Former ERLC Prez Backs Decision to Torch Bill To Abolish Abortion ‘I would have done it too’
The bill, in giving babies inside the womb the same rights as those outside the womb, would make it a felony for women to kill their babies
Richard Land, former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (before handing the reigns to Russell Moore in 2013) and current President of Southern Evangelical Seminary wrote an op-ed in the Christian Post yesterday detailing not only his pro-life creds, but why he was against the Abolishing Abortion Resolution passed at the 2021 SBC conference, and why he supports the current ERLC’s acting president Brent Leatherwood’s decision to sign a letter condemning Louisiana’s bill to abolish abortion.
Land came to the defense of the infamous “An Open Letter to State Lawmakers from America’s Leading Pro-life Organizations” which was signed by multiple major pro-life organizations and stated:
“Women are victims of abortion and require our compassion and support as well as ready access to counseling and social services in the days, weeks, months, and years following an abortion…..As national and state pro-life organizations, representing tens of millions of pro-life men, women, and children across the country, let us be clear: We state unequivocally that we do not support any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women and we stand firmly opposed to include such penalties in legislation.”
The bill, in giving babies inside the womb the same rights as those outside the womb, would make it a felony for women to kill their babies and would result in jail time for the offending murders; something Land finds intolerable. Land declares that the ERLC has a” two-fold assignment from the SBC in the public policy arena.” That as the “conscience of the Convention,” the ERLC has the “freedom in that role to call Southern Baptists to be where we believe they should be on moral issues…”
For this reason he states:
For the record, if I were still the head of the ERLC, I would have signed this statement. I would have been ashamed of myself if I had not signed it.
This is the document that some SBC leaders are using as the reason to defund the ERLC.
And this is precisely the moment when the SBC and the pro-life movement have never needed the ERLC more as the battle for hearts and minds for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death and everywhere in between is going to go to the elected legislatures of all 50 states.
The ERLC will be an invaluable resource to Southern Baptists in every state as they seek to defend the unborn and their mothers in all fifty states.
In short, abortion is murder, but should never, ever, ever be treated as such, and all attempts by abortion abolitionists to do so will be swiftly opposed by the ERLC.