Southern Baptist Convention: Funding Planned Parenthood Is ‘Subsidizing Piracy of Defenseless Infants’

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) approved a resolution last week that calls for the defunding of and investigation into Planned Parenthood over allegations the abortion business sells the body parts of aborted babies for a profit.

In a resolution titled, “On Defunding and Investigating Planned Parenthood,” the SBC – the largest Protestant body in the United States, with more than 16 million members – stated:

[W]e denounce the immoral agenda and practices of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, especially their role in the unjust killing each year of more than 300,000 precious unborn babies, its use of particularly gruesome illegal abortion methods, and its profiteering from harvesting unborn babies’ tissues and organs.

The SBC calls upon Congress “to defund Planned Parenthood immediately and completely of all federal government support,” and state and local governments to withdraw their support of Planned Parenthood “immediately and permanently.”

Additionally, it urges the U.S. Justice Department:

[T]o pursue criminal charges against Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates for their use of illegal abortion methods, trafficking in and profiting from the harvesting of unborn babies’ tissues and organs, and any other actions that may be in violation of federal law…

The leader of SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) said last week that, by funding Planned Parenthood, the government is “subsidizing the piracy and grave-robbing of defenseless infants who have no voice at all.”

“And over the last year, if there is one thing that has become more clear, it is that Planned Parenthood is no friend to women, no friend to children and no friend to life and human dignity,” Russell Moore said, according to the Baptist Press.

The ERLC launched a national campaign to persuade members of Congress that Planned Parenthood should not receive “a single cent of taxpayer money now or ever,” Moore said.

The commission has also delivered thousands of signatures to congressional leaders calling for defunding.

Planned Parenthood has been the subject of increasing controversy in the country after a series of undercover videos led to the allegations that the group is profiting from the sale of the body parts of babies aborted in its clinics.

The organization has been the subject of multiple congressional investigations. Both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Select Investigative Panel have referred Planned Parenthood Federation of America, several of the largest Planned Parenthood affiliates in the country, and three of their business associates in the fetal tissue procurement industry, to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.

Though the Guttmacher Institute reported in January that the number of abortions performed in the United States has dropped to its lowest level since 1974, Planned Parenthood reports an increase of 4,349 abortions – from 323,999 in 2014-2015, to 328,348 abortions in 2015-2016 – in its recently released annual report.