- Southern Baptists largest U.S. Protestant denomination
- Members urged to only support technologies affirming right to life
- Ethicist: We’re ‘not basing ethics on politics’
Updated:
(NewsNation) — Jason Thacker, a Southern Baptist ethicist who advised the organization’s resolutions committee, says that opposing the use of in vitro fertilization is a “pro-life,” “Christian” value.
“Southern Baptists want to affirm the dignity and value of every human life, no matter the stage of development,” Thacker said Thursday on “CUOMO.” “No matter the location, whether that’s in the womb or outside the womb.”
The Southern Baptist Convention voted to oppose the use of IVF at its annual meeting Wednesday. The nonbinding proclamation calls on members of the country’s largest Protestant denomination to only support reproductive technologies that affirm the value and right to life of every human being from the moment of conception.
The vote came from 10,000 Southern Baptist Convention delegates, known as messengers, who are meeting at the denomination’s annual conference this week in Indianapolis. Wednesday’s vote came a day after messengers voted to expel a Virginia church from the denomination for subscribing to the belief women can serve as pastors within the Southern Baptist church.
Despite Tuesday’s move involving the Virginia congregation, messengers voted to reject a formal ban on women clergy, although the denomination informally does not allow women to serve in that role.
Thacker said Southern Baptists are calling for “people to respect the inherit dignity of those human beings” and that they’re “not basing ethics on politics” but instead on what the “Scripture” teaches.
NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo pushed back on that opinion, inquiring “where in the Scripture” it says that “you enhance life by stopping people from creating it.” Thacker responded that “it’s not just about the creation of life and welcoming those children, but also about children who are never welcomed.”
NewsNation’s Jeff Arnold contributed to this report.
