The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, called Wednesday for restrictions on in vitro fertilization as the hot-button issue of reproductive rights takes center stage ahead of the November elections.
Delegates at the Southern Baptists’ annual convention passed a resolution criticizing IVF because the procedure often results in the destruction of unused embryos.
It said the procedure “routinely generates more embryos than can be safely implanted, resulting in the continued freezing, storage and eventual destruction of human embryos, some of which may also be subjected to medical experimentation.”
The delegates called on Southern Baptists to “reaffirm the unconditional worth and right to life of every human being, including those in the embryonic stages.”
They urged members to “use only reproductive technologies that are consistent with that affirmation, especially regarding the number of embryos generated during the IVF process.”
Those planning to use IVF should “consider adopting frozen embryos,” the resolution says.
The delegates also called on Southern Baptists to “advocate that the government restrict actions that are inconsistent with the dignity and worth of every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.”
With a network of tens of thousands of churches, the Southern Baptist Convention has approximately 13 million members, mostly in the South.
According to the Pew Research Center, there were approximately 141 million Protestants in the US in 2019.
The Southern Baptists resolution comes as Democrats are trying to do reproductive rights an important campaign theme ahead of the elections on November 5.
The vote will be the first presidential election since the Supreme Court struck down the nationwide right to abortion in 2022, after which most Republican-led states moved to quickly ban or severely restrict the procedure.
IVF has also become a major issue following a court ruling in February in deeply conservative Alabama said frozen embryos had the rights of children.
The decision, labeled “outrageous and unacceptable” by President Biden, led to several clinics in Alabama suspend their IVF programs and quickly became a national political flashpoint.
Faced with a national outcry, including pressure from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Alabama Legislature quickly moved to pass a law to protect IVF.
In an effort to draw attention to the issue, Senate Democrats planned to vote on a national IVF protection bill on Thursday.
However, Republicans were expected to block the bill after another IVF bill was introduced by their party members obstructed by Democrats on Wednesday.
