Southern Baptists Pass Resolution on Chemical Abortion and Equal Protection
Christians from across the nation assembled at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting recently in Dallas, Texas, and passed Resolution 6, which partly endorsed equal protection for preborn children while mostly focusing on the problem of chemical abortion.
On one hand, the approval of Resolution 6 was the latest instance of Southern Baptists supporting equal protection of the laws for preborn babies, showing that the largest Protestant association of churches in the United States is increasingly coming to understand the moral urgency of such a position. On the other hand, language surrounding chemical abortion pills unfortunately contradicted the stance for equal protection, producing a resolution that comes across as double-minded.
While the equal protection language at the end of the resolution was a helpful addition, other parts of the resolution missed the mark on why equal protection alone is the biblical solution needed to end abortion.
Southern Baptists Approve of Equal Protection
The last portion of Resolution 6 says that Southern Baptists will “commit to pray and labor for the abolition of all forms of abortion by granting to preborn human beings equal protection under the Constitution, and to seek the establishment of a society that cherishes and defends every human life from conception to natural death.”
This language reflects that the United States Constitution, specifically through the Fourteenth Amendment, requires states to provide equal protection of the laws to all persons within their jurisdictions. With the definition of life revealed by God through both special and natural revelation, human beings clearly start their lives when they are conceived in the wombs of their mothers. That means preborn babies should indeed be treated as persons under the Fourteenth Amendment and receive equal protection of the laws.
The new resolution also alluded to the need for both political and cultural efforts to achieve equal protection, correctly observing that Christians must find themselves actively involved with opposing institutionalized child sacrifice through both domains.
This equal protection portion at the end of this resolution marks the second time in four years that Southern Baptists have endorsed such a position. Another resolution passed in 2021 said that “governing authorities at every level have a duty before God” to establish “equal protection under the law for all, born and preborn.” The document also condemned Pro-Life laws that “have not established equal protection and justice for the preborn, but on the contrary, appallingly have established incremental, regulatory guidelines” on abortion across the country.
Regulations Short of Equal Protection
However, while much of the language in Resolution 6 concerning equal protection was correct and commendable, other language in the resolution surrounding chemical abortion pills failed to understand the current battle against abortion or respond in a biblical manner.
The resolution rightly noted that “approximately two-thirds of all abortions” are conducted through “the drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol,” the two substances commonly used in abortion pills. But the increasing prevalence of abortion pills merely points to the broader issue of self-induced abortions, by which women legally take substances or use other practices to murder their own children in their wombs.
Rather than calling for action specifically against abortion pills, the resolution should have simply called for criminalizing the act of abortion for all parties willingly involved. Whether a preborn baby is murdered through surgical abortion clinics, chemical abortion pills, or some other method, all preborn babies made in the image of God should be protected by our existing laws against murder.
Supporting the regulation of one abortion method not only contradicts the 2021 resolution condemning “regulatory guidelines” on abortion, but fails to advocate for equal protection of the laws for preborn children, no matter what method of murder threatens their lives.
The new resolution meanwhile contains language focusing on the “significant physical, emotional, and spiritual harm to the mother” who takes abortion pills, also asserting that “women are often denied full, truthful, and compassionate information about chemical abortion.”
While there are indeed some women who are true legal victims of abortion, the vast majority of women who have abortions in our nation are willful participants. The overall tenor of the resolution therefore implies by omission that women are victims of abortion, when in most cases they are willfully taking part in the murder of their children. This reality is especially relevant with the increase in self-induced abortion, which even in conservative states is protected by Pro-Life establishment regulations.
Why Equal Protection Is Needed
Resolution 6 failed to sufficiently emphasize the importance of equal protection, missing an opportunity to call on civil authorities to criminalize the act of abortion for all parties involved, no matter how the act of abortion is accomplished.
Yet the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant association of churches in the nation and a bulwark of conservative evangelicalism, once more approved a measure explicitly calling for equal protection makes clear that everyday Christians are coming to understand the importance of such a position.
Christians across the nation, whether or not they happen to be Southern Baptists, must indeed “commit to pray and labor for the abolition of all forms of abortion by granting to preborn human beings equal protection.” Only when murdering anyone is illegal for everyone, no matter which method is used to commit that murder, will child sacrifice truly be abolished in our land.