Southern Baptists rightfully have a reputation as a bulwark of conservative evangelicalism.

With almost 47,000 churches and nearly 13 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant association of churches in America. Those churches and their members are known to have broadly conservative views, both on theological matters and on social issues.

The issue of abortion is no exception. Southern Baptists assemble each year at an annual meeting where they vote on various resolutions, and there have been dozens on abortion, reflecting their desire to recognize pre-born life and protect pre-born children under the law.

When the Southern Baptists assemble in the coming days in Dallas, they will once more consider how they can oppose the murder of pre-born babies in our nation.

But in order to most effectively accomplish that task, they may have to disband the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, their own public policy arm, which has shockingly subverted efforts to end abortion.

Southern Baptists have likely heard that @LeatherwoodERLC signed a letter opposing a bill to abolish abortion in Louisiana.

But they may not know the letter has been used in several other states to kill efforts to end abortion… ???? pic.twitter.com/qbfFZJuLgF

— Foundation to Abolish Abortion (@AbolitionistFAA) May 14, 2025

That subversion became clear shortly before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

In the spring of 2022, a bill in Louisiana to establish equal protection under the law for pre-born children was advancing in the state legislature, promising to fully abolish abortion and extend legal protections offered to born people under existing homicide laws to pre-born people as well.

Southern Baptists in Louisiana happened to be the primary advocates behind that bill. The proposal was simple: Since preborn people are image-bearers of God, they should be protected from murder in the same way as all other image-bearers of God who have already been born.

The legislation passed easily out of committee and was scheduled for a floor vote only a few days after the draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the public. But on the morning of the vote, several dozen national pro-life establishment groups issued a letter insisting that any bill “seeking to criminalize or punish women” for willfully having abortions should not be supported. The letter insisted categorically that “women are victims of abortion.”

Brent Leatherwood, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, had signed the letter, and his name was featured prominently in the document alongside pro-life leaders. The equal protection bill failed, despite having the votes to pass only a few days beforehand.

Just one year earlier, Southern Baptists had approved a resolution noting that “governing authorities at every level have a duty before God” to establish “equal protection under the law for all, born and pre-born,” rendering the signature from Leatherwood even more perplexing.

Southern Baptists who had supported the bill confronted Leatherwood weeks later at the annual meeting, seeking to learn why he weaponized their own denomination to oppose their advocacy.

Brian Gunter, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Livingston, Louisiana, challenged the claim that women should never be penalized for having abortions, saying he thought Southern Baptists believed that “no person should be able to murder an innocent child in the womb.”

Leatherwood defended his signature and denied that the letter was specifically meant to subvert the bill in Louisiana. That letter has nevertheless been used in several other states, including and especially conservative states, over the past three years to oppose equal protection.

The letter signed by @LeatherwoodERLC three years ago against abolishing abortion has been used to kill such efforts in Louisiana, Missouri, Kentucky, and North Dakota. Southern Baptists must hold @LeatherwoodERLC to account for that during their annual meeting next month. pic.twitter.com/VQSgylNDCh

— Ben Zeisloft (@BenZeisloft) May 14, 2025

Kentucky Right to Life invoked the letter in early 2023 when opposing another equal protection bill in their state. Missouri Right to Life and Campaign Life Missouri followed suit a few months later with similar legislation. Several pro-life establishment groups cited the letter in 2024 when opposing an equal protection resolution for the platform of the North Dakota Republican Party.

Southern Baptists want to end abortion across the country. They correctly view pre-born babies as image-bearers of God who should be protected by the same laws that protect born people.

They have made this stance clear, and yet the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the institution Southern Baptists trust to wield their considerable influence in the public square, has not only been derelict in advancing that stance, but has consciously subverted that stance.

This reality should not be tolerated, especially when millions of pre-born lives are at stake.

There are now even more abortions in our country than in the years before Roe v. Wade was overturned, and women in conservative states have increasingly turned to self-induced abortion, which remains legal under loopholes in pro-life laws that equal protection bills would close.

Did you know that abortions are on the rise, even in states which claim to have banned abortion?

Pro-Life laws are directly enabling this… ???? pic.twitter.com/E3jtE7MyYj

— Foundation to Abolish Abortion (@AbolitionistFAA) May 21, 2025

Other efforts from the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, ranging from the defense of mosque construction to the support of gun control legislation, have rightly raised alarm among Southern Baptists for several years. But opposing bills that would end abortion is easily the most harmful public policy action the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has taken.

God hates the murder of little children, and everywhere his people have spread throughout the world, they have labored to end child sacrifice, abortion, infanticide, and similar national evils.

Southern Baptists have followed in the Great Commission task of not only preaching the gospel of salvation to our country and many others, but also loving their neighbors as themselves, whether or not those neighbors happen to have already been born. Southern Baptists across the nation spend considerable time, talent, and treasure saving babies and opposing abortion.

The fact that the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which is supposed to support and amplify the moral witness of the Southern Baptist Convention, has instead subverted that witness on the critical issue of ending abortion in our nation must be addressed in Dallas.

If the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is not willing to reform itself and support the abolition of abortion, then Southern Baptists have not only the right, but also the duty and responsibility, to start the process of abolishing the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.

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