NASHVILLE (BP) — The Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) has issued a formal request for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood and is asking others to join.
A letter from the ERLC to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee (available on the ERLC website here) says, “The American people should not be forced to subsidize an organization that profits from the deaths of innocent lives. … Many Americans do not want their tax money supporting an organization that profits from the loss of preborn lives and the exploitation of mothers, particularly one with $2.1 billion in annual revenue and more than $2.5 billion in net assets.”
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, receives taxpayer funds — to the tune of $700 million last year — through Medicaid reimbursements and grants from government agencies.
“The ERLC released its campaign to defund Planned Parenthood that is built on previous pro-life wins,” said ERLC President Brent Leatherwood in comments to Baptist Press (BP) on Feb. 19. “President Trump has already reinstated the Hyde Amendment, but now we need Congress to take the next logical step to make the defunding of Planned Parenthood permanent through the reconciliation process.”
Reconciliation is a way for Congress to enact spending measures with only a simple majority. (See this explainer from the Brookings Institution.)
The letter sent to the House subcommittee asks it “to include defunding Planned Parenthood in their list of suggested spending cuts the House Budget Committee has asked committees to put together for reconciliation,” Leatherwood told BP.
The Trump Administration has indicated its willingness to support defunding Planned Parenthood, with then-vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance saying as much last October.
Such efforts to end public funding for abortion services are not new. They include efforts in 2011 and 2015. The Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2023 was introduced in the U.S. House two years ago, and last month, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul introduced a similar measure in the Senate.
Earlier this month, the ERLC joined an amicus brief in support of South Carolina’s effort to stop Medicaid payments from going to the abortion giant.
Southern Baptists have long maintained that no government money should support abortion or abortion providers, explicitly calling for defunding and investigation of Planned Parenthood in a 2017 resolution. Another resolution in 2021 called for an end to public funding of abortion providers to prevent “taxpayers from being complicit in the moral evil of abortion.”
The ERLC’s message to Congress already has dozens of cosigners, including SBC President Clint Pressley, SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, ERLC President Emeritus Richard Land and many SBC entity leaders and former SBC presidents.
“We encourage all Southern Baptists to sign on to this letter in order to save lives, serve mothers, and make sure the consciences of millions of pro-life Americans are protected,” Leatherwood said. “Together, we can work to end this atrocity at the hands of Planned Parenthood.”
To see the ERLC’s letter and to sign on, go here.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Laura Erlanson is managing editor of Baptist Press.)
