With an abortion case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Southern Baptist Convention of June 2022 encouraged its members to wish for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal within the U.S.
The resolution, “On Anticipation of a Historic Moment within the Pro-Life Movement,” was not without controversy, nonetheless. A faction of Southern Baptists who consider themselves “abortion abolitionists” argued the Convention also needs to call for the criminalizing of people that have abortions as murderers. Instead, the resolution calls on Southern Baptists to face with and pray for “abortion-vulnerable women.”
The Southern Baptist Convention, the most important Protestant denomination within the U.S., and also known as the “bellwether for conservative Christianity,” has long voiced opposition to abortion. A Pew survey in 2014 found that two-thirds of Southern Baptists believed abortion ought to be illegal in most or all cases. In 2021, the Convention passed a resolution stating “unequivocally that abortion is murder” and calling for “abolishing abortion immediately, without exception or compromise.”
But Southern Baptists haven’t all the time been against abortion.
The Convention expressed support for abortion in certain cases throughout the Nineteen Seventies, until a more conservative wing seized control within the Eighties. I used to be a Southern Baptist on the time, and I now study the denomination. I understand the Convention’s stance against abortion as a mirrored image of leaders’ conservative beliefs about women, gender and sexuality.
Support for abortion
Early on, many evangelicals, including Southern Baptists, saw opposition to legal abortion as a “Catholic issue.”
A 1970 poll by the Baptist Sunday School board found that a majority of Southern Baptist pastors supported abortion in various instances, including when the girl’s mental or physical health was in danger or within the case of rape or fetal deformity.
The SBC passed its first resolution on abortion two years before the Roe decision. While the Convention never supported the fitting of a girl to have an abortion at her request for any reason, the resolution did acknowledge the necessity for laws that may allow for some exceptions.
In fact, many Southern Baptists saw the Roe decision as drawing a needed line between church and state on matters of morality and state regulation. A Baptist Press article just days after the choice called it an advancement of spiritual liberty, human equality and justice.
The Convention affirmed this resolution in 1974 after Roe was decided. A 1976 resolution condemned abortion as “a way of contraception” but still insisted the choice ultimately remained between a girl and her doctor.
A 1977 resolution clarified the Convention’s position, reaffirming its “strong opposition to abortion on demand.” However, it also reaffirmed the Convention’s views in regards to the limited role of presidency and the fitting of pregnant women to medical services and counseling. This resolution was affirmed again in 1979.
Fetus as an individual
Later that 12 months, nonetheless, as an ultra-conservative faction throughout the denomination acquired power from more moderate leaders, things began to alter.
Starting in 1980, Convention resolutions took a tough turn against abortion access. A “Resolution on Abortion” declared “that abortion ends the lifetime of a developing human being” and called for legal measures “prohibiting abortion except to save lots of the lifetime of the mother.”
Another interesting shift happened in that resolution. Instead of referring to “fetal life,” as did earlier resolutions, the 1980 resolution called fetuses “unborn” or “pre-born” human life or “individuals.” This shift in language made a big change to the status of the fetus. It was not a developing organism depending on a girl’s body, but somewhat it was a full human being with the identical status and human rights as the ladies. A 1984 resolution named a fetus “a living individual human being.”
Since then, the Convention has passed 16 more resolutions against abortion, including opposition to abortion pills, “partial-birth abortion” – an anti-choice political phrase somewhat than a medical term for a later term abortion that involves extraction of the fetus through the birth canal – the inclusion of abortion in federally funded health care and the usage of aborted fetal tissue in research.
Controlling women’s bodies
The resolutions by the SBC concentrate on the fetus, but in addition they illustrate the Convention’s beliefs about gender, particularly how women and their bodies ought to be subordinate to men.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
Starting in 1980, resolutions dropped exceptions for rape, incest or mental trauma for abortion. The only acceptable instance for abortion for Southern Baptists became “the upcoming death of the mother.” A 2005 position statement made this clear: “At the moment of conception, a latest being enters the universe, a human being, created in God’s image. This human being deserves our protection, regardless of the circumstances of conception.”
A 1986 resolution linked abortion with sinful sexuality. Calling for fogeys to coach their children a couple of “Christian understanding” of sexuality as a technique to avoid unplanned pregnancies, the resolution also opposed abortion as “unscriptural” and harmful to the mother. A 1987 resolution called for teaching abstinence in schools because the “best and only sure way crisis pregnancies” could be prevented.
In 2003, a resolution on abortion co-opted the language of the ladies’s movement to call the Roe v. Wade decision “an act of injustice against innocent unborn children in addition to against vulnerable women in crisis pregnancy situations.” The resolution went on responsible the “sexual revolution” and a “lucrative abortion industry” for victimizing women. Instead, it promoted anti-choice laws as a way “to guard women and kids from abortion,” and it offered prayers, love and advocacy for “ladies and men who’ve been abused by abortion.”
Resolutions also called for ladies to be given details about fetal development, and the Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission created “The Psalm 139 Project” to supply ultrasound machines to crisis pregnancy centers so that they could show women images of their fetuses to discourage them from abortion.
Crisis pregnancy centers are primarily evangelical organizations that supply counseling and assistance to persuade pregnant people to not have abortions. They often provide misleading and false information, and sometimes receive large sums of public money with little public oversight.
The 2003 resolution also called on the federal government to “take motion to guard the lives of ladies and kids.”
Fifty years ago, the Convention’s views of abortion were guided by concerns about government intrusion into a non-public matter between a girl and her health care provider. Today, the Convention has fully embraced governmental control of a girl’s decisions about reproduction.
