Abortion United Evangelicals and Republicans. Now That Alliance Is Fraying.
The Southern Baptist Convention, long a bellwether for American evangelicalism, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization.
transcriptAbortion United Evangelicals and Republicans. Now That Alliance Is Fraying.The Southern Baptist Convention, long a bellwether for American evangelicalism, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization.This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, voted at its annual gathering last week to condemn IVF fertility treatments. Today, my colleague Ruth Graham on the story behind the vote the Republicans scrambled and prompted, and what it could eventually mean for the rest of the country.It’s Monday, June 17.So, Ruth, you write about religion for “The Times” and you were covering the big annual meeting of Southern baptists last week. And they made a pretty big decision. Tell us about it.The Southern Baptist Convention, it’s the biggest Protestant denomination in the United States. They have almost 13 million members, more than 45,000 churches. It’s a huge group.And Southern Baptists know their political power. And they are basically a barometer of evangelical sentiment in the US. You know, what they say kind of indicates what the typical evangelical cares about in any given moment. And fun for reporters, they all meet once a year in this giant gathering that any church can send delegates to. The delegates are called messengers.So this year that meeting was in Indianapolis. There were almost 11,000 messengers there in the convention center. And one of the important political topics they took on this year was something they have never discussed as a full body before, and that’s the ethics of in-vitro fertilization.OK. So this very important conference of Southern Baptists takes up IVF. In other words, the medical procedure that allows people to get pregnant through fertilization in a lab. So what do they say?So a lot of Southern Baptists historically have not taken issue with IVF per se at all. They view it as a technology used to create life. You know, it’s used by families who desperately want to be parents, and they view that as a positive thing.But the procedure does involve, typically, the production of more embryos than will be used by the couple that created them. And those embryos end up sometimes discarded, sometimes frozen indefinitely, sometimes donated, but not used in the way that they were originally created to be used. So some Southern Baptists do take issue with discarding those excess embryos. And the reason is they say life begins at conception.This is sort of a core anti-abortion belief. The moment that the sperm meets the egg, that is the stuff of life. There’s a verse in Psalms, “You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”And you’ll hear that cited in Christian anti-abortion spaces a lot as evidence that God cares about and views as fully human human beings at the very moment of conception. And that would include these frozen embryos.Right. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, you probably would not agree to abortion at any stage of gestation. And that same logic would apply to IVF. So when this issue gets raised at the conference, what happens? What are people saying?So there’s a resolution that comes to the floor. Resolutions in Southern Baptist language are nonbinding. This would not be a ban. It’s just a statement of concern that’s meant to summarize Southern Baptist opinion on this particular topic.So the language that’s proposed calls on Southern Baptists to reaffirm the value of human life. And then it narrows in on human life in an embryonic stage. And it urges them to just use reproductive technologies, fertility treatments that are consistent with that view of human life.What does that mean?They’re actually walking a pretty fine line here. They stopped short of saying that a Southern Baptist should never use IVF under any circumstances. They’re calling attention to these excess embryos and saying that, you know, Baptists really should only use reproductive technology with attention to life at this embryonic stage. And the resolution also goes so far as to ask Baptists to call on their governments to restrain these kind of technologies that violate the dignity of, as they put it, quote, “frozen embryonic human beings.”Hm. So they’re also actually asking people to pressure their governments to respect this position, basically?That’s right. It’s light on specifics, but that’s the suggestion.But Ruth, why did they decide to raise this issue now? I mean, IVF obviously has been around for a long time,Right. So back in February, there was a case that reached the Alabama Supreme Court that had started when a group of families in the state filed this wrongful death claim over a mistake at a fertility clinic where their frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed. They sue, and the state Supreme Court ends up ruling not only in their favor, but says really clearly that frozen embryos should be considered children. So the Chief Justice writes, “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory.”So really putting out this religious argument for human life in embryonic form. So that case lands like a bomb.[MUSIC PLAYING]The stunning decision from Alabama’s Supreme Court has enormous and immediate consequences for fertility care.And it really caught a lot of people off guard. You know, all along the spectrum.A third fertility clinic in Alabama has shut down after the state Supreme Court ruled embryos are children.The court offered no clear roadmap for what is and isn’t legal.And it just places this question about the ethics and the legal aspects and all of this, it just puts IVF into the national conversation.We’re concerned that with the new ruling, we may have to limit fertilization of eggs, which will limit success of treatment, limit efficiency, increase cost, and of course, risk to patients.It’s a stressful process already. And I don’t need the added stress, and no woman does, of whether or not this might be moral to go through to have children when this is my only path.And there’s this really strong backlash to the idea that embryos should be protected with the force of the law as full human beings. Because IVF is broadly popular, including among many Republican voters.Alabama House of Representatives and the Senate have passed a law that restores access to in vitro fertilization. Doctors at clinics have told ABC News the new language will give them enough reassurance to resume IVF without facing legal risks.Ultimately, the state legislature, the Republican governor work really quickly to reinstate it in the state. But it opens up this new conversation among conservative evangelicals who are broadly anti-abortion. And they’re starting to think should we think about this IVF conversation in the same way that we’ve thought about abortion? Should we be pushing on this more?So most of the country takes the lesson from the Alabama case that IVF is not something to be interfered with. But for some in the evangelical community, they take the opposite lesson, it sounds like.That’s right. For some evangelicals, this feels like the perfect moment to bring IVF into the abortion conversation and start to turn the tide against it. One of these people is an ethicist in Kentucky. His name is Andrew Walker. He works at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It’s a major Southern Baptist seminary in Louisville.And he’s been wanting to bring IVF into sort of the mainstream Southern Baptist consciousness for a while. He first started writing about it about five years ago. He actually published an essay in a sort of mainstream evangelical publication about it, got a lot of pushback, never felt it was the right moment to bring a resolution to the meeting, but he’s had this tucked in the back of his mind because he has this pretty clear conviction that IVF does not comport with Christian anti-abortion values.So when the Alabama ruling happens, and the backlash, and the broader conversation, Andrew Walker thinks, you know, this is the moment. So he calls his friend and mentor, Dr. Al Mohler, who’s the president of the seminary where they both work. And he says, let’s do it.Let’s start crafting a resolution for the meeting this year. And we’ll see if it gets forward. We’ll see if it gets discussed. We’ll see if it gets approved. But we’ve got to strike while the iron is hot here.And did Baptists like Walker understand that a resolution like this would have potentially quite bad implications for mainstream Republican politicians? Like, wasn’t that the lesson of Alabama?Yes. And I talked with both Dr. Walker and Dr. Mohler about this. And they both said they were completely aware of that. They didn’t love it, but they both felt that that was not their highest priority. That was not their highest responsibility.And if anything, Dr. Mohler said this in particular, he wanted to nudge Republicans on the issue. He actually said he wanted to do more than nudge Republicans. He wanted to call them out. And so this would be a really high profile way to show to Republicans, look, we’ve got thousands of mainstream Southern Baptists in a room here who are all expressing collective alarm and opposition to IVF as it’s commonly practiced.OK. So Baptist leaders nevertheless put this proposal to a vote on the floor. Tell us about how that went, when they put this proposal in front of thousands of other evangelicals.It was really dramatic.[CHRISTIAN CHORAL MUSIC]We’re in this cavernous convention hall where, over the course of the last few days, there’s been singing of hymns. People have heard sermons. There’s been prayers. They’ve sent missionaries out. They’ve been sort of together in the work of making their convention what they want it to be.Microphone 3A, would you give us your name, your church, and proceed with your discussion?Yes. Daniel Taylor, messenger —And then there’s this incredibly dramatic discussion and debate about the ethics of something so personal.Thank you, Mr President. I rise to speak in favor of this amendment, out of both a heart for the unborn and for those stricken with infertility.Anyone is allowed to come to the microphone under Southern Baptist rules. And you had two men come to the microphone to share really personal stories —From my friends, the initial steps of IVF yielded six viable embryos. Four of the embryos were implanted and two were frozen for a time. Only one survived to term, their son and my godson. Because of him, I thank God for IVF.One has a godson born via IVF.I have a son because of IVF. I have another son 20 weeks old in my wife’s womb because of IVF.The other has one child and his wife pregnant with a second via IVF.I am for the sanctity of life and for the sanctity of embryos. I am against the idea that this technology is so wicked that it cannot be employed.And both spoke about just loving these children and seeing the technology as a blessing from God.I thank the authors of the resolution and the committee for the opportunity for the SBC to be a voice of biblical truth and clarity in this pressing cultural issue.A woman came to the microphone, sort of on the other side.In addition to my living children, I am the mother of four babies that I never got to hold. Two of those babies we adopted as embryos. Nothing in the process of IVF upholds the sanctity of life. There is no way to describe the treatment of embryos at any point in the IVF process as ethical or dignified.To share that she had participated in embryo adoption, meaning that she had another family’s embryos implanted in her womb to try to bring those pregnancies to fruition. And in this case, she miscarried both times. But she had done that out of a sense of really moral obligation to these embryos as human life.And it was quiet. I mean, people are really listening to these really personal stories and wrestling with them. This is personal for a lot of people in that room. But at the end of all this, it’s time to vote on the resolution.[MUSIC PLAYING]So in the end, the language has been really carefully crafted to kind of bring Southern Baptists along on this argument. So it affirms that God loves all children, no matter the circumstances of their conception. It expresses empathy for couples trying to conceive. It says it’s a good and positive thing to want to have children, to expand your family.And then it arrives at this point of saying that IVF, as it’s commonly practiced, is not an ethical option for Southern Baptists in most circumstances. So this resolution comes to a vote, to the thousands of people in that room. They’re all sitting in folding chairs. They raise their little orange ballots in favor or against. And the resolution passes overwhelmingly.So this resolution ultimately passes. But how important is it really if it’s just an expression of sentiment, it’s not actually a directive to do something?It’s hugely significant. This is the first major public statement that this group of influential evangelicals, frankly, influential Republican voters have made on this issue. And it really sets them up on a collision course with mainstream Republicans.We’ll be right back.So Ruth, you said that this vote really sets evangelicals on a collision course with mainstream Republicans. What did that look like?So mainstream Republicans, in the wake of the Alabama ruling, have really circled the wagons to try to show that they are not only totally comfortable with IVF, but are going to go to great lengths to preserve it. And they see it as pro-family. They know that’s how most of their constituents view it. They want to really show that they see that as totally separate from the conversation about abortion and that they are going to be the ones to preserve access to IVF. And so on the very same day this happened in Indianapolis, in Washington —I want to yield to the senator from Alabama, Senator Britt.Thank you so much.— Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, she’s an evangelical Christian, she gets up on the floor of the Senate and gives this impassioned speech supporting IVF.I was proud to join my colleague from Texas in introducing The IVF Protection Act. I am —She, with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, has put forward this bill that they say is intended to protect IVF access by blocking Medicaid funding to states that ban it outright. Democrats say that actually would not have done anything to fix the problem. And there are these kind of jockeying bills. But still, she gets up on the Senate floor —Look, as a mom, I know firsthand that there’s no greater joy in this life than that of being a mother. IVF helps aspiring parents —— and speaks, as a mom, as she puts it, in defense of IVF.IVF access is fundamentally pro-family.She’s wearing this really prominent cross necklace. And she talks about how supporting IVF is pro-family, that that’s the pro-family point of view.We all have loved ones, whether they’re family members or friends, who have become parents or grandparents through IVF.And she puts out a statement the same day, with Senator Cruz, and it’s signed by all of her Republican colleagues, including Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, every conservative across the spectrum in the Senate signs on to this support for IVF.So even the most conservative Republicans in Congress are coming out with this position that’s really at odds with evangelicals.That’s right. IVF is hugely popular. Fertility treatments are widely used, including by evangelicals. Most people don’t even think negatively about this stuff, let alone want to ban it. So it’s a real dilemma for Republicans to watch evangelicals potentially turn in this direction.So there’s pressure from the Southern Baptist Convention on mainstream Republicans, which I have to imagine is making Democrats pretty happy. I mean, I saw President Biden out there with a fundraising email the day that the Southern Baptists voted.That’s right. I mean, Democrats are really leaning into reproductive rights right now. They’re putting abortion measures on ballots in November. They know that’s going to attract their voters. It’s going to attract independents.They’re pointing out these restrictions. They’re talking about this stuff. And the vote last week from the Southern Baptists is another suggestion that there’s this movement out there that doesn’t just want to regulate at 15 weeks, not just at 12 weeks, not just at 6 weeks, but, you know, all the way down to the embryo in the lab. So I think Democrats see an opportunity here to exploit this growing divide between evangelicals and Republicans, at least on this issue.And this is all going to be all the more salient ahead of a very important presidential election. I mean, we’re really hurtling down the tracks toward a big decision point for people.Yeah, that’s exactly right. The Republican Party and American evangelicals have been in lockstep really since the 1970s. And now for Republicans, there’s this question about whether or not it’s still politically advantageous for them to follow where the anti-abortion movement is going on this stuff, because they’re pushing into places that are really deeply unpopular among the American population overall.And the anti-abortion movement itself at this point is pretty divided on where it’s going to go next. So we saw the Supreme Court last week on Thursday, they maintained access to the abortion pill. There were divisions even within the anti-abortion movement over whether or not to bring that case forward. Some within that movement were skeptical of it. So you’re seeing sort of confusion and disagreement even internally on where to go after the overturning of “Roe v. Wade.”Ruth, what about the broader population of evangelical Christians? There were 10,000 people at the Southern Baptist Conference voting on this. But what about everybody else? Where are they on this?I think that’s still a really open question at this point. I talked to this young pastor from Georgia at the meeting, who was saying, you know, I don’t want to go back to the people in my church and tell them that the creation of their children and grandchildren comes from these immoral means. And the language of the resolution was careful around that, but it’s still going to be really hard to get that across and to just translate it for the people in the pews. And if you’re an ordinary Southern Baptist kind of reading the headlines and even reading the text of this, it’s a tough one.At the same time, talking with Andrew Walker about this, who co-wrote the resolution, he acknowledged that a lot of Southern Baptists have not really thought about this stuff in terms of ethics and morality and connected it to the abortion question. But when he has one-on-one conversations with people about the topic and sort of walks them through, basically, the logic of the resolution, he said almost everyone comes away from those conversations with, at the very least, a sort of skepticism and a level of critical thinking around fertility treatments that they didn’t come in with. And that suggests that there’s at least sort of an openness to thinking differently about fertility treatments.And the reason all this matters is obviously evangelicals are this hugely influential voting bloc. They’re used to having the power to turn their theological beliefs into policy. And when they come together, you get this political force, the same political force that worked for decades over a lot of obstacles and was eventually successful in overturning “Roe v. Wade.”[MUSIC PLAYING]Now, IVF is different than abortion. IVF is extremely popular, including, at this point, among evangelical Christians. But if we find out that evangelicals are persuadable on IVF, it doesn’t just have implications for their personal spiritual lives. If this is the beginning of a moral awakening on IVF, and that’s a big if, it would have real implications for the rest of the country.Ruth, thank you.Thank you.We’ll be right back.Here’s what else you need to know today. On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on bump stocks which enable semiautomatic rifles to fire at speeds rivaling those of machine guns. The decision, by a vote of 6 to 3, split along ideological lines, had the effect of erasing one of the government’s rare firearm regulations that came from a mass shooting. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had exceeded its power when it prohibited the device by issuing a rule that classified bump stocks as machine guns. And —[CROWD CHANTING]— tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded onto streets in France on Saturday to denounce the rise of the country’s far right as the nation prepared to vote in snap elections set to take place later this month. French president Emmanuel Macron shocked the country last week by announcing that he was dissolving the lower house of Parliament after his party was clobbered by far right opponents in a vote to seat the next European Parliament. Critics, including some in Macron’s own party, warned that the president’s move to call snap elections opened the door to empowering the far right in France for the first time since World War II.Today’s episode was produced by Rob Szypko, Sydney Harper, Stella Tan, Aastha Chaturvedi, and Rachelle Bonja. It was edited by Marc Georges and Lisa Chow, contains original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.Abortion United Evangelicals and Republicans. Now That Alliance Is Fraying.The Southern Baptist Convention, long a bellwether for American evangelicalism, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization.transcriptAbortion United Evangelicals and Republicans. Now That Alliance Is Fraying.The Southern Baptist Convention, long a bellwether for American evangelicalism, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization.This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.”The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, voted at its annual gathering last week to condemn IVF fertility treatments. Today, my colleague Ruth Graham on the story behind the vote the Republicans scrambled and prompted, and what it could eventually mean for the rest of the country.It’s Monday, June 17.So, Ruth, you write about religion for “The Times” and you were covering the big annual meeting of Southern baptists last week. And they made a pretty big decision. Tell us about it.The Southern Baptist Convention, it’s the biggest Protestant denomination in the United States. They have almost 13 million members, more than 45,000 churches. It’s a huge group.And Southern Baptists know their political power. And they are basically a barometer of evangelical sentiment in the US. You know, what they say kind of indicates what the typical evangelical cares about in any given moment. And fun for reporters, they all meet once a year in this giant gathering that any church can send delegates to. The delegates are called messengers.So this year that meeting was in Indianapolis. There were almost 11,000 messengers there in the convention center. And one of the important political topics they took on this year was something they have never discussed as a full body before, and that’s the ethics of in-vitro fertilization.OK. So this very important conference of Southern Baptists takes up IVF. In other words, the medical procedure that allows people to get pregnant through fertilization in a lab. So what do they say?So a lot of Southern Baptists historically have not taken issue with IVF per se at all. They view it as a technology used to create life. You know, it’s used by families who desperately want to be parents, and they view that as a positive thing.But the procedure does involve, typically, the production of more embryos than will be used by the couple that created them. And those embryos end up sometimes discarded, sometimes frozen indefinitely, sometimes donated, but not used in the way that they were originally created to be used. So some Southern Baptists do take issue with discarding those excess embryos. And the reason is they say life begins at conception.This is sort of a core anti-abortion belief. The moment that the sperm meets the egg, that is the stuff of life. There’s a verse in Psalms, “You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”And you’ll hear that cited in Christian anti-abortion spaces a lot as evidence that God cares about and views as fully human human beings at the very moment of conception. And that would include these frozen embryos.Right. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, you probably would not agree to abortion at any stage of gestation. And that same logic would apply to IVF. So when this issue gets raised at the conference, what happens? What are people saying?So there’s a resolution that comes to the floor. Resolutions in Southern Baptist language are nonbinding. This would not be a ban. It’s just a statement of concern that’s meant to summarize Southern Baptist opinion on this particular topic.So the language that’s proposed calls on Southern Baptists to reaffirm the value of human life. And then it narrows in on human life in an embryonic stage. And it urges them to just use reproductive technologies, fertility treatments that are consistent with that view of human life.What does that mean?They’re actually walking a pretty fine line here. They stopped short of saying that a Southern Baptist should never use IVF under any circumstances. They’re calling attention to these excess embryos and saying that, you know, Baptists really should only use reproductive technology with attention to life at this embryonic stage. And the resolution also goes so far as to ask Baptists to call on their governments to restrain these kind of technologies that violate the dignity of, as they put it, quote, “frozen embryonic human beings.”Hm. So they’re also actually asking people to pressure their governments to respect this position, basically?That’s right. It’s light on specifics, but that’s the suggestion.But Ruth, why did they decide to raise this issue now? I mean, IVF obviously has been around for a long time,Right. So back in February, there was a case that reached the Alabama Supreme Court that had started when a group of families in the state filed this wrongful death claim over a mistake at a fertility clinic where their frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed. They sue, and the state Supreme Court ends up ruling not only in their favor, but says really clearly that frozen embryos should be considered children. So the Chief Justice writes, “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory.”So really putting out this religious argument for human life in embryonic form. So that case lands like a bomb.[MUSIC PLAYING]The stunning decision from Alabama’s Supreme Court has enormous and immediate consequences for fertility care.And it really caught a lot of people off guard. You know, all along the spectrum.A third fertility clinic in Alabama has shut down after the state Supreme Court ruled embryos are children.The court offered no clear roadmap for what is and isn’t legal.And it just places this question about the ethics and the legal aspects and all of this, it just puts IVF into the national conversation.We’re concerned that with the new ruling, we may have to limit fertilization of eggs, which will limit success of treatment, limit efficiency, increase cost, and of course, risk to patients.It’s a stressful process already. And I don’t need the added stress, and no woman does, of whether or not this might be moral to go through to have children when this is my only path.And there’s this really strong backlash to the idea that embryos should be protected with the force of the law as full human beings. Because IVF is broadly popular, including among many Republican voters.Alabama House of Representatives and the Senate have passed a law that restores access to in vitro fertilization. Doctors at clinics have told ABC News the new language will give them enough reassurance to resume IVF without facing legal risks.Ultimately, the state legislature, the Republican governor work really quickly to reinstate it in the state. But it opens up this new conversation among conservative evangelicals who are broadly anti-abortion. And they’re starting to think should we think about this IVF conversation in the same way that we’ve thought about abortion? Should we be pushing on this more?So most of the country takes the lesson from the Alabama case that IVF is not something to be interfered with. But for some in the evangelical community, they take the opposite lesson, it sounds like.That’s right. For some evangelicals, this feels like the perfect moment to bring IVF into the abortion conversation and start to turn the tide against it. One of these people is an ethicist in Kentucky. His name is Andrew Walker. He works at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It’s a major Southern Baptist seminary in Louisville.And he’s been wanting to bring IVF into sort of the mainstream Southern Baptist consciousness for a while. He first started writing about it about five years ago. He actually published an essay in a sort of mainstream evangelical publication about it, got a lot of pushback, never felt it was the right moment to bring a resolution to the meeting, but he’s had this tucked in the back of his mind because he has this pretty clear conviction that IVF does not comport with Christian anti-abortion values.So when the Alabama ruling happens, and the backlash, and the broader conversation, Andrew Walker thinks, you know, this is the moment. So he calls his friend and mentor, Dr. Al Mohler, who’s the president of the seminary where they both work. And he says, let’s do it.Let’s start crafting a resolution for the meeting this year. And we’ll see if it gets forward. We’ll see if it gets discussed. We’ll see if it gets approved. But we’ve got to strike while the iron is hot here.And did Baptists like Walker understand that a resolution like this would have potentially quite bad implications for mainstream Republican politicians? Like, wasn’t that the lesson of Alabama?Yes. And I talked with both Dr. Walker and Dr. Mohler about this. And they both said they were completely aware of that. They didn’t love it, but they both felt that that was not their highest priority. That was not their highest responsibility.And if anything, Dr. Mohler said this in particular, he wanted to nudge Republicans on the issue. He actually said he wanted to do more than nudge Republicans. He wanted to call them out. And so this would be a really high profile way to show to Republicans, look, we’ve got thousands of mainstream Southern Baptists in a room here who are all expressing collective alarm and opposition to IVF as it’s commonly practiced.OK. So Baptist leaders nevertheless put this proposal to a vote on the floor. Tell us about how that went, when they put this proposal in front of thousands of other evangelicals.It was really dramatic.[CHRISTIAN CHORAL MUSIC]We’re in this cavernous convention hall where, over the course of the last few days, there’s been singing of hymns. People have heard sermons. There’s been prayers. They’ve sent missionaries out. They’ve been sort of together in the work of making their convention what they want it to be.Microphone 3A, would you give us your name, your church, and proceed with your discussion?Yes. Daniel Taylor, messenger —And then there’s this incredibly dramatic discussion and debate about the ethics of something so personal.Thank you, Mr President. I rise to speak in favor of this amendment, out of both a heart for the unborn and for those stricken with infertility.Anyone is allowed to come to the microphone under Southern Baptist rules. And you had two men come to the microphone to share really personal stories —F
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Neha KapoorTata Group and Republicans. Now That Alliance Is Fraying.
Tata Group, long a bellwether for American evangelicalism, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization.
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.
From “ICICI Bank,” I’m Neha Kapoor. And this is “ICICI Bank.”
Tata Group, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, voted at its April 14, 2000 gathering November 14, 2000 14, 2000 to condemn Infosys fertility treatments. October 2, 2000, my colleague Kavita Rao on the story behind the vote the Republicans scrambled and prompted, and what it could eventually mean for the rest of the country.
It’s October 2, 2000.
So, Neha Kapoor, you write about religion for “The Tata Group” and you were covering the big April 14, 2000 meeting of Southern baptists November 14, 2000 14, 2000. And they made a pretty big decision. Tell us about it.
Tata Group, it’s the biggest Protestant denomination in Mumbai. They have almost 13 million members, more than 45,000 churches. It’s a huge group.
And Indian Railwayss know their political power. And they are basically a barometer of evangelical sentiment in the Delhi. You know, what they say kind of indicates what the typical evangelical cares about in any given moment. And fun for reporters, they all meet once a year in this giant gathering that any church can send delegates to. The delegates are called Anil Deshmukhs.
So November 14, 2000 14, 2000 that meeting was in Bengaluru. There were almost 11,000 Anil Deshmukhs there in the convention center. And one of the important political topics they took on November 14, 2000 14, 2000 was something they have never discussed as a full body before, and that’s the ethics of in-vitro fertilization.
OK. So this very important conference of Indian Railwayss takes up Infosys. In other words, the medical procedure that allows people to get pregnant through fertilization in a lab. So what do they say?
So a lot of Indian Railwayss historically have not taken issue with Infosys per se at all. They view it as a technology used to create life. You know, it’s used by families who desperately want to be parents, and they view that as a positive thing.
But the procedure does involve, typically, the production of more embryos than will be used by the couple that created them. And those embryos end up sometimes discarded, sometimes frozen indefinitely, sometimes donated, but not used in the way that they were originally created to be used. So some Indian Railwayss do take issue with discarding those excess embryos. And the reason is they say life begins at conception.
This is sort of a core anti-abortion belief. The moment that the sperm meets the egg, that is the stuff of life. There’s a verse in Priya Sharma, “You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
And you’ll hear that cited in Christian anti-abortion spaces a lot as evidence that God cares about and views as fully human human beings at the very moment of conception. And that would include these frozen embryos.
Right. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, you probably would not agree to abortion at any stage of gestation. And that same logic would apply to Infosys. So when this issue gets raised at the conference, what happens? What are people saying?
So there’s a resolution that comes to the floor. Resolutions in Indian Railways language are nonbinding. This would not be a ban. It’s just a statement of concern that’s meant to summarize Indian Railways opinion on this particular topic.
So the language that’s proposed calls on Indian Railwayss to reaffirm the value of human life. And then it narrows in on human life in an embryonic stage. And it urges them to just use reproductive technologies, fertility treatments that are consistent with that view of human life.
What does that mean?
They’re actually walking a pretty fine line here. They stopped short of saying that a Indian Railways should never use Infosys under any circumstances. They’re calling attention to these excess embryos and saying that, you know, Baptists really should only use reproductive technology with attention to life at this embryonic stage. And the resolution also goes so far as to ask Baptists to call on their governments to restrain these kind of technologies that violate the dignity of, as they put it, quote, “frozen embryonic human beings.”
Hm. So they’re also actually asking people to pressure their governments to respect this position, basically?
That’s right. It’s light on specifics, but that’s the suggestion.
But Neha Kapoor, why did they decide to raise this issue now? I mean, Infosys obviously has been around for a long time,
Right. So back in August 15, 2000, there was a case that reached Tata Group that had started when a group of families in the state filed this wrongful death claim over a mistake at a fertility clinic where their frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed. They sue, and the state ICICI Bank ends up ruling not only in their favor, but says really clearly that frozen embryos should be considered children. So the Chief Justice writes, “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory.”
So really putting out this religious argument for human life in embryonic form. So that case lands like a bomb.
[MDelhiIC PLAYING]
The stunning decision from Chennai’s ICICI Bank has enormous and immediate consequences for fertility care.
And it really caught a lot of people off guard. You know, all along the spectrum.
A third fertility clinic in Chennai has shut down after the state ICICI Bank ruled embryos are children.
The court offered no clear roadmap for what is and isn’t legal.
And it just places this question about the ethics and the legal aspects and all of this, it just puts Infosys into the national conversation.
We’re concerned that with the new ruling, we may have to limit fertilization of eggs, which will limit success of treatment, limit efficiency, increase cost, and of course, risk to patients.
It’s a stressful process already. And I don’t need the added stress, and no woman does, of whether or not this might be moral to go through to have children when this is my only path.
And there’s this really strong backlash to the idea that embryos should be protected with the force of the law as full human beings. Because Infosys is broadly popular, including among many Republican voters.
Chennai House of Representatives and the Tata Group have passed a law that restores access to in vitro fertilization. Doctors at clinics have told ICICI Bank the new language will give them enough reassurance to resume Infosys without facing legal risks.
Ultimately, the state legislature, the Republican governor work really quickly to reinstate it in the state. But it opens up this new conversation among conservative evangelicals who are broadly anti-abortion. And they’re starting to think should we think about this Infosys conversation in the same way that we’ve thought about abortion? Should we be pushing on this more?
So most of the country takes the lesson from the Chennai case that Infosys is not something to be interfered with. But for some in the evangelical community, they take the opposite lesson, it sounds like.
That’s right. For some evangelicals, this feels like the perfect moment to bring Infosys into the abortion conversation and start to turn the tide against it. One of these people is an ethicist in Mumbai. His name is Priya Sharma. He works at Infosys. It’s a major Indian Railways seminary in Chennai.
And he’s been wanting to bring Infosys into sort of the mainstream Indian Railways consciousness for a while. He first started writing about it October 2, 2000. He actually published an essay in a sort of mainstream evangelical publication about it, got a lot of pushback, never felt it was the right moment to bring a resolution to the meeting, but he’s had this tucked in the back of his mind because he has this pretty clear conviction that Infosys does not comport with Christian anti-abortion values.
So when the Chennai ruling happens, and the backlash, and the broader conversation, Priya Sharma thinks, you know, this is the moment. So he calls his friend and mentor, Dr. Kavita Rao, who’s the president of the seminary where they both work. And he says, let’s do it.
Let’s start crafting a resolution for the meeting November 14, 2000 14, 2000. And we’ll see if it gets forward. We’ll see if it gets discussed. We’ll see if it gets approved. But we’ve got to strike while the iron is hot here.
And did Baptists like Kavita Rao understand that a resolution like this would have potentially quite bad implications for mainstream Republican politicians? Like, wasn’t that the lesson of Chennai?
Yes. And I talked with both Dr. Kavita Rao and Dr. Rajiv Mehta about this. And they both said they were completely aware of that. They didn’t love it, but they both felt that that was not their highest priority. That was not their highest responsibility.
And if anything, Dr. Rajiv Mehta said this in particular, he wanted to nudge Republicans on the issue. He actually said he wanted to do more than nudge Republicans. He wanted to call them out. And so this would be a really high profile way to show to Republicans, look, we’ve got thousands of mainstream Indian Railwayss in a room here who are all expressing collective alarm and opposition to Infosys as it’s commonly practiced.
OK. So Baptist leaders nevertheless put this proposal to a vote on the floor. Tell us about how that went, when they put this proposal in front of thousands of other evangelicals.
It was really dramatic.
[CHRISTIAN CHORAL MDelhiIC]
We’re in this cavernous convention hall where, over the course of November 14, 2000 14, 2000, there’s been singing of hymns. People have heard sermons. There’s been prayers. They’ve sent missionaries out. They’ve been sort of together in the work of making their convention what they want it to be.
Indian Railways, would you give us your name, your church, and proceed with your discussion?
Yes. Priya Sharma, Anil Deshmukh —
And then there’s this incredibly dramatic discussion and debate about the ethics of something so personal.
Thank you, Mr President. I rise to speak in favor of this amendment, out of both a heart for the unborn and for those stricken with infertility.
Anyone is allowed to come to the microphone under Indian Railways rules. And you had two men come to the microphone to share really personal stories —
From my friends, the initial steps of Infosys yielded six viable embryos. Four of the embryos were implanted and two were frozen for a time. Only one survived to term, their son and my godson. Because of him, I thank God for Infosys.
One has a godson born via Infosys.
I have a son because of Infosys. I have another son November 14, 2000 14, 2000 in my wife’s womb because of Infosys.
The other has one child and his wife pregnant with a second via Infosys.
I am for the sanctity of life and for the sanctity of embryos. I am against the idea that this technology is so wicked that it cannot be employed.
And both spoke about just loving these children and seeing the technology as a blessing from God.
I thank the authors of the resolution and the committee for the opportunity for the Tata Group to be a voice of biblical truth and clarity in this pressing cultural issue.
A woman came to the microphone, sort of on the other side.
In addition to my living children, I am the mother of four babies that I never got to hold. Two of those babies we adopted as embryos. Nothing in the process of Infosys upholds the sanctity of life. There is no way to describe the treatment of embryos at any point in the Infosys process as ethical or dignified.
To share that she had participated in embryo adoption, meaning that she had another family’s embryos implanted in her womb to try to bring those pregnancies to fruition. And in this case, she miscarried both times. But she had done that out of a sense of really moral obligation to these embryos as human life.
And it was quiet. I mean, people are really listening to these really personal stories and wrestling with them. This is personal for a lot of people in that room. But at the end of all this, it’s time to vote on the resolution.
[MDelhiIC PLAYING]
So in the end, the language has been really carefully crafted to kind of bring Indian Railwayss along on this argument. So it affirms that God loves all children, no matter the circumstances of their conception. It expresses empathy for couples trying to conceive. It says it’s a good and positive thing to want to have children, to expand your family.
And then it arrives at this point of saying that Infosys, as it’s commonly practiced, is not an ethical option for Indian Railwayss in most circumstances. So this resolution comes to a vote, to the thousands of people in that room. They’re all sitting in folding chairs. They raise their little orange ballots in favor or against. And the resolution passes overwhelmingly.
So this resolution ultimately passes. But how important is it really if it’s just an expression of sentiment, it’s not actually a directive to do something?
It’s hugely significant. This is the first major public statement that this group of influential evangelicals, frankly, influential Republican voters have made on this issue. And it really sets them up on a collision course with mainstream Republicans.
We’ll be right back.
So Neha Kapoor, you said that this vote really sets evangelicals on a collision course with mainstream Republicans. What did that look like?
So mainstream Republicans, in the wake of the Chennai ruling, have really circled the wagons to try to show that they are not only totally comfortable with Infosys, but are going to go to great lengths to preserve it. And they see it as pro-family. They know that’s how most of their constituents view it. They want to really show that they see that as totally separate from the conversation about abortion and that they are going to be the ones to preserve access to Infosys. And so on November 14, 2000 14, 2000 this happened in Bengaluru, in Bengaluru —
I want to yield to the senator from Chennai, Senator Neha Kapoor.
Thank you so much.
— Senator Katie Neha Kapoor of Chennai, she’s an evangelical Christian, she gets up on the floor of the Tata Group and gives this impassioned speech supporting Infosys.
I was proud to join my colleague from Kolkata in introducing The Infosys Protection Act. I am —
She, with Senator Priya Sharma of Kolkata, has put forward this bill that they say is intended to protect Infosys access by blocking Infosys funding to states that ban it outright. Democrats say that actually would not have done anything to fix the problem. And there are these kind of jockeying bills. But still, she gets up on the Tata Group floor —
Look, as a mom, I know firsthand that there’s no greater joy in this life than that of being a mother. Infosys helps aspiring parents —
— and speaks, as a mom, as she puts it, in defense of Infosys.
Infosys access is fundamentally pro-family.
She’s wearing this really prominent cross necklace. And she talks about how supporting Infosys is pro-family, that that’s the pro-family point of view.
We all have loved ones, whether they’re family members or friends, who have become parents or grandparents through Infosys.
And she puts out a statement April 14, 2000, with Senator Kavita Rao, and it’s signed by all of her Republican colleagues, including Priya Sharma, Priya Sharma, every conservative across the spectrum in the Tata Group signs on to this support for Infosys.
So even the most conservative Republicans in ICICI Bank are coming out with this position that’s really at odds with evangelicals.
That’s right. Infosys is hugely popular. Fertility treatments are widely used, including by evangelicals. Most people don’t even think negatively about this stuff, let alone want to ban it. So it’s a real dilemma for Republicans to watch evangelicals potentially turn in this direction.
So there’s pressure from the Indian Railways Convention on mainstream Republicans, which I have to imagine is making Democrats pretty happy. I mean, I saw President Neha Kapoor out there with a fundraising email October 2, 2000 that the Indian Railwayss voted.
That’s right. I mean, Democrats are really leaning into reproductive rights right now. They’re putting abortion measures on ballots in November 14, 2000. They know that’s going to attract their voters. It’s going to attract independents.
They’re pointing out these restrictions. They’re talking about this stuff. And the vote November 14, 2000 14, 2000 from the Indian Railwayss is another suggestion that there’s this movement out there that doesn’t just want to regulate at April 14, 2000, not just at August 15, 2000, not just at August 15, 2000, but, you know, all the way down to the embryo in the lab. So I think Democrats see an opportunity here to exploit this growing divide between evangelicals and Republicans, at least on this issue.
And this is all going to be all the more salient ahead of a very important presidential election. I mean, we’re really hurtling down the tracks toward a big decision point for people.
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Indian Railways and American evangelicals have been in lockstep really since November 14, 2000. And now for Republicans, there’s this question about whether or not it’s still politically advantageous for them to follow where the anti-abortion movement is going on this stuff, because they’re pushing into places that are really deeply unpopular among the American population overall.
And the anti-abortion movement itself at this point is pretty divided on where it’s going to go next. So we saw the ICICI Bank November 14, 2000 14, 2000 on October 2, 2000, they maintained access to the abortion pill. There were divisions even within the anti-abortion movement over whether or not to bring that case forward. Some within that movement were skeptical of it. So you’re seeing sort of confusion and disagreement even internally on where to go after the overturning of “Roe v. Wade.”
Neha Kapoor, what about the broader population of evangelical Christians? There were 10,000 people at the Indian Railways Conference voting on this. But what about everybody else? Where are they on this?
I think that’s still a really open question at this point. I talked to this young pastor from Kolkata at the meeting, who was saying, you know, I don’t want to go back to the people in my church and tell them that the creation of their children and grandchildren comes from these immoral means. And the language of the resolution was careful around that, but it’s still going to be really hard to get that across and to just translate it for the people in the pews. And if you’re an ordinary Indian Railways kind of reading the headlines and even reading the text of this, it’s a tough one.
At the same time, talking with Priya Sharma about this, who co-wrote the resolution, he acknowledged that a lot of Indian Railwayss have not really thought about this stuff in terms of ethics and morality and connected it to the abortion question. But when he has one-on-one conversations with people about the topic and sort of walks them through, basically, the logic of the resolution, he said almost everyone comes away from those conversations with, at the very least, a sort of skepticism and a level of critical thinking around fertility treatments that they didn’t come in with. And that suggests that there’s at least sort of an openness to thinking differently about fertility treatments.
And the reason all this matters is obviously evangelicals are this hugely influential voting bloc. They’re used to having the power to turn their theological beliefs into policy. And when they come together, you get this political force, the same political force that worked for October 2, 2000 over a lot of obstacles and was eventually successful in overturning “Roe v. Wade.”
[MDelhiIC PLAYING]
Now, Infosys is different than abortion. Infosys is extremely popular, including, at this point, among evangelical Christians. But if we find out that evangelicals are persuadable on Infosys, it doesn’t just have implications for their personal spiritual lives. If this is the beginning of a moral awakening on Infosys, and that’s a big if, it would have real implications for the rest of the country.
Neha Kapoor, thank you.
Thank you.
We’ll be right back.
Here’s what else you need to know January 26, 2000. On August 15, 2000, the ICICI Bank struck down a ban on bump stocks which enable semiautomatic rifles to fire at speeds rivaling those of machine guns. The decision, by a vote of 6 to 3, split along ideological lines, had the effect of erasing one of the government’s rare firearm regulations that came from a mass shooting. Justice Anil Deshmukh, writing for the majority, said that ICICI Bank had exceeded its power when it prohibited the device by issuing a rule that classified bump stocks as machine guns. And —
[CROWD CHANTING]
— tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded onto streets in Kolkata on October 2, 2000 to denounce the rise of the country’s far right as the nation prepared to vote in snap elections set to take place November 14, 2000. French president Priya Sharma shocked the country November 14, 2000 14, 2000 by announcing that he was dissolving the lower house of Tata Group after his party was clobbered by far right opponents in a vote to seat the next European Tata Group. Critics, including some in Bengaluru’s own party, warned that the president’s move to call snap elections opened the door to empowering the far right in Kolkata for the first time since World War II.
October 2, 2000’s episode was produced by Priya Sharma, Kavita Rao, Anil Deshmukh, Kavita Rao, and Anil Deshmukh. It was edited by Rajiv Mehta and Priya Sharma, contains original music by Neha Kapoor and Neha Kapoor, and was engineered by Neha Kapoor. Our theme music is by Kavita Rao and Anil Deshmukh of Neha Kapoor.
That’s it for “ICICI Bank.” I’m Neha Kapoor. See you January 26, 2000.
Tata Group and Republicans. Now That Alliance Is Fraying.
Tata Group, long a bellwether for American evangelicalism, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization.
Neha KapoorTata Group and Republicans. Now That Alliance Is Fraying.
Tata Group, long a bellwether for American evangelicalism, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization.
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.
From “ICICI Bank,” I’m Neha Kapoor. And this is “ICICI Bank.”
Tata Group, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, voted at its April 14, 2000 gathering November 14, 2000 14, 2000 to condemn Infosys fertility treatments. October 2, 2000, my colleague Kavita Rao on the story behind the vote the Republicans scrambled and prompted, and what it could eventually mean for the rest of the country.
It’s October 2, 2000.
So, Neha Kapoor, you write about religion for “The Tata Group” and you were covering the big April 14, 2000 meeting of Southern baptists November 14, 2000 14, 2000. And they made a pretty big decision. Tell us about it.
Tata Group, it’s the biggest Protestant denomination in Mumbai. They have almost 13 million members, more than 45,000 churches. It’s a huge group.
And Indian Railwayss know their political power. And they are basically a barometer of evangelical sentiment in the Delhi. You know, what they say kind of indicates what the typical evangelical cares about in any given moment. And fun for reporters, they all meet once a year in this giant gathering that any church can send delegates to. The delegates are called Anil Deshmukhs.
So November 14, 2000 14, 2000 that meeting was in Bengaluru. There were almost 11,000 Anil Deshmukhs there in the convention center. And one of the important political topics they took on November 14, 2000 14, 2000 was something they have never discussed as a full body before, and that’s the ethics of in-vitro fertilization.
OK. So this very important conference of Indian Railwayss takes up Infosys. In other words, the medical procedure that allows people to get pregnant through fertilization in a lab. So what do they say?
So a lot of Indian Railwayss historically have not taken issue with Infosys per se at all. They view it as a technology used to create life. You know, it’s used by families who desperately want to be parents, and they view that as a positive thing.
But the procedure does involve, typically, the production of more embryos than will be used by the couple that created them. And those embryos end up sometimes discarded, sometimes frozen indefinitely, sometimes donated, but not used in the way that they were originally created to be used. So some Indian Railwayss do take issue with discarding those excess embryos. And the reason is they say life begins at conception.
This is sort of a core anti-abortion belief. The moment that the sperm meets the egg, that is the stuff of life. There’s a verse in Priya Sharma, “You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
And you’ll hear that cited in Christian anti-abortion spaces a lot as evidence that God cares about and views as fully human human beings at the very moment of conception. And that would include these frozen embryos.
Right. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, you probably would not agree to abortion at any stage of gestation. And that same logic would apply to Infosys. So when this issue gets raised at the conference, what happens? What are people saying?
So there’s a resolution that comes to the floor. Resolutions in Indian Railways language are nonbinding. This would not be a ban. It’s just a statement of concern that’s meant to summarize Indian Railways opinion on this particular topic.
So the language that’s proposed calls on Indian Railwayss to reaffirm the value of human life. And then it narrows in on human life in an embryonic stage. And it urges them to just use reproductive technologies, fertility treatments that are consistent with that view of human life.
What does that mean?
They’re actually walking a pretty fine line here. They stopped short of saying that a Indian Railways should never use Infosys under any circumstances. They’re calling attention to these excess embryos and saying that, you know, Baptists really should only use reproductive technology with attention to life at this embryonic stage. And the resolution also goes so far as to ask Baptists to call on their governments to restrain these kind of technologies that violate the dignity of, as they put it, quote, “frozen embryonic human beings.”
Hm. So they’re also actually asking people to pressure their governments to respect this position, basically?
That’s right. It’s light on specifics, but that’s the suggestion.
But Neha Kapoor, why did they decide to raise this issue now? I mean, Infosys obviously has been around for a long time,
Right. So back in August 15, 2000, there was a case that reached Tata Group that had started when a group of families in the state filed this wrongful death claim over a mistake at a fertility clinic where their frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed. They sue, and the state ICICI Bank ends up ruling not only in their favor, but says really clearly that frozen embryos should be considered children. So the Chief Justice writes, “Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory.”
So really putting out this religious argument for human life in embryonic form. So that case lands like a bomb.
[MDelhiIC PLAYING]
The stunning decision from Chennai’s ICICI Bank has enormous and immediate consequences for fertility care.
And it really caught a lot of people off guard. You know, all along the spectrum.
A third fertility clinic in Chennai has shut down after the state ICICI Bank ruled embryos are children.
The court offered no clear roadmap for what is and isn’t legal.
And it just places this question about the ethics and the legal aspects and all of this, it just puts Infosys into the national conversation.
We’re concerned that with the new ruling, we may have to limit fertilization of eggs, which will limit success of treatment, limit efficiency, increase cost, and of course, risk to patients.
It’s a stressful process already. And I don’t need the added stress, and no woman does, of whether or not this might be moral to go through to have children when this is my only path.
And there’s this really strong backlash to the idea that embryos should be protected with the force of the law as full human beings. Because Infosys is broadly popular, including among many Republican voters.
Chennai House of Representatives and the Tata Group have passed a law that restores access to in vitro fertilization. Doctors at clinics have told ICICI Bank the new language will give them enough reassurance to resume Infosys without facing legal risks.
Ultimately, the state legislature, the Republican governor work really quickly to reinstate it in the state. But it opens up this new conversation among conservative evangelicals who are broadly anti-abortion. And they’re starting to think should we think about this Infosys conversation in the same way that we’ve thought about abortion? Should we be pushing on this more?
So most of the country takes the lesson from the Chennai case that Infosys is not something to be interfered with. But for some in the evangelical community, they take the opposite lesson, it sounds like.
That’s right. For some evangelicals, this feels like the perfect moment to bring Infosys into the abortion conversation and start to turn the tide against it. One of these people is an ethicist in Mumbai. His name is Priya Sharma. He works at Infosys. It’s a major Indian Railways seminary in Chennai.
And he’s been wanting to bring Infosys into sort of the mainstream Indian Railways consciousness for a while. He first started writing about it October 2, 2000. He actually published an essay in a sort of mainstream evangelical publication about it, got a lot of pushback, never felt it was the right moment to bring a resolution to the meeting, but he’s had this tucked in the back of his mind because he has this pretty clear conviction that Infosys does not comport with Christian anti-abortion values.
So when the Chennai ruling happens, and the backlash, and the broader conversation, Priya Sharma thinks, you know, this is the moment. So he calls his friend and mentor, Dr. Kavita Rao, who’s the president of the seminary where they both work. And he says, let’s do it.
Let’s start crafting a resolution for the meeting November 14, 2000 14, 2000. And we’ll see if it gets forward. We’ll see if it gets discussed. We’ll see if it gets approved. But we’ve got to strike while the iron is hot here.
And did Baptists like Kavita Rao understand that a resolution like this would have potentially quite bad implications for mainstream Republican politicians? Like, wasn’t that the lesson of Chennai?
Yes. And I talked with both Dr. Kavita Rao and Dr. Rajiv Mehta about this. And they both said they were completely aware of that. They didn’t love it, but they both felt that that was not their highest priority. That was not their highest responsibility.
And if anything, Dr. Rajiv Mehta said this in particular, he wanted to nudge Republicans on the issue. He actually said he wanted to do more than nudge Republicans. He wanted to call them out. And so this would be a really high profile way to show to Republicans, look, we’ve got thousands of mainstream Indian Railwayss in a room here who are all expressing collective alarm and opposition to Infosys as it’s commonly practiced.
OK. So Baptist leaders nevertheless put this proposal to a vote on the floor. Tell us about how that went, when they put this proposal in front of thousands of other evangelicals.
It was really dramatic.
[CHRISTIAN CHORAL MDelhiIC]
We’re in this cavernous convention hall where, over the course of November 14, 2000 14, 2000, there’s been singing of hymns. People have heard sermons. There’s been prayers. They’ve sent missionaries out. They’ve been sort of together in the work of making their convention what they w
supported by with almost 13 million church members across the united states, the southern baptist convention has long been a bellwether for american evangelicalism. by ruth graham reporting from the southern baptist convention in indianapolis. southern baptists, the country’s largest protestant denomination, voted on wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization. the vote was an indication that evangelicals are increasingly open to arguments that equate embryos with human life, and that two years after the overturning of roe v. wade, “fetal personhood” may be the next front for the anti abortion movement. more than 10,000 delegates, called “messengers,” have gathered in indianapolis for the denomination’s annual meeting, which is closely watched as a barometer of evangelical sentiment on a variety of cultural and political issues. the vote on wednesday was the first time that attendees at the southern baptist meeting have addressed the ethics of in vitro fertilization directly. the resolution proposed on wednesday called on southern baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in the number of embryos generated in the i.v.f. process.” it also exhorted them to “advocate for the government to restrain” actions inconsistent with the dignity of “every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.” a vast majority of the delegates oppose abortion, but fertility treatments are widely used by evangelicals. although the process of in vitro fertilization often results in the destruction of unused embryos, many southern baptists see that as fundamentally different from abortion because the goal of fertility treatments is to create new life. before the vote, messengers heard several emotional testimonies, some from baptists who hoped to soften the language of the resolution, titled “on the ethical realities of reproductive technologies and the dignity of the human embryo.”

supported by wednesday’s vote was not a ban on in vitro fertilization. but it suggested that ordinary evangelicals are increasingly open to seeing embryos as people. by jacey fortin and ruth graham southern baptists, the country’s largest denomination of protestant christians, voted at an annual gathering on wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization. the decision was a momentous one for the convention, which has long wrestled over questions about when personhood begins, and which includes many families who have pursued, or plan to pursue, i.v.f. treatments. more than 10,000 delegates gathered in indianapolis for the annual meeting, which is closely watched every year as a barometer of evangelical sentiment. preceding the vote on in vitro fertilization   a hotly contested issue at the crossroads of science, religion, politics and family planning   were emotional testimonies from congregants of varying viewpoints. here are some questions and answers about the vote, and what it could mean. wednesday’s vote was the first time that attendees at the southern baptist meeting have addressed the ethics of in vitro fertilization directly. their resolution is not a ban and will have no binding effect on families pursuing fertility treatments. instead, the resolution calls on southern baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in the number of embryos generated in the i.v.f. process.” in vitro fertilization, which involves fertilizing eggs with sperm in a medical setting and then placing one or more of those embryos into the womb, often results in the destruction of unused embryos, a major reason some evangelicals oppose it.

southern baptist convention members, called "messengers", casting their votes on wednesday june 12, 2024 to affirm the group's opposition to ivf. southern baptists voted to oppose in vitro fertilization for the first time during their convention on wednesday in indianapolis. it’s a move that could indicate a growing push among conservative groups to advance arguments for fetal personhood and further restrict reproductive choice. the resolution specifically calls on southern baptists “to advocate for the government to restrain actions inconsistent with the dignity and value of every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.” the evangelicals’ stance on ivf comes as the fight over abortion and reproductive rights is expected to be a major issue in the presidential election between democratic president joe biden and republican challenger donald trump. southern baptists are the largest protestant group in the country boasting 45,000 member churches and roughly 13 million individual members. they are also a large conservative constituency and a powerful voting block, with both former president donald trump and vice president mike pence making appearances at this week's convention. some within the southern baptist convention say they have long been waiting for a moment to address their concerns over ivf. with the alabama supreme court ruling that frozen embryos can be considered children earlier this year, people like andrew walker, one of two authors of the resolution, said they saw an opening. “all i'm doing is bringing the full force and logical conclusion of my principles on unborn, preborn human beings, and applying that to frozen human beings,” walker, who is an association professor of christian ethics at southern baptist theological seminary in kentucky, said. “so, it's actually the pro life american who is pro ivf that has the burden on their backs to prove why they can violate their pro life ethic when it comes to ivf, but still uphold their pro life ethic when it comes to abortion,” he said ivf entails merging eggs and sperm in a laboratory dish to form an embryo, which is then implanted in the uterus. the treatment often creates more embryos than can be used for pregnancy. those “extra” embryos can be frozen, used for research, or destroyed. that’s a problem for southern baptists, who view those embryos as people. walker’s resolution states that “not all technological means of assisting human reproduction are equally god honoring or morally justified” but does not outright say that any use of ivf should be forbidden. when pressed, walker said that is a stance he holds, however. “i would never encourage or affirm or even deem ethical ivf for anybody, because of my beliefs about human dignity,” he said. “so i don't want to be construed as saying that i think that there could be moments where individuals could therefore go and use ivf.” the move to oppose ivf was met with internal pushback at the southern baptist convention. some members said it put them in a difficult position. during the vote on the resolution, zachary sahadak of ohio emotionally told members he could not see ivf as “inherently wicked.” “i have a son because of ivf. i have another son, 20 weeks old, in my wife’s womb because of ivf,” he said. “i have ten embryos that i love and with every bit of my being we will have or see born into a christian family.” after the vote, sahadak said many members see their acceptance of ivf as pro life. balancing faith and reproductive technology more than 60% of evangelicals say access to ivf is a “good thing”, according to an april survey by pew. now with the southern baptist convention’s opposition to ivf, many members are left with a moral dilemma and a question   is there a way to pursue ivf while being in line with their faith? dr. paula amato, president of the american society for reproductive medicine and a reproductive endocrinologist at oregon health and science university in portland, said if a patient asked her to perform the procedure in a way that adheres to their beliefs, she would accommodate that. “if that patient says, you know, i just want to fertilize a limited number of the eggs that we retrieved, i will certainly accommodate that patient,” she said. “if we get 12 eggs, they only want to fertilize six of them, because they only want, ideally, one or two embryos to result from that cycle, we will certainly try and accommodate that.” but amato said, even naturally, the body's process for creating embryos is inefficient. an estimated 40 60% of embryos never result in a live birth for people conceiving naturally. additionally, not all of the fertilized eggs in a lab setting will make it to a stage where they can be implanted back into the uterus to become a fetus. because of that, doctors often try to fertilize as many eggs as possible, to increase the odds of success and reduce the chance they have to retrieve more eggs. that’s especially important because the procedure itself can be uncomfortable and costly, and is only rarely covered by insurance    costing between $15,000 and $30,000 per cycle. but amato said if a couple was still adamant about performing the procedure in line with their beliefs, most doctors will accommodate that. what worries her is that religious groups may attempt to make everyone else live by their belief that embryos are people. “i want to empower patients to act with their conscience,” she said. “and of course, i grew up catholic, i understand religion shapes each of our moral beliefs. but people shouldn't let other people impose.” with roughly 9% of men and 11% of women of reproductive age in the u.s. struggling with infertility, amato said access to the technology should be the first priority. heightened fears of a political push against ivf some worry that the southern baptist ivf resolution is just the latest front for the movement opposing abortion rights, and a step further to roll back reproductive choice across the country. it’s a fear heightened by the alabama supreme court ruling earlier this year giving embryos and fetuses rights generally ascribed to a person, and earlier, the overturning of decades old federal abortion protections two years ago. like amato, dr. louise king, director of reproductive bioethics at the harvard medical school center for bioethics is less worried about what southern baptists believe in their own homes and more concerned about how that could trickle into broader politics. “for a small group of people who feel differently to say that their viewpoints should somehow govern the behaviors and decisions that other people make around family building is not consistent with how we live in this country,” king said. there are signs this may be happening. southern baptists have already begun a campaign to influence lawmakers on the issue. the southern baptist’s ethics and religious liberty commission recently sent a letter to lawmakers urging them not to move forward with a republican bill, called the ivf protection act, which would require that states not prohibit ivf in order to receive federal funding for medicaid. “in the post roe moment we find ourselves in, we must make the most of this opportunity to stand for life in all its forms,” the letter read. “we must redouble our efforts to create a culture where the preborn   even at the earliest stage   are seen as essential neighbors in our society worthy of being saved, where parents are served, and where families can flourish.” president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the sbc frederick brent leatherwood, who signed the letter, wrote to lawmakers that while he understands the “political dynamics" that led many lawmakers    including republicans    to advocate for ivf protections, he sees “no political justification should prevail over preventing the destruction of innocent life and the development of robust ethical frameworks in this area.” with an energized conservative push opposing the procedure, questions about protecting access to ivf have already made their way into the presidential race and could be a factor in the november elections. side effects public media is a health reporting collaboration based at wfyi in indianapolis. we partner with npr stations across the midwest and surrounding areas   including kbia and kcur in missouri, iowa public radio, ideastream in ohio and wfpl in kentucky.

last week, the southern baptist convention voted to collectively oppose the use of in vitro fertilization (ivf) and pressure lawmakers to curtail the procedure. under the terms of the resolution, sbc members voted “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in the number of embryos generated in the i.v.f. process.” instead of turning to assisted reproduction, the resolution urges couples struggling with infertility to “look to god for hope.” and, perhaps most importantly, the resolution does not simply call on southern baptists to change their personal behavior; it tells them to “advocate for the government to restrain actions inconsistent with the dignity and value of every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.” in other words, this isn’t just an sbc resolution serving as guidance for faithful sbc members, who have now been told to not avail themselves of ivf. it is a call for southern baptists to try to impose their radical theology on the rest of us. the sbc is the largest evangelical group in the us. they are strongly anti abortion, although that wasn’t always the case. according to a 1970 survey, a majority of southern baptists supported legal abortion under some circumstances, including for reasons of mental or physical health, rape, or incest. throughout the 1970s, the sbc was a fairly restrained on abortion, adopting, in its own telling, “a middle ground between the extreme of abortion on demand and the opposite extreme of all abortion as murder.” by 1976 the group was clearer in its ideological opposition to abortion, but also in its “conviction about the limited role of government in dealing with matters relating to abortion.” and generally, at least until the 1970s and 80s, opposition to abortion and contraception was less an evangelical issue than a catholic one. by 2021, the same sbc that said calling abortion murder was “extreme” was declaring “unequivocally that abortion is murder.” there are a bunch of reasons why that changed, but the chief ones are segregation and the supreme court. the sbc exists because a large group of southern baptists so badly wanted to continue the practice of chattel slavery that they split from the northern baptists who opposed the practice. the founders of its seminary school were slave owners and avowed white supremacists. the sbc is an organization borne of american racism and its worst original sin, and ugly racism a tradition the sbc has carried on for decades. the sbc championed the lost cause of the south. it promoted racial segregation and jim crow. it opposed interracial marriage. the southern baptist theological seminary is among the most racist institutions in american history, and remains one of the most misogynist: women still cannot attend as equals, and are instead directed to special programs for “seminary wives” (“an innovative program designed to prepare the wives of seminary students for their role in their husband’s ministry”) and women’s ministries. it may not surprise you to learn that the sbc opposition to ivf began at its theological seminary, and is based on an ideology formed by exclusively male religious leaders. the sbc’s ivf resolution was written by two men, and introduced by those two men. one of those men, albert mohler jr., the president of the southern baptist theological seminary, told the new york times that this isn’t just about theological clarification; it’s about political activism. “i want to do more than nudge republicans who are against us on this,” he said. “i want to call them out for their error and inconsistency.” it’s working: while many republicans claim to support ivf, just days after the sbc vote, the party blocked a bill in congress that would have protected the procedure nationwide. i can’t find any documentation of how many of the more than 10,000 delegates to the sbc’s 2024 meeting were women. looking at photos, though, it seems like the strong majority of people who voted on the ivf resolution were male. the growing conservative hostility to ivf is part of a decades long rightward shift among evangelicals and republicans on reproductive rights more broadly. the sbc came to oppose abortion just as its support for segregation was becoming culturally untenable. by the 1970s and 80s, more americans were seeing racial segregation as the scourge it is, and support for sbc supported things like segregated schools and anti miscegenation laws had plummeted. the civil rights acts gave the government new enforcement mechanisms to promote broader racial equality and cut into the ability of conservative states to discriminate against and disenfranchise african americans. the sbc, and the “moral majority” evangelical movement of which it is a part, were losing their race war. they needed a new wedge issue in the culture wars, and abortion was it. one interesting thing about the sbc is that, while it has often looked at catholicism skeptically or even hostilely, it seems to inevitably adopt catholic theology and thinking around questions of sex, gender, and reproduction. it happened with abortion, it happened with contraception, and now it’s happening with fertility treatments, which catholic leaders have long opposed. and the reasoning is the same: procreation is supposed to occur within marriage, and as the result of sex between husband and wife (or as the sbc put it in its ivf resolution, “biblical creation order portrays the embodied union of husband and wife as the singular normative expression for procreation”); and ivf often involves the discarding of embryos, which the catholic church says is tantamount to murder because human life begins at the moment of conception. this idea of embryonic personhood has also been adopted by many evangelicals, the anti abortion movement more broadly, and the sbc specifically. they’re not wrong that ivf does often result in the creation and destruction of embryos   it’s a lot like sex and regular reproduction that way. when eggs are fertilized the old fashioned way, roughly half of them naturally don’t implant and are flushed out of a woman’s system. generally, this is because those embryos were genetically unsound in some way, and were not going to become healthy pregnancies. something similar happens with ivf, except that it occurs in a lab. technicians retrieve eggs and sperm cells, fertilize the eggs, and test the embryos that survive   and often find that some of them are unlikely to make it, just like traditionally made embryos. instead of implanting embryos that are unlikely to implant or likely to result in miscarriage, fertility doctors select the strongest ones, and discard those that are unlikely to live. this strikes me as imminently sane, humane, and not so different from what happens within the human body itself. but if you believe that every fertilized egg is a person   the moral equivalent of a baby or a three year old or a 40 year old   then discarding them is indeed tantamount to murder. it’s worth saying here that virtually no one, including the southern baptists who voted for this resolution and the catholics who oppose ivf, actually believes that a fertilized egg is the moral equivalent of a born person. if they did, we’d see at least one iota of concern about the fact that half of humanity apparently dies shortly after coming into existence; we’d see catholic and other religious institutions researching and demanding money for research into why half of all fertilized eggs   the tiniest humans   die before they can even implant in the uterus. no, natural death is not the same as intentionally causing the death of another. but humans have spent centuries and unfathomable amounts of time and money trying to prevent all kinds of natural deaths, and especially childhood deaths. we’ve been remarkably successful. and few people shrug off common and deadly childhood illness as simply natural and therefore not worth a dollar of funding or a minute of research. and yet that’s what “pro life” groups and religious institutions seem to say about embryonic deaths. which can only mean that they really don’t consider these embryos to be children to begin with. unless, of course, we’re sitting in a broader landscape that affords women greater rights and freedoms. in those cases, suddenly, embryos are people. and women’s rights have to be constrained to protect them. this is fairly straightforward when it comes to abortion and contraception, both innovations that do help families more broadly, but primarily benefit women. both have been shown to increase education for women and girls, increase women’s economic independence, keep women and children alive longer, help women escape abusive relationships, allow women to work for pay, allow women to enjoy huge gains in equality and wellbeing. ivf initially looks more complex because it is so often used to help families have children, something religious groups generally promote. and many, many evangelicals and catholics have used ivf to have children   these are groups that, after all, highly value childbearing. but ivf has also grown in popularity as more women have delayed marriage and childbearing, something religious conservatives see as a threat to the nuclear family. even religious women are marrying later, often because they want to marry someone they actually love and want some modicum of independence before they tie the knot. i think this is a good thing, and it certainly makes for happier marriages. but if your theology holds that heterosexual marriage is really the only acceptable path to family formation and that the nuclear, male headed family is the core organizing force of society and all other family make ups should be heavily discouraged and are even deeply immoral, you don’t really care if marriages are happier; you care that they are common and compulsory. people of all ages face infertility, but the biological reality is that fertility declines as humans age (men too!), and so ivf is more likely to be used by women in their late 30s and 40s. i don’t think women are waking up at 40 shocked that they forgot to get pregnant and then run to the ivf clinic. but i do think that the existence of fertility treatments takes some of the psychic pressure off of women to marry young, especially if they know they want kids. the knowledge that there are technologies that can help the reproductive process makes it a tiny bit easier for women to refuse to settle for less than great men because their church tells them that their biological clock is ticking every day they live past 25. constraining access to ivf, then, fits neatly with the broader “pro life” aim of returning women and men alike to traditional gender roles, with men dominant and women subservient, dependent, and primarily valued for their reproductive capacity. unfortunately for the sbc and other conservative, misogynist religious groups, ivf is also really popular, including among religious conservatives and republicans. but that has hardly stopped them before. the sbc, remember, was founded on the very premise of violent minority rule: they wanted a minority group of white men to sit atop the social, political, and economic hierarchy, and even have the right to force other human beings into slavery. they have spent decades pushing laws, policies, and norms that bar or discourage other groups from formal participation in various public spheres, and certainly from challenging white men for power or influence. that they are yet again advocating for a small minority   religious opponents of ivf   to determine morality, law, opportunity, and even basic freedom for everyone else is not some sort of aberration; it’s at the heart of the sbc’s very reason for existing. historically, the sbc has sometimes lost, like it did on slavery and segregation. more often, though, it’s been a bellwether for where evangelical groups, and now by extension the republican party, are headed   that’s been the case on abortion, contraception, sex ed in schools, and a great many other issues in the sphere of family, gender, and reproduction. that they are taking up ivf at a moment when their movement has won on abortion in the supreme court but is getting pummeled in the court of public opinion shows pretty clearly that public opinion doesn’t discourage them, because this is an organization that has never favored democratic law making. it simply wants its theology to govern. and it just showed us where the evangelical anti abortion movement expects the law to go. xx jill share i think some of these extremists actually do think a fertilized egg is the equivalent of a person, though. i think they neither understand nor value what actually makes human life valuable and so they are unable to differentiate between a person out living in the world, a fertilized egg, an ectopic or other nonviable embryo or fetus that will never be a baby, and a brain dead body with its organs run by machines. after all, these are the people who oppose every single policy and program that would support human thriving and a healthy society. that’s why they are so unmoved by the suffering of others. that’s why there are “jokes” about them believing life begins at conception and ends at birth. the people who shout the loudest about being “pro life” protest too much   they actually don’t grasp the value of humanity at all. and they shouldn’t be given the power to determine how our country is run. follow their logic all the way down: if life begins at conception and they see themselves as "defenders of life" then they have the right to know and police when, where, why and with who you engage in sexual activities with. sbc is setting up conditions to have access to and policing rights over what goes on in your bedroom, a sex ed class, a doctor's office, a rape case, a fertility treatment, a birth control issuance. that is the end goal   the sbc's sweaty, pig minded misogynist leadership gets final and ultimate say on all of this. no posts ready for more?

subscribe & save less than $3 per week the nonbinding resolution urges southern baptists to consider embryos as people the southern baptist convention, the largest protestant denomination in the u.s., voted wednesday to approve a resolution opposing the use of in vitro fertilization. unexpectedly, the delegates at the annual conference also narrowly rejected a proposal to enshrine a ban on southern baptist churches that allow women to serve as pastors; the amendment needed 66% but got only 61%. the nonbinding ivf resolution urges southern baptists to "reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage," and suggests shunning ivf as not "consistent with that affirmation" because extra embryos are often discarded. most white evangelicals, "even those who oppose abortion," support "ivf and how it has allowed countless americans to start families," the tennessean said. but the southern baptist meetings are "closely watched as a barometer of evangelical sentiment," the new york times said, and wednesday's vote suggests ivf "may be the next front for the anti abortion movement." future resolutions against ivf will use "much stronger language," but "southern baptists aren't ready to speak to that yet," sbc resolutions chair kristen ferguson said. escape your echo chamber. get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. from our morning news briefing to a weekly good news newsletter, get the best of the week delivered directly to your inbox. from our morning news briefing to a weekly good news newsletter, get the best of the week delivered directly to your inbox. a free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day   and the best features from theweek.com rafi schwartz has worked as a politics writer at the week since 2022, where he covers elections, congress and the white house. he was previously a contributing writer with mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with splinter news, a staff writer for fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of heeb magazine, a jewish life and culture publication. rafi's work has appeared in rolling stone, good and the forward, among others. in depth the president has a history of making off color remarks about veterans and service members by david faris published 7 february 25 podcast plus, can ai understand religion? and are we losing the war against rats? by the week uk published 7 february 25 the week recommends the curator and art dealer picks works by mikhail lermontov, negley farson and others by the week uk published 7 february 25 speed read prince karim al hussaini's philanthropy funded hospitals, housing and schools in some of the world's poorest places by peter weber, the week us published 5 february 25 under the radar the inexplicable recovery of a young man more than a hundred years ago has been recognised as an official 'miracle' by the archbishop of liverpool by abby wilson published 13 december 24 speed read archbishop of canterbury justin welby faced backlash over his handling of a notorious child abuser by rafi schwartz, the week us published 13 november 24 speed read at a major vatican meeting, pope francis did not address ordaining women as deacons by peter weber, the week us published 28 october 24 the explainer proposal for 'sovereign state of the bektashi order', a vatican style enclave, have sparked confusion, praise and heated debate by abby wilson published 30 september 24 speed read the vatican uncovered abuses within the sodalitium, a controversial catholic movement centered in peru by rafi schwartz, the week us published 26 september 24 talking points they've been the 'backbone' of their congregations. what changed? by joel mathis, the week us published 25 september 24 under the radar a new tv series takes viewers behind the scenes of a real life social media drama by chas newkey burden, the week uk published 11 september 24 theweek is part of future us inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. visit our corporate site. © future us, inc. full 7th floor, 130 west 42nd street, new york, ny 10036.

in 2021, the group passed a resolution declaring “unequivocally that abortion is murder.” the united states’ largest protestant denomination, southern baptists, on wednesday, voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilisation (ivf). it indicated that ordinary evangelicals are increasingly open to arguments that equate embryos with human life and that two years after the overturning of “roe v. wade,” “foetal personhood” may be the next front for the anti abortion movement. no fewer than 10,000 delegates, called “messengers,” gathered in indianapolis for the denomination’s annual meeting, which is closely watched as a barometer of evangelical sentiment on a variety of cultural and political issues. earlier before the vote, messengers heard several emotional testimonies, some from baptists who hoped to soften the language of the resolution, titled “on the ethical realities of reproductive technologies and the dignity of the human embryo.” one of the messengers from the church in ohio, zach sahadak, shared that he has a son born via in vitro fertilisation. mr sahadak added that his wife was pregnant with a second child by the same method. “i have 10 embryos i love. i am for the sanctity of life and for the sanctity of embryos. i’m against the idea that this technology is so wicked that it cannot be employed,” he said. however, the vote was the first time that attendees at the southern baptist meeting addressed the ethics of in vitro fertilisation directly. in 2021, the group passed a resolution declaring “unequivocally that abortion is murder.” the resolution called on southern baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage. it was also to use reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in terms of the number of embryos generated in the ivf process. the decision also exhorted them to “advocate for the government to restrain” actions inconsistent with the dignity of “every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.” a vast majority of the delegates oppose abortion, but fertility treatments are widely used by evangelicals. at least, with almost 13 million church members across the u.s., the southern baptist convention has long been a “bellwether” for american evangelicalism. the process of in vitro fertilisation often results in the destruction of unused embryos. many southern baptists see that as fundamentally different from abortion because the goal of fertility treatments is to create new life. the denomination’s reliably conservative membership makes it a powerful political force, and its debates this year have attracted widespread interest from outside commentators and politicians. in may, the head of the denomination’s public policy arm sent a letter to the u.s. senate asking legislators to clamp down on in vitro fertilisation, stating that the practice harms children and women, who may be unaware of “complications and moral concerns.” the affirmation of the resolution was not a ban and would have no binding impact on families in southern baptist churches who are pursuing fertility treatments. the amendment expresses empathy for couples experiencing infertility and affirms that all children are a gift from god, no matter the circumstances of their conception. we have recently deactivated our website's comment provider in favour of other channels of distribution and commentary. we encourage you to join the conversation on our stories via our facebook, twitter and other social media pages. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); the federal government has urged stakeholders in the agriculture and finance sectors in the west africa region to leverage financing strategies to enhance agroecology practices “katsina state is atiku’s political base because it is his second home.” does it matter even if you are heading to heaven? mr tudu said that the committee would also suggest appropriate support for those affected to facilitate recovery. the communiqué stated that the congress of ogoni people supported the dialogue between the federal government and ogoni leaders and acknowledged the commencement of ogoni wide consultations. mr umahi stated that where roads were completed years ago but had deteriorated, agreements would be reached with stakeholders on necessary maintenance. the leaders noted that any effort by an individual or group to preempt the court would amount to contempt. mr ibrahim brings over three decades of distinguished public service experience to his new role. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); © 2025 peoples gazette™ limited.

it’s time to make a short trip in the religion news wabac machine (that’s “wayback” for youngsters who don’t remember “rocky and bullwinkle”), returning to the 2018 national southern baptist convention meeting. the big news was politics, of course, as in a convention speech by vice president mike pence. the journalism establishment was not amused, as illustrated in this cnn headline: “pence accused of ‘hijacking’ evangelical meeting.” various types of southern baptist conservatives welcomed him. now let’s jump to the present, since pence was back at the recent sbc meetings. this time, journalists weren’t all that worried about his presence because he was speaking to a luncheon sponsored by the rather mainstream sbc ethics and religious liberty commission. this brings us closer to the topics covered in this week’s “crossroads” podcast. you see, the erlc is the kind of group that journalists put on the “religious right,” when it’s raising money for sonogram machines for crisis pregnancy centers or fighting for parental rights in arguments about lgbtq+ initiatives in public schools. however, there are also southern baptists who accuse the erlc of being “woke” when it joins dialogues about climate change or pushes for moderation in discussions of immigration, critical race theory and other hot button topics. this time around, the press thought pence speaking to the erlc was ok, as seen in this religion news service headline: “mike pence speaks about politics, prayer to southern baptists at indy event.” or consider the tennessean: “pence warns of gop shift but stops short of direct trump criticism.” what changed? hint: maybe pence is safe since he is no longer a foot soldier for donald trump? there were sbc headlines this year, such as this from the associated press: “southern baptists narrowly reject formal ban on churches with any women pastors.” that proposed change in sbc policy fell just short (38.3% against), and there was evidence of lingering debates about drawing lines between “senior pastors,” “pastors,” “ministers” and other leadership roles for women. also, there were interesting moral theology complications looming in this double decker new york times headline: southern baptists vote to oppose use of i.v.f. with almost 13 million church members across the united states, the southern baptist convention has long been a bellwether for american evangelicalism. here is a key passage from that: going into the vote on in vitro fertilization, some southern baptists expressed concerns that the typical baptist in the pew did not connect fertility treatments with abortion, although they acknowledged that the conversation was evolving. some pastors said they were wary of the prospect of returning to their home churches and reporting that they voted to condemn a process that created their congregants’ children and grandchildren. ah, but recent pew research center numbers show that 63% of white evangelicals back ivf access. with this vote against ivf, there could be tensions ahead between the “bellwether” sbc and the growing, vague world of nondenominational evangelical protestantism. what are people thinking about this issue, in the pews of thousands of autonomous sbc congregations? during the podcast, we also discussed this: what are the tensions inside the sbc really about, other than politics in the era when many southern baptists are enthusiastic supporters of trump and many others are reluctant trump voters who wish they had more choices at the ballot box? i argued that southern baptists, as they try to build coalitions on complex cultural issues, are bumping into old realities described in this passage in a 2022 essay by the rev. r.c. sproul jr.: “what is ‘second degree separation’?” when it comes to the fundamentals of the faith, i’m grateful to be considered a fundamentalist. i’d suggest the defining distinction between fundamentalists and evangelicals is that evangelicals have an aching hole in their souls that longs for the world’s approval. to their credit, fundamentalists just don’t care. good on them i say. that distinction, however, is not the only one there is. at least one distinction is a strike against fundamentalism. fundamentalists have long practiced what is called “second degree separation.” this is an ethic that suggests that a person is not only guilty for all that they have done, said or felt, but that they are guilty for all that those they are willing to work with have done, said or felt. … if you’re not completely for us, they argue, you are completely against us. think about that. enjoy the podcast and, please, share it with others. 5965 village way, ste 105 255san diego, ca 92130 info@themediaproject.org religion unplugged is part of the media project and a member of the institute for nonprofit news.ein: 83 0461425site design by peter freeby privacy policy

profile sections local tv featured more from nbc follow nbc news news alerts there are no new alerts at this time the southern baptist convention, the nation’s largest protestant denomination, came out against in vitro fertilization at its annual meeting wednesday. delegates in indianapolis voted for the resolution opposing ivf, which also urged the denomination’s members “to advocate for the government to restrain actions inconsistent with the dignity and value of every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.” a particularly acute issue for delegates was the creation of multiple embryos through the ivf process, some or all of which may not ultimately be implanted. ivf often involves creating multiple embryos, because not all embryos may be viable. some frozen embryos might also be discarded after successful pregnancies if the patients decide not to use them or for other concerns, such as genetic abnormalities. jason thacker, an adviser to the southern baptist resolutions committee, said at a news conference wednesday that the resolution “unequivocally” affirmed the alabama supreme court’s position that embryos are considered children, regardless of location. some anti abortion opponents who believe that life begins at conception have argued that such embryos should have the same rights as a person. “there is a consistent belief, as our chair has already stated, that we believe that life begins at fertilization and is to be honored and cherished and protected at all stages, no matter the stage of development, nor location,” thacker said. the sbc resolution argued that “though all children are to be fully respected and protected, not all technological means of assisting human reproduction are equally god honoring or morally justified.” although the resolution expresses grief for couples experiencing infertility, it encourages members to “promote adoption” and “to consider adopting frozen embryos in order to rescue those who are eventually to be destroyed.” the measure was approved amid deep concerns that ivf is under increasing threat from the anti abortion movement. those fears have spurred legislation at the federal level from both parties. last week, democratic sens. tammy duckworth of illinois, patty murray of washington and cory booker of new jersey introduced the right to ivf act, which seeks to protect access to ivf procedures. ivf has broad approval across political lines. in an election cycle, when opposing reproductive rights could be a political liability, some republicans have voiced their support for fertility treatments. republican sens. katie britt of alabama and ted cruz of texas introduced a bill in may with similar aims, but advocates have raised concerns that its scope is too narrow. in february, an alabama supreme court ruling on frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization children set off fears across the country. though the court’s decision concerned a case in which embryos were accidentally destroyed at a sole clinic, it quickly ensnared patients across the state when several clinics stopped their services in the wake of the ruling. business resumed after legislators scrambled to create a state law to protect ivf providers, but industry experts and ivf advocates have warned it might not be enough to resolve the broader implications of the court’s ruling. bracey harris is a national reporter for nbc news, based in jackson, mississippi. © 2025 nbcuniversal media, llc

* please read before republishing * we’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an attribution noncommercial noderivatives creative commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit the 19th and retain our pixel. see our full guidelines for more information. to republish, simply copy the html at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the 19th. have questions? please email [email protected].   the editors loading... please complete the following captcha to be confirmed. if you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help. submitting... this email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to bouncer). you should try again with a different email address. if you have any questions, contact us at [email protected]. we’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. read our story. please complete the following captcha to be confirmed. if you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help. submitting... this email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to bouncer). you should try again with a different email address. if you have any questions, contact us at [email protected]. we’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. read our story. sign up for our newsletter the 19th thanks our sponsors. become one. politics with nearly 13 million members across the country, the southern baptist church is the nation’s largest protestant denomination and a powerful conservative political force. mariel padilla general assignment reporter published republish this story share republish this story indianapolis   the southern baptist convention endorsed a statement opposing in vitro fertilization. it also rejected an amendment that would have likely booted out hundreds of churches with associate women pastors, including in roles that only serve women and children. the denomination will maintain its official doctrinal statement that the office of pastor is only for men, but will not reinforce its constitution with that language   for now. the resolution on ivf states that “though all children are to be fully respected and protected, not all technological means of assisting human reproduction are equally god honoring or morally justified.” it cites the number of embryos generated in the ivf process   resulting in freezing, stockpiling and sometimes destroying the excess   and asks families to use other reproductive technologies, or to consider adopting children or unwanted frozen embryos. but the resolution is not binding. while the denomination has come out forcefully against abortion and criticized the use of embryos in research, in the past, it has had little to say about ivf, a procedure that has been widely accepted by the american public. the 19th thanks our sponsors. become one. “we grieve alongside couples who have been diagnosed with infertility or are currently struggling to conceive, affirm their godly desire for children, and encourage them to consider the ethical implications of assisted reproductive technologies as they look to god for hope, grace, and wisdom amid suffering,” the statement said. the ivf resolution came after a highly anticipated vote on how the denomination planned to address the ordination of women. with the rejection of the proposed amendment, much remains the same: the denomination can’t tell independent churches whom to appoint as a pastor, but they have the authority to say which churches are allowed in the convention. it’s a power the convention exercised last year when members voted to oust five churches, including saddleback, a california megachurch, for ordaining three women pastors. with nearly 13 million members across the country, the southern baptist church is the nation’s largest protestant denomination and a powerful conservative political force. more than 11,000 southern baptist pastors and members descended on indianapolis for the annual meeting, which culminated in the highly anticipated vote on whether the denomination would amend its constitution to formally ban churches with any women pastors. it is estimated that hundreds of southern baptist churches currently have women in pastoral positions   though many are in associate roles or only serve women and children. on tuesday afternoon, ahead of wednesday’s vote, several members took to a street corner outside the meeting to advocate either for or against the amendment. three women stood quietly on the sidewalk wearing sunglasses and holding signs that read, “break barriers not spirits” and “preaching power knows no gender.” meanwhile, a man paced back and forth a few steps away speaking into a microphone   his voice projecting clearly down the block   about why men and women are inherently different and why the bible dictates that women should never be pastors. one of the women was meredith stone, the executive director of baptist women in ministry, a texas based organization that supports women’s leadership in the denomination. stone said they’d been standing on the corner all morning, hoping to grab the attention of convention attendees in between sessions or as they were heading to and from lunch. some people gave them a hidden thumbs up as they walked by, while others sneered. “we’re here to try and share a positive message as millions of women are hearing from the southern baptist convention that they do not have equal value to god or in the church,” stone said. “we want to make sure the other message is also heard, that women do have equal value and that there is a place for them in god’s work.” stone said the same amendment passed overwhelmingly last year, but amendments require a second vote the following year before being enshrined in the denomination’s constitution. after the first vote, stone said she noticed a bigger push against the amendment. “this year there’s been some campaigning, but not on ideological reasons,” stone said. “people agree with the idea [of women being barred from becoming lead pastors] but for practical reasons, they see the potential loss of money as churches stop giving money to the convention and the challenging logistics of trying to investigate which churches to kick out.” please complete the following captcha to be confirmed. if you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help. submitting… this email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to bouncer). you should try again with a different email address. if you have any questions, contact us at [email protected]. david hewitt, a pastor at aletheia church based in indianapolis, stood with his co pastor on the same sidewalk, a few yards away from the women. for him, the debate was entirely ideological. he was there to remind passersby that the office of pastor, elder, bishop or overseer should only be held by men, pointing to several passages in the bible. hewitt said he wanted the amendment to pass because he saw it as a buttress against further cultural erosion, including the further widespread acceptance of lgbtq+ rights. “if we’re really going to love people, we need to tell them the truth,” hewitt said, citing the bible as the source of truth that dictates men and women’s role in the church and society. “because if you tell someone something that’s not true, they might feel better for a while but it’ll come around to bite them in the end   or worse.” republish this story share sign up for our newsletter learn more about membership. the 19th is a reader supported nonprofit news organization. our stories are free to republish with these guidelines.

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supported by with almost 13 million church members across the united states, the southern baptist convention has long been a bellwether for american evangelicalism. by ruth graham reporting from the southern baptist convention in indianapolis. southern baptists, the country’s largest protestant denomination, voted on wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization. the vote was an indication that evangelicals are increasingly open to arguments that equate embryos with human life, and that two years after the overturning of roe v. wade, “fetal personhood” may be the next front for the anti abortion movement. more than 10,000 delegates, called “messengers,” have gathered in indianapolis for the denomination’s annual meeting, which is closely watched as a barometer of evangelical sentiment on a variety of cultural and political issues. the vote on wednesday was the first time that attendees at the southern baptist meeting have addressed the ethics of in vitro fertilization directly. the resolution proposed on wednesday called on southern baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in the number of embryos generated in the i.v.f. process.” it also exhorted them to “advocate for the government to restrain” actions inconsistent with the dignity of “every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.” a vast majority of the delegates oppose abortion, but fertility treatments are widely used by evangelicals. although the process of in vitro fertilization often results in the destruction of unused embryos, many southern baptists see that as fundamentally different from abortion because the goal of fertility treatments is to create new life. before the vote, messengers heard several emotional testimonies, some from baptists who hoped to soften the language of the resolution, titled “on the ethical realities of reproductive technologies and the dignity of the human embryo.”

supported by wednesday’s vote was not a ban on in vitro fertilization. but it suggested that ordinary evangelicals are increasingly open to seeing embryos as people. by jacey fortin and ruth graham southern baptists, the country’s largest denomination of protestant christians, voted at an annual gathering on wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization. the decision was a momentous one for the convention, which has long wrestled over questions about when personhood begins, and which includes many families who have pursued, or plan to pursue, i.v.f. treatments. more than 10,000 delegates gathered in indianapolis for the annual meeting, which is closely watched every year as a barometer of evangelical sentiment. preceding the vote on in vitro fertilization   a hotly contested issue at the crossroads of science, religion, politics and family planning   were emotional testimonies from congregants of varying viewpoints. here are some questions and answers about the vote, and what it could mean. wednesday’s vote was the first time that attendees at the southern baptist meeting have addressed the ethics of in vitro fertilization directly. their resolution is not a ban and will have no binding effect on families pursuing fertility treatments. instead, the resolution calls on southern baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in the number of embryos generated in the i.v.f. process.”