The Southern Baptist Church has voted at its annual meeting for a call to immediately abolish abortion without exception or compromise.
Members of the Southern Baptist Convention voted at their annual convention for multiple pro-life resolutions condemning abortion and supporting the Hyde Amendment that protects Americans from being forced to fund killing babies in abortion. Baptists ultimate approved a resolution calling for the “immediate abolition of abortion without exception or compromise.”
Here’s more background on the passage of the resolution:
According to SBC practice, messengers are allowed to submit proposed resolutions in advance of the annual meeting. Those resolutions are then reviewed by the Committee on Resolutions, which often combines similar ideas into single resolutions or declines to advance all the suggestions. Within the SBC, resolutions are non-binding but generate lots of news as the sentiment of the gathered body that year.
This year, a small group of pastors organized a campaign for a resolution on “abolishing” abortion in America. Hundreds of members from a small number of churches reportedly bombarded the Resolutions Committee with suggestions for the same language.
Nevertheless, the strongly pro-life Resolutions Committee declined to advance that language for reasons that were not publicly explained.
However, one messenger, William Ascol of Oklahoma, made a motion to require the Resolutions Committee to report out the resolution on abolition of abortion. That motion passed, and the committee was forced to present the resolution as submitted.
The resolution also states: “We affirm that the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law.”
There was some opposition to the resolution from pro-life advocates who worried that it would put the SBC on record opposing pro-life measures that save babies from abortion until abortion can be banned entirely.
“This resolution, while it is aimed in absolutely the right direction, is the wrong resolution,” said Josh Wester, director of research for the ERLC. He noted the SBC is on record as being “resolutely against abortion” as a “heinous evil, a grievous sin.”
He objected to the absolutist language of the resolution that could discourage politicians and policymakers from doing what they can to reduce or eliminate abortions even if they are powerless to outlaw it entirely.
The Baptist vote comes at a time when the nation’s Catholic bishops are considering whether to deny communion to pro-abortion politicians. The latest news from their annual meeting indicates they will vote today on an outline to start the process of drafting language about the importance of communion.
