EDITORS NOTE: This article includes reporting by Tom Strode of Baptist Press.
JEFFERSON CITY Longtime Missouri Southern Baptist statesman and pro-life advocate Larry Lewis is calling Southern Baptists to lead out in support of a pro-life amendment to the United States Constitution.
Lewis was among many Southern Baptist pro-life advocates who rejoiced, June 24, when the high court overruled its 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion as well as the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling that affirmed Roe and returned abortion policy to the states.
JEFFERSON CITY Longtime Missouri Southern Baptist statesman and denominational leader Larry Lewis and his wife, Creeda, greet Missouri Baptist Directors of Missions and other guests, March 29, during the dedication of the Larry Lewis Strategy Room at the Missouri Baptist Conventions building here. (Pathway photo by Benjamin Hawkins).
The Supreme Courts opinion in Dobbs v. Mississippi Womens Health Organization brought an end to an abortion rule established by Roe that cost the lives of more than an estimated 63 million preborn children.
The Supreme Courts reversal of Roe was a decision for which Lewis had long prayed. He was pastor of Tower Grove Baptist Church in St. Louis when he wrote and defended from the platform as a member of the 1980 Resolutions Committee the first pro-life resolution approved by messengers to the SBCs annual meeting. After his election as president of the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) in 1987, the board inaugurated the same year under his leadership the Alternatives to Abortion Ministries to help churches and associations establish crisis pregnancy centers.
He is delighted the Roe v. Wade ruling has been overturned, Lewis said. Roe v. Wade is probably the worst decision ever rendered by the [U.S.] Supreme Court, with the possible exception of Dred Scott, the high courts 1857 opinion that said free and enslaved Black Americans were not U.S. citizens, he said.
Never in the history of our republic has any court ever found in the Constitution a right for a mother to kill her children, either born or unborn, he wrote in a statement for Baptist Press.
Of course, reversing Roe v. Wade doesnt assure the right to life for the unborn but simply transfers the issue to the states to fashion whatever laws they think appropriate, Lewis said. Fortunately, there are several states that will likely prohibit or strictly regulate abortion except for extreme circumstances, such as where the life of the mother is seriously threatened. Unfortunately, many others will freely allow abortions with few or any restrictions.
[W]e have a fight for life on our hands! We must fight hard to assure our state legislatures fashion strong right-to-life legislation. We must fight equally as hard against those who will undoubtedly seek to amend the Constitution to assure the right to abort is constitutional. Instead, we should seek to amend the Constitution to assure the right to life, already clearly embedded in the Constitution, applies to the unborn as well as to anyone else.
This month, Lewis delivered to The Pathway a statement calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. His statement is based on an appeal he previously made in 1981, while serving as a board member for Southern Baptists for Life. Read the statement below:
When our founding fathers drafted the United States Constitution, they wisely included a provision whereby it could be amended. The persuasive arguments of James Madison convinced the others that providing a means to amend the constitution was not only desirable but imperative. Madison observed, in framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce.
Since that time the constitution has been amended many times for many reasons. To be exact, there have been 27 amendments in the nearly 250 year history of our republic, an average of at least one per decade! I believe most have been for the good of the country.
If it were not for amendments to the constitution our cherished right to worship would not be secure. It is the first amendment (not the constitution itself) that gives us the right to worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to peaceable assembly.
If it were not for amendments, women would not have a right to vote and black men and women would still be slaves. In fact, most of the cherished rights we enjoy in America today are provided through amendments to the constitution, rather than by the constitution itself. Perhaps most important of these are the first ten, commonly called The Bill of Rights.
But why is there a need for yet another amendment to secure the right to life for the unborn? Doesnt the constitution speak eloquently of certain unalienable rights, among these the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Unfortunately, this beautiful rhetoric found in the Declaration of Independence never made it into the constitution. The constitution itself says nothing about a right to life for either the born or unborn. Thank God for the fifth and fourteenth amendments or there would be no right to life assured by the United States Constitution!
The fifth amendment states that a person cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Life, liberty, and property can be taken, but only by due process of law. Also, this provision applies only to persons.
In the infamous Dred Scott decision the obvious rights of black men and women were abridged in order to sustain slavery. The Supreme Court ruled that since black men and women were slaves, they should be classified as property rather than as persons. Therefore, the right to own slaves, abuse slaves, and even kill slaves was sustained on the grounds that they were not really persons and therefore could not enjoy any rights provided by the constitution and the fifth amendment. Does this not remind one of the muddled reasoning the Supreme Court used in Roe v. Wade in 1973 concluding that the unborn were not protected by the constitution because they were not persons?
The twisted thinking of the Dred Scott case was rectified several years later with the passage of the fourteenth amendment. This amendment specifically states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and the state in which they reside and prohibits any state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
For years it was assumed that the right to life thus secured by the fifth and fourteenth amendments applied not only to citizens of the United States but to their unborn offspring. History is replete with countless instances where large monetary awards were given parents of unborn offspring who were damaged as a result of accident or violence. Abortion was prohibited by law in every state of the Union except in cases where the life of the mother was in danger or (in a few states) in cases of incest and/or rape. The idea that a mother would want to destroy her unborn baby was abhorrent.
This all changed in January, 1973. In the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court concluded (1) a womans right to privacy included her right to decide to terminate her pregnancy and (2) states interest in unborn life is not sufficiently compelling to permit regulation of abortion (at least prior to viability). The court considered the argument that even if the unborn are not persons, they are at least human beings and that the state has a compelling interest in protecting the life of human beings. However, the court concluded that the unborn baby possessed only potential life and the interest of the state in protecting potential life is not compelling.
Thus the Supreme Court, the highest deliberative body in the land, concluded there was no right to life secured by the United States Constitution for the unborn. They question whether or not the unborn child is really a human being and they definitely conclude the unborn is not a person. Therefore, since he is not a person the fifth and fourteenth amendments provisions cannot apply since they are explicitly attributed to persons. They further conclude that since the rights secured by the constitution apply only to citizens of the United States and a citizen is defined as one who is born or naturalized in the United States they cannot apply to the unborn since they have neither been born or naturalized.
To say the unborn baby is not a person is the exact antithesis of the testimony of Jeremiah, before thou comest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations (Jer. 1:5). Likewise the Psalmist declared (referring to himself in the first person), I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them (Ps. 139:14-16).
To imply, as did the Supreme Court in 1973, that the unborn is not a human being is absurd! If the unborn child is not a human being, what kind of being is it? From the moment the child is conceived it has every attribute of a human being. From that point it merely grows and develops.
Opposition to Roe v. Wade was immediate, even among the Justices themselves. In his dissent Justice White observed: I find nothing in the language or history of the constitution to support the courts judgement. The court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers. Likewise, Justice Rehnquist stated in his dissent: To reach its result the court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the fourteenth amendment a right that was completely unknown to the drafters of the amendment.
Since that infamous decision in 1973, over 65 million unborn babies have been killed by abortion in the United States alone. Every 20 seconds we delay in correcting this terrible decision, another unborn baby is destroyed and discarded as so much trash!
If in 1964 it was important to amend the constitution so that the poll tax could be eliminated, is it not at least equally important to amend the constitution now so the senseless slaughter of unborn babies can be restrained?
In 1971 we amended the constitution so 18-year-olds might have the right to vote. Is it not just as important now to amend the constitution so that unborn babies may have the right to live?
In 1951, we amended the constitution so the President of the United States would be prohibited from serving more than two terms. Is it not just as important to amend the constitution now so a mother may be prohibited from destroying her unborn child?
Baptists should be at the forefront leading the effort to secure a human life amendment. Just as we have been quick and forceful in leading the effort to oppose gambling, the lottery, pornography, alcohol and drugs, we should be leading the effort to oppose the abortion holocaust in America today.
Southern Baptists are firmly on record in support of a human life amendment. Most resolutions on the issue passed by the Southern Baptist Convention since 1980 have included a strong statement supporting an amendment.
Likewise, most of our outstanding Southern Baptist leaders are outspoken in their support of this cause. Former SBC President, Dr. Adrian Rogers, identified abortion as the most important issue in our contemporary list of social concerns, and was a longtime supporter of those who sought to get a human life amendment approved by Congress. To my knowledge, all of our former Southern Baptist presidents since 1979 have been opponents of abortion and supporters of a human life amendment.
A human life amendment is imperative even though the muddled reasoning of Roe v. Wade has been corrected. Even though there has been a change in the consistency of the Supreme Court and more conservative, pro-life Justices have been appointed and even though the new court reversed Roe v. Wade, the potential for disaster still remains. An amendment is needed to make it explicitly clear that the right to life provided through the fifth and fourteenth amendments applies not only to the mother but to the unborn offspring as well.
I personally favor an amendment designed to return to the states the authority to make laws governing abortion. I do not believe it is the role of the constitution to become a criminal code, but rather to protect and secure those laws of the people, by the people, and for the people, enacted by the Congress and the state legislatures. Also, from the standpoint of political expediency, I believe this type of amendment has greater possibility of passage in Congress and ratification by the states.
For many years now in our state conventions and in our Southern Baptist Convention we have debated the abortion issue and we have passed strong resolutions opposing abortion and affirming the sanctity of human life. From our pulpits we have condemned the abortion clinics and opposed abortion vociferously. But the carnage continues!
Resolutions and eloquent preachments alone will not stop the abortion holocaust. Although not the total solution, a human life amendment is imperative if this avalanche of human carnage is to be stemmed.
See more here:
'Assure the right to life': Lewis urges Southern Baptists to support pro-life amendment in US Constitution - The Pathway