are nearly entirely absolved of any liability for their care and custody of these embryos. as you say, mean, the plaintiffs in that case were using IVF. Like these are people who support the technology. They just wanted the dignity and humanity of their children to be ⁓ recognized by law. ⁓ But back to the story with my mother-in-law, so that I think, yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (36:59)
Yeah, sorry.
Elizabeth Kirk (37:00)
Well, no, I mean, this is actually a good segue because
⁓ she didn’t know about all of that death, right? And so she was, of course, immediately like, I think, and as many people are, once they’re educated, right? Once they’re informed, they have a greater understanding. And she was like, well, I see how that’s, you know, very problematic and how you can’t do that. But couldn’t you just take one egg and one sperm and make, you know, and make one baby? So to your latter point about, you know,
⁓ of what the clinics are doing by kind of preying on this natural desire of couples to have their own biological children. First of all, most clinics don’t wanna just take one egg and one sperm and make one baby because that would just be so inefficient. You as the economist can tell us why. But she was just expressing it as a kind of moral thing, right? Like, well, couldn’t you just do this? If it were feasible, couldn’t you just do this?
And of course, science may get to the point where we could just do that quite easily and efficiently. And so then we have to grapple with that question, right? Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (38:07)
And so a lot of our
evangelical brothers and sisters take that position. They get the death and destruction, but they think, well, if we just do one at a time and there aren’t all those deaths, then it’s okay, right? So what’s wrong even there? Help us understand.
Elizabeth Kirk (38:12)
Yeah. Right.
Yeah. So, I think this,
yeah, I mean, this is, think, where the beauty of Humanae Vitae comes back in, right, which we had encountered as a couple when we were dating about contraception, but it’s not just about contraception, right? It’s about, it’s about who the human person is and what we are made for. And again, I mean, we could sort of do a whole, and I’m not a theologian, so I want to, you know, be clear that there’s
better and more beautiful articulations of this, beautiful message of Humanae Vitae is that the human person is made for love, from love, and for love. And that the conjugal act, right, sex within marriage is a kind of ultimate sacred expression of that reality that we’re made for love and from love.
And so, ⁓ children, right, are the fruit of that, right? They’re supposed to be the two made one, quite literally, right? They are the gift that comes from the overflowing of this love. And so what we discerned in learning more about IVF was that this process, this medical process was not the same thing as us giving
ourselves to one another in the conjugal act and a child being born of that. And it’s not to say that medicine is the problem, right? Because of course the church supports and ⁓ encourages technologies and medical ⁓ interventions that are meant to heal or to support the conjugal act, right? And we pursued all of those things. But this doesn’t do this. This replaces it entirely. This replaces it.
⁓ in a lab, you know, with really no connection ⁓ to ⁓ our marriage. And so that process, as you said already, ⁓ what it ends up doing is it treats the child like a product to be produced, right? We want this thing, here we go to this place, we get it. Also, it reduces our marriage, it objectifies each other. So in Humana Vitae, the Pope warned about contraception would have the result of
spouses objectifying each other for their pleasure, right? When you take the possibility of children out of the equation, you’re really just looking to your spouse for pleasure and that that can have harmful effects on the marriage. Similarly, IVF, I think risks objectifying your spouse as just a means to a baby, right? You just view them as a kind of gamete provider. ⁓ And so anyway, I think there are
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (41:04)
Mm-hmm.
Right, right.
Elizabeth Kirk (41:11)
this could be impact more, but I think that’s the essence of it, right? Is that in the end, IVF, we felt like had all of this death and destruction and it didn’t represent the way in which we wanted, we thought a child ought to be viewed, which is a gift that’s received, not a product to be purchased. ⁓ And our marriage ⁓ was meant to be a kind of reciprocal gift ⁓ that was ⁓
open to one another with all of our flaws, right, which might include infertility. So, yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (41:45)
Right, right,
Do you know, Elizabeth, it didn’t occur to me when I planned this interview, but what you just said made me realize that part of our infertility journey as a couple and what we saw among other couples was the way it affected the husband and the wife very differently.
Elizabeth Kirk (42:02)
and
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (42:03)
Oftentimes, being an infertile couple means something different to a man than it means to a woman and vice versa. And whoever’s fault it is weighs on that person in a different way and stuff like that. And so what you just said about the spouse as being gifts for each other and IVF kind of hiding that somehow, know, that IVF is, it’s too easy to look at the other person as the gamete provider, as you said.
Elizabeth Kirk (42:13)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (42:31)
And to
forget that, wait, that’s not really what we’re about here. What we’re about here is creating a child in love. And yeah, my husband did the sperm and I did the egg, but he’s really contributing his whole self. I’m really contributing my whole self and replacing that. Let me put it to you this way. I can’t imagine what our married life would be like.
after IVF, if we had done IVF, what would our married life have been like after that? I can’t even picture that. Can you speak to that? you given that any thought or seen cases? Because I have seen cases where married women used a third party, an anonymous sperm donor. it does not, trust me, it doesn’t do anything good for the marriage. I mean, I think if you think about it a while, you can picture all the different weird places that that could go.
Elizabeth Kirk (43:17)
Yeah. ⁓
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (43:28)
But I’m interested in your thoughts about this, Elizabeth. Is this something you’ve seen or thought about?
Elizabeth Kirk (43:32)
Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting question. And I
would be interested. And I don’t know the data ⁓ on, for example, the divorce rates ⁓ after these interventions and that sort of thing. I don’t know. I mean, I’m very familiar with there’s a number of cases, some of which we cover in family law, which I teach, ⁓ having to do with disputes ⁓ between ⁓
know, couples sometimes in the context of divorce, but if they’re not married, just outside of that context between people who’ve created embryos, right? And then no longer want to use them together and disputes about who gets them, right? So in divorce, we’re like, you who gets the couch, who gets the house, who gets the 401k, who gets the embryos is also, ⁓ you know, and I have wondered sometimes about this dynamic that you’re putting your finger on. ⁓ I guess I would also
maybe just want to reflect on it in a positive way, which is to say the great mercy that I, and this is again, back to the point of this chapter in this book, ⁓ that being faithful to the church’s teaching has poured out in our marriage. You know, I think, which is not due to any kind of merit of our own really, but I think it’s just been a great gift to us. mean, ⁓
to really have to dig deep and to accept each other, right, in our brokenness. And I think that’s something that every marriage has to do. Like if you don’t struggle with infertility, chances are your spouse is not perfect in some other way. know, I speaking for myself, right? Right. ⁓
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (45:15)
Right, right. You struggle with parenting. Yeah, well, you struggle with
parenting and differences of opinion about how to manage the kids or this or that or the third thing. Yeah, of course, of course. Right, right.
Elizabeth Kirk (45:26)
Right. And your children,
no matter how greatly desired and all of that, or how they come to you, are also not likely to be perfect. And so I think this is one of the things I always try to emphasize when I talk about infertility and the cross of infertility. ⁓ And I think there are unique aspects to it. And they do fall upon the man and woman quite differently oftentimes. But in the end, it’s the same old, I mean, everyone has some kind of suffering or cross, you know?
that reality is true for every person. And so the acceptance of that and the trying to live faithfully, I think, ⁓ and being open to the way in which you’re suffering bears fruit, I think is what is ⁓
true for all every human person. Right. So I just happen to this is the way in which it’s played out in my life. Right. But every listener that you have has some kind of suffering that they’re struggling with. And the reality and the beauty of the Christian faith is that that suffering can bear fruit.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (46:34)
It’s amazing to me how often this point comes up in my interviews with people. Whatever the lived experience is, whether it’s an unwanted divorce or whatever it is, that Christianity gives meaning to your suffering. It helps you to find meaning in it. that’s its ultimate, in a way, it’s its ultimate strength, you could say. ⁓ But yeah, because it’s everywhere. And a lot of what we’re doing with the sexual revolution is trying to avoid a certain kind of suffering.
Elizabeth Kirk (46:37)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (47:03)
And then we end up plunging into something much deeper often. And this is the path. might as well go on this path of finding the meaning in it from the very beginning. If you embrace that sooner, it’ll probably be smoother. I don’t know. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I don’t think so. I think…
Elizabeth Kirk (47:07)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (47:27)
I think our overall project here of trying to illustrate the beauty of the Church’s teaching, this is not an incidental
Elizabeth Kirk (47:32)
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (47:33)
part of the Church’s teaching. Let’s put it that way. ⁓ There’s no big prohibition that says you shall not avoid suffering or something like that. That would be silly. But the fact that the concept of redemptive suffering is behind every one of these issues and helps us to deal with it.
Elizabeth Kirk (47:53)
That’s right. And
that’s right. And I would want to avoid a kind of prosperity gospel, right, that says if you check all these boxes of the church’s teaching, if you’re faithful, then you’ll get this blessing or you’ll you’ll have, you when I say fruitfulness, like you’ll get this fruit. ⁓ But I think the way you put it is right. I mean, it’s because it may not turn out that you
your prayers answered in the way that you hope or want or desire. ⁓ But the meaning and the redemption that’s possible ⁓ through suffering may be quite different than you imagined, ⁓ but perhaps ⁓ more rich and real.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (48:38)
Well, God knows more than we do. I’ll just put that out there in case anybody was wondering. So, you I’m going to go with his plan if I can figure out what it is. ⁓ So when we wrote this book, when we came up with this book, this was happening when under the pontificate of Pope Francis, and we were responding to something that the Pontifical Academy for Life had done, and these were all people that he had appointed.
Elizabeth Kirk (48:43)
Right.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (49:04)
So it had become a very different organization than it was under Pope Benedict or Pope John Paul. But now we have a new pope since we since this book was conceived of and produced, we now have a new pope. And so I wonder, Elizabeth, it hasn’t been very long, but it’s been about we’re recording this about a week into his pontificate or something. But but we’re looking at something different now. Do you have any thoughts about why people should still get this book or?
Elizabeth Kirk (49:19)
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (49:31)
or where these issues are likely to go or just what the, yeah, what do you think? ⁓
Elizabeth Kirk (49:37)
Yeah, well,
I mean, first, let me just say how utterly surprised and delighted I am that we have a pope from Chicago, right? I mean, it’s just such an unexpected gift. I’m actually, I was born in Chicago. My mother’s family is from Chicago. So we sort of feel like one of our
long lost cousins or something is now the Pope. And so, and there’s always this real beautiful period of like a honeymoon, right? When we have a new Pope where we, know, everyone’s sort of putting all of their hopes and expectations into this new person. And so who knows what, you know, what his pontificate, what the fruits of this, you know, pontificate will look like. But I think one way in which this book, you know, it’s certainly relevant, Pope Leo,
the 14th has certainly said that he intends to carry forward ⁓ some of the legacy of Pope Francis. And I connect that especially to his ministry ⁓ as a missionary in Peru for all of those years and the reality, I mean, he really went to the margins, right? I mean, he went to the margins to serve the most poor and the most vulnerable. And so I think that part of Pope Francis’s heart for the
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (50:46)
Right.
Elizabeth Kirk (50:54)
for the vulnerable ⁓ will remain. But I think what we also see around the world ⁓ is this kind of desire for renewed attention ⁓ to kind of clear teaching, right? And so again, that’s what this book is meant to do. It’s not meant to be a critique of one pope or another pope. It’s meant to be a response to this call for accompaniment, but to do it in a way that’s faithful.
to the church and to her teachings. And I think that’s the great hope that many have for Pope Leo ⁓ is that he will embody ⁓ sort of the best, right, of the popes of my lifetime, John Paul and Benedict and Francis.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (51:35)
Well, and also the fact that he’s a canon lawyer means that he has the skill set and the mindset to create clarity. So I’m hopeful in that regard. Some of the things that are, there are loose ends out there. Let’s put it that way, you know, that there were confusion being created and what maybe look like loopholes or something like that. I think we’ll get clarity about a lot of those points. And I think people like you and I are gonna be pretty much.
pretty happy with the way in which he clarifies it. think that early signs are that I saw his address to the diplomatic corps, which he gave just, I saw it just this morning, and he reaffirmed church teaching on a number of the kind of issues that are dealt with in this book, and ⁓ in a way that I think is hopeful. I’m hopeful about it. In your opinion,
Elizabeth Kirk (52:13)
Okay.
Yeah, us lawyers tend to, to like to think in an orderly fashion. So I also expect that he’ll be clear.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (52:31)
Yeah. Now, your degree is not in canon law though, right? Are you a canon lawyer? Okay.
Elizabeth Kirk (52:38)
No, no, but I’m I’m lumping lawyers all together. right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (52:42)
Right. No, that’s their job. That’s their job is to provide clarification
of what the law is and is not and so on and so forth. Yeah. But in your opinion though, all things considered, who do you think should read this book? Who needs this book on their shelf?
Elizabeth Kirk (52:48)
Right, that’s right.
Honestly, I think all of us could use this book. I mean, I think if you’re someone who, like me, struggled with some of the Church’s teaching and what it looked like in your life, I think you’re going to find ⁓ friends in this book, right? You know, people that are witnesses of what it looks like to be faithful to the Church’s teaching. I think if you’re someone who is accompanying someone who’s struggling, this can be a really helpful book.
⁓ And I think if you just want to learn more, know, if you’re like my husband was back when we were dating and you’re like, well, don’t, might have ETA, like nobody really buys that anymore. Do they like, you know, I think this would be an accessible way, right? To learn more about the church’s teaching through stories. Like you said, you know, narrative, not kind of wonky data, but, but ⁓ real personal stories. So I think, I really think anybody could benefit from this book.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (53:55)
And, you know, I have sent it to a couple of priests and a couple of deacons, you know, and I know some deacons who have responsibility for religious formation and stuff like that. And each one of them has written back and told me about different parts that were important to them. You know, like, I don’t know anything about this, but that part was really good. you know, and most of it, think, is pretty accessible to.
Elizabeth Kirk (53:58)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (54:17)
to the average person who’d be in that situation. So, you your favorite catechist, your favorite deacon, anybody who has responsibility for Christian formation, this would be a very helpful book. Elizabeth, before we part company, tell us, is there a place where people can find your writings and your work in a more general way? there anything, any way that people can connect with more of what Elizabeth Kirk has to say?
Elizabeth Kirk (54:41)
Yeah, well, the website of the center that I co-direct is humanperson.law.edu. And that’s a place where not only scholarly works that I’ve written would be posted, but also just events. ⁓ There are many videos on there of speakers that we’ve hosted. So that’s a resource. ⁓ I’ve also written a number of more
popular essays, ⁓ shorter essays on different aspects of infertility and adoption ⁓ that perhaps we can post in the show notes or something like that that would be helpful to collect in one place.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (55:19)
Well, would be great. Tell us briefly about the Center for the Human Person that you co-direct. What’s its mission?
Elizabeth Kirk (55:25)
Yeah, the mission of the Center for Law and the Human Person is really to connect all of these truths that we’ve been talking about about the human person, ⁓ Their dignity, ⁓ the care for the poor and the vulnerable, and also more societal expressions of that, right? So concern for justice, concern for the common good.
It’s meant to connect all of those fundamental principles to the study and the teaching and the practice of law. So it’s unique among law schools ⁓ for being a place where ⁓ scholarly events are held. ⁓ We do a lot of student formation. ⁓ So we’re really trying to be a place where people can come for resources that they want to think more deeply about law and the human person.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (56:15)
So it’s not like an advocacy group or something like that. You’re not presenting bills in Congress or testifying, that kind of stuff.
Elizabeth Kirk (56:21)
No, no, it’s not a think tank. I I personally, as a scholar, sometimes testify and that sort of thing. But the center is an academic center that’s dedicated to thinking about and also teaching, right? In a school, we’re about the business of forming students. so thinking about and teaching about the connection between law and the human person.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (56:45)
Well, I think a lot of our Ruth Institute followers will be very interested in that because that’s the kind of thing we do. We’re trying to help people connect more deeply and think more deeply about a lot of these issues. So this has been a very fruitful conversation, Elizabeth. I really appreciate you taking the time to join me and be with me. And your closing comment brought to mind, I don’t know who said this, but somebody said, ⁓ the first millennium of the church, the question was, who is Jesus?
Elizabeth Kirk (57:01)
Thank you.
Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse (57:16)
The second millennium of the church is the question was, what is the church? I think the question for the third millennium will be, what is, who is the human person? All of these issues come down to that. What does it mean to be human? And so I’m so grateful for your contributions to this show and to this book and all the things that you’re doing there at the Catholic University School of Law. So thanks so much for being my guest on today’s episode of the Dr. J Show.
Elizabeth Kirk (57:30)
Thank you so much for having me.
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