Last week, North Carolina Pastor Clint Pressley sparked online debate by publicly endorsing a Tennessee state bill that would allow the death penalty to be imposed on women who have an abortion.
Pressley is the sitting president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and his endorsement of capital punishment for abortion was met with support from several other prominent Southern Baptists.
“I am glad to support HB 570 and SB 738, two bills in the Tennessee legislature that would protect every preborn child in Tennessee from abortion by providing preborn children with equal protection of the laws,” Pressley said on Thursday (Feb. 19). “By protecting the lives of preborn children with the same laws that protect people who are born, we are simply loving our neighbors in the womb as ourselves.”
Pressley said that the legislation, if passed, would “set an example of how states can protect the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.”
Fellow SBC pastor and Oklahoma State Sen. Dusty Deevers praised Pressley, saying, “Thank you, Pastor Clint! It is a proud day for the SBC to see our president endorse the bill to abolish abortion in Tennessee. Momentum is building!”
“This is an excellent statement from our SBC President. Thank you Clint. Southern Baptists want convictional, courageous leadership,” said Willy Rice, an SBC pastor in Florida.
Texas SBC Pastor Tom Buck said, “It’s wonderful that @pastorclint supports this bill to abolish abortion. It’s the kind of leadership needed…All the SBC needs to do is keep electing the right president to be the right voice on these issues.”
However, Christa Brown, a clergy sex abuse survivor and a longtime advocate for reforms in the SBC, referred to Pressley’s position on the issue as “extreme,” arguing that it’s “something that anyone who cares about women and girls should worry about.”
“Tennessee already has some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country, prohibiting all abortions from the moment of fertilization,” Brown wrote on Monday (Feb. 23), “allowing no exceptions for rape or incest, and subjecting any physician who performs an abortion to a possible penalty of fifteen years in prison.”
“While they may call such abortion bans ‘pro-life,’ it’s worth noting that women who live in states with such draconian bans are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or soon after giving birth, as compared to women living in other states,” said Brown. “And miscarriages can become high-risk events, both medically and legally.”
