A resolution submitted to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) gives the nation’s largest Protestant denomination an opportunity “to speak with moral clarity” against the fastest growing method of abortion, said David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview and the resolution’s primary author. “Currently, more than 60% of abortions in the United States are carried out using chemical abortion pills. These drugs are fatal to unborn children and pose serious health risks to women,” he told The Washington Stand.

For two days (June 10-11), messengers from Southern Baptist churches will convene in Dallas, Texas, for their annual convention. Closson submitted the resolution to the SBC Committee on Resolutions before the May 22 deadline. The committee may “combine, title or retitle, and reword submitted resolutions” before presenting them to the full convention for discussion and approval.

This year, the Committee on Resolutions is chaired by Dr. Andrew Walker, professor of Christian ethics and public theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who has publicly commented on the dangers of the abortion pill. But the committee is comprised of 10 members from seven states, and it remains to be seen which resolutions these 10 people will agree to prioritize.

“Southern Baptists have consistently affirmed the value and dignity of every human life, and recent resolutions reflect our strong pro-life convictions,” Closson explained. The Southern Baptist Convention has approved at least 25 pro-life resolutions condemning abortion and supporting mothers and their children, dating back to 1980.

“To date, however, the Southern Baptist Convention has not adopted a resolution focused solely on the issue of chemical abortion,” Closson added.

The proposed resolution, “On the Medical Dangers and Moral Evil of Chemical Abortion,” attempts to fill that gap. The draft urges “the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to immediately reevaluate and suspend its approval of the two-pill chemical abortion regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol.” In the interim, it encourages the FDA “to immediately reinstate the full Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) that was originally established in 2011 for the regulation of mifepristone.”

The proposed language further implores “elected officials at every level of government to enact policies that prohibit the sale or distribution of chemical abortion drugs, including the mailing of such drugs across state lines in violation of duly enacted pro-life laws.” On January 31, a Louisiana grand jury indicted a New York-based physician who mailed abortion pills across state lines, sending a teenage mother — who was coerced into taking the pills — to the hospital with severe complications. New York authorities subsequently refused to extradite the accused.

In addition to these government actions, the proposed resolution also contemplated action by Christians. It condemned “the use, promotion, and expansion of chemical abortion as a grave moral evil that ends the lives of innocent preborn children and exploits women.” On this basis, it lamented and grieved the ongoing travesty of abortion, encouraged pastors and churches “to equip their congregations to care for women facing unexpected pregnancies with compassion, practical support, and the life-giving hope of the gospel,” and committed “to pray for the end of all forms of abortion.”

It laid out the ethical basis for these calls to action, beginning with Scripture’s teaching that “all human life is sacred, created in the image of God from the moment of fertilization (Genesis 1:27; Psalm 139:13–16).”

The proposal also noted with alarm the growing prevalence of chemical abortion, which “now accounts for the majority of abortions in the United States, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of preborn children each year,” and “severe adverse events” for more than 10% of women who ingest the drugs according to recent studies. Easy access to chemical abortion drugs supports their use “without direct medical supervision” and allows “malefactors” to exploit women, it continued.

“Scripture commands God’s people to ‘rescue those being taken away to death’ and to ‘hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter’ (Proverbs 24:11),” the proposed resolution declared.

Resolutions approved by the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention are not binding on Southern Baptist agencies or churches. Southern Baptists practice congregational church polity, which means that each individual church has its own independent governmental structure. The denomination only exists to promote “friendly cooperation” over issues such as sending missionaries, preserving doctrinal fidelity, and — to a lesser extent — speaking with a united voice to pressing cultural issues where Christian ethics are implicated.

However, Closson argued that “resolutions matter because they give our convention a unified voice to speak with moral clarity on urgent cultural and policy issues.” In 2024, the SBC passed one “On the Ethical Realities of Reproductive Technologies and the Dignity of the Human Embryo,” which articulated a pro-life, Christian perspective on in vitro fertilization (IVF) and related reproductive technologies while these procedures were being debated both in Congress and state legislatures. Closson noted that the Southern Baptist IVF resolution was reported on widely, even in mainstream media.

Chemical abortion remains a cultural flashpoint and a politically live issue. Earlier this year, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised Republican senators that he would “study the safety of mifepristone,” the first of two drugs used in chemical abortion, and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary agreed to review new evidence regarding the safety of mifepristone. Kennedy further stated last week that he has ordered the FDA to conduct a “complete review” of the abortion drug.

The Trump administration is the first to assume office since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022). As Closson detailed in his recent book, “Life after Roe,” the Dobbs decision reshaped the legal and political landscape of the life issue. The Trump administration is still grappling with the implications of this decision.

For its part, the Southern Baptist Convention has not approved any pro-life resolutions since Dobbs. At the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention, a proposed resolution “On the Pro-Life Ethic in a Post-Roe Society” called for “robust regulation with the ultimate goal of abolishing all abortions including the dangerous, life-ending chemical abortion drugs used in elective abortions.” That resolution was not among the eight approved by convention messengers, reportedly due to time constraints. Besides the 2024 IVF resolution, the convention last passed a pro-life resolution in 2022, which anticipated the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Closson hopes that the proposed chemical abortion resolution would play a role similar to the IVF resolution, applying Christian doctrine to live cultural and political controversies in an eye-catching and influential way. “My hope,” he told TWS, “is that the messengers in Dallas will have an opportunity to take a clear and courageous stand against what has become the dominant method of ending unborn lives.”