By Baptist Message staff
SHREVEPORT, La. (LBM) – Messengers approved four resolutions during the 2024 Louisiana Baptist Convention Annual Meeting: celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Cooperative Program; supporting volunteer chaplains in schools; awareness on human trafficking; and expression of appreciation of those who helped make the Annual Meeting possible (read these in full in the Oct. 31 edition of the Baptist Message, print and online).
However, the Committee on Resolutions reported it had declined to recommend a resolution it had received, “The Abolition of Self-Managed Abortion in Louisiana,” from Brian Gunter, a messenger and pastor with First Baptist Church, Livingston.
DEBATE
During a time of discussion about the resolutions report, Gunter asked messengers to vote to pull his proposed resolution out of committee, leading to a floor debate. Gunter shared that this is the third year he had come before the messengers, asking them to adopt a statement on the matter.
“I’m going to bring this matter to your attention year after year, because some in our state convention of churches have repeatedly opposed our efforts to unify our churches in calling for the abolition of all abortion in our state,” he said. “So, the question for us today is this – should every human life be equally protected by law in the state of Louisiana? My answer is a resounding yes, and yet some have stood against me in the fight for life.
“Maybe someone would like to come before this microphone and explain why he believes that children in the womb should not have the same right to life as you and me,” he continued. “Please come explain why you believe that self-managed abortion must remain legal for women in Louisiana. Please explain why you believe that a child’s life should not be fully protected until after that child is born.
“Oh, and don’t forget, we aren’t a convention of politicians,” he said. “We are a convention of churches, you want to convince us that self-managed abortion should remain legal for women in the state of
Louisiana, then you’ll have to make your case from the Bible. But you can’t do that, and we all know it. Thee Bible is extremely clear – ‘you shall not murder.’ There are no exceptions. Murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone, and frankly it’s shameful that it has taken us three years to make such a statement.”
Speaking against the motion, Committee on Resolutions Chairman Fieldon Thigpen, pastor of Memorial Baptist Church in Bogalusa, shared that the committee did not bring Gunter’s resolution out of committee after the group had researched the abortion abolitionist movement (Abolitionists Rising), with which Gunter has aligned.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The abortion abolitionist movement advocates for the prosecution of women who have abortions. In some high-profile instances, pro-life leaders and groups who have disagreed on this point have been attacked as “pro-abortion,” “murderers,” etc.
Thigpen noted that Louisiana Baptists have a long track record of defending the sanctity of human life, promoting efforts to preserve the lives of the unborn and offering support for expected mothers, and mentioned six resolutions that messengers have adopted in just the last 10 years:
— 2023 ON PREVENTING MAIL-ORDER ABORTIFACIENTS (which addresses “self-managed abortions”)
— 2022 ON THANKING GOD FOR THE SUPREME COURT’S RULING IN DOBBS v. JACKSON
— 2019 ON LOVE LIFE AMENDMENT (support for a state constitutional amendment that there is no right to an abortion)
— 2018 ON LOUISIANA BAPTISTS’ PRO-LIFE BELIEFS
— 2015 ON DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD
— 2014 ON PREGNANCY CARE CENTERS
“In contrast, the LBC has voted down proposed abolitionist resolutions,” he said. “As the Resolutions Committee, we are not the voice of the Convention,” he said. “We seek to provide words for the voice of the Convention … words of which we believe you will be resolved about. In light of these facts, we are confident that Louisiana Baptists are resolved on the sanctity of human life and desiring to see all babies in our state live, but do not believe Louisiana Baptists are unitedly resolved with the abolitionist movement about the methods by which we hope to accomplish this.”
Joel Williams, pastor with First Baptist Church, St. Francisville, spoke in favor of Gunter’s motion.
Williams identified himself as “generationally, a Louisiana Baptist” with both his father and great-grandfather serving as pastors, and his father also leading the “Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home for years until he retired.”
“I’ve been a pastor at First Baptist for 12 years, and as far as I know, in my life, in my family’s life, we have always been pro-life,” he said.
“For me, the issue is really simple: Life begins at conception,” he shared. “All life created in the image of God deserves equal protection under the law. The intentional taking of like is murder. Babies in their mother’s wombs deserve equal protection as much as babies in their mother’s arms.”
Williams said Gunter’s public statements at the Southern Baptist Convention and the Louisiana Baptist Convention had convinced him that despite the victory claimed by pro-life forces in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, “it is easier to get an abortion in Louisiana than ever before” because of access to mail-order abortion pills.
He said that some Baptist leaders say “they long for a day when abortion becomes unimaginable. It’s already an unimaginable horror to us as Christians. But it will never be unimaginable to the lost, sinful human heart. I’ll settle for illegal.”
Williams added that for him that meant “equal protection for human life in the womb” and justice for “whoever is responsible” for an abortion.
“If we as Louisiana Baptists don’t make a stand on God’s Word against self-managed abortion in Louisiana, what are we doing?” he asked.
“If we’re not willing to call for equal protection of babies in the womb, who will? Please vote yes for this resolution today to simply say that self- managed abortion should be illegal. Period. That is absolutely biblical. It is not at all complicated.”
Tommy Middleton, associational mission strategist for the Baptist Association of Greater Baton Rouge, spoke against the motion.
“I believe that all of us in this body, 100 percent, are opposed to abortion and desire for it to end. But how do we achieve this practically, spiritually and legally? That is where we differ,” he said.
“Our differences on this should not be considered a basis of fellowship, because that’s based on Christology and Soteriology,” he added.
“I believe that this will be perceived as a punitive measure toward women who have had an abortion at whatever age, from teenager to adult, and the Louisiana Baptist Convention will lose our voice of compassion and mercy in our current culture,” Middleton said. “We cannot shut the door to those who make bad choices, wrong choices…that is the very nature of ministry to the lost.
Tommy Middleton, associational mission strategist for Baptist Association of Greater Baton Rouge, opposed bringing forward a proposed resolution by messenger
Brian Gunter, saying “this resolution does not unify us
in those core values that advances the compassion of
the Gospel or enable us to do a ministry that’s both
effective and impacting in a broken world.” Baptist Message photo
“Will this not necessitate that we as pastors and staff members to police our own flocks, and if we discover that there may be those who have had abortions, do we turn them in, call for their prosecution, imprisonment or even worse?” he asked. “Who will trust a pastor if he is perceived as an arm of the state or even an extension of it?
“Our pro-life clinics will no longer be considered as safe places of confidentiality and hope,” he offered. “That being said, if this resolution were to be somehow codified in the civil law, it may in reality be antithetical to our mission as the church and counterintuitive to our calling and convictions as followers of Jesus Christ. This resolution does not unify us in a way that advances the compassion of the Gospel or enables us to do ministry more effectively in a broken world.”
After the discussion, the motion to adopt Gunter’s resolution did not receive the required two-thirds majority needed to pass.
BACKGROUND
In July 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to return the issue of abortion to the states. The decision did not ban abortion nationwide, but in Louisiana it triggered a 2006 state law, updated during the 2022 legislative session, that instantly outlawed abortion in Louisiana.
Revised Statute 40, Section 1061, titled “Abortion: Prohibition” specifically states that any “decision of the United States Supreme Court which reverses, in whole or in part, Roe v. Wade,” immediately puts into effect a ban on anything “causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being.”
This statute also specifically states that “No person may knowingly administer to, prescribe for, or procure for, or sell to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, or other substance with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being.”
This section of the Louisiana legal code was updated by S.B 342, signed into law as Act 545 by Gov. John Bel Edwards and effective since June 22, 2022. These changes to Louisiana’s prohibition against abortion do not make an exception for the case of a pregnancy that results from rape and incest. But it does contain exceptions for a pregnancy which imperils the physical life of the mother and an ectopic pregnancy, as well as for any pregnancy for which two doctors conclude that the unborn child would not survive after birth. Act 545 also permits the use of “morning after” pills – emergency contraception taken shortly after sex to prevent pregnancy.
Act 548, also signed into law by Edwards in 2022, created the crime of “abortion by means of an abortion-inducing drug,” which includes delivering, dispensing, distributing or providing abortifacients when the person administering the medication is not a physician licensed in the state – thereby banning abortions by mail.
In 2024, Gov. Jeff Landry signed Act 246 into law, classifying the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances akin to opioids, and requiring doctors to have a special license to prescribe them. However, the law does not prevent “a pregnant woman to possess mifepristone or misoprostol for her own consumption.” Likewise, no Louisiana statute criminalizes the woman who has an abortion, just the abortionist or provider of the abortion means.
Finally, R.S. 40:1061.1 states in part, “The legislature does solemnly declare, find, and reaffirm the longstanding public policy of this state that every unborn child is a human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person for purposes under the laws of this state and Constitution.
