As they gathered for the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, messengers anticipated release of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that might overturn the 1973 decision legalizing abortion in all 50 states. They prayed about it. They hoped it might even come during the convention.
But what was made clear in the convention is that abortion will not end with the end of Roe v. Wade. And Southern Baptists are not of one mind on how to prevent the death of up to three-quarters of a million unborn babies each year.
“Laws are critical, but it will not change the fact that it’s critical that we inspire a new generation of women so they see abortion as unnecessary,” Brent Leatherwood reported to messengers. The acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) reminded them that overturning Roe would simply move the battle to state legislatures. Leatherwood’s comments met objections from the floor.
Many who found the ERLC’s language about “necessity” objectionable are part of a movement that calls for the Convention to support the total and immediate cessation of abortion, and abandon any support of incrementalism. Both seek an end to abortion, but incrementalism would accept a step-by-step progression, such as the 15-week “heartbeat” bills, and take legal victories wherever possible.
At the 2021 convention in Nashville, messengers passed a resolution in support of abolition. However, in that same meeting messengers rejected an amendment to a different resolution which would have asked lawmakers to punish women who have an abortion. Since then, many have spoken in opposition to the abolitionist resolution, when laws in such pro-abortion states as Illinois leave little room for anything but incrementalism.
Leatherwood is one of them. “You’re not going to get me to say we should put mothers behind bars,” he said of the view that women who have abortions should be treated as murderers.
The use of the term “necessary” angered some messengers who lined up at microphones on the convention floor to question its use by the ERLC: “Making abortion unnecessary.” Leatherwood said he understood they were upset and explained the terminology was chosen because “Planned Parenthood has been using it for 50 years…. Because so many see abortion as necessary,” he said, “we speak their language to them.”
Leatherwood stressed, “We use ‘illegal’ because it should be illegal to take the life of a preborn child. We use the word ‘unnecessary’ because the word speaks to mothers right where they are. We use ‘unthinkable’ because that is what abortion should be.”
Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler lent his support to the abolitionist view at the annual meeting when he said, “A woman who seeks an abortion, looks up how to get an abortion, takes herself to an abortion provider and simply demands an abortion…she should be held as complicit in either the death of her unborn child or the effort to secure such a death.” He then made allowances for the reality of it happening by mentioning pro-abortion states like Illinois, New York, and California by name.
In May, Leatherwood, along with 80 other pro-life leaders, signed onto a National Right to Life letter stating women are victims of abortion and called for them to be treated with compassion. The letter was in opposition to a proposed Louisiana state law that would have made abortion a criminally homicidal prosecutable offence. His action was met with calls by some for him to resign due to the abolitionist resolution passed at last year’s annual meeting. However as justification, Leatherwood cited the failed amendment calling for criminal prosecution.
Ending Roe or ending abortion?
While some abolitionists want to imprison women who seek to or have an abortion, advocates of incrementalism stress love. The ERLC’s Elizabeth Graham called on churches to “love these women, support them, value them, and let them know of God’s love for them.”
“We want the church to be the first place that a woman goes, not a place of condemnation,” urged Graham, vice president of Operations and Life Initiatives. “We must reach these women where they are, which is often complicated, messy, and dire.”
Kevin Smith, vice chair of the ERLC trustees, addressed why he believes it’s vital for churches “to be concerned what an abortion-minded woman and man think in our local community.”
Smith asked messengers to reflect on the contrasts in Luke 15:1-2 between the tax collectors and sinners gathered around Jesus, and the scribes and Pharisees who muttered about the company he kept. When ministering to women seeking an abortion or who’ve had one, Smith said, “Do we come in like Jesus, who said come to me you who are heavy burdened, and I’ll give you rest? Or do we come to them like the Pharisees and scribes murmuring?”
How do Southern Baptists accomplish the end of abortion in the U.S.? “Make abortion illegal, unthinkable, and unnecessary,” Graham said repeating the controversial refrain.
Ultimately for those of both approaches, the final goal is the same. “For nearly 40 years Southern Baptist churches have made supporting life a policy. Overturning Roe should not be the end,” Leatherwood said. “We should not be satisfied with a post-Roe world. We are striving for a post-abortion world.”
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