Head of SBC built on slavery, wants State to execute women for abortion

Slavery is back in vogue in the SBC, but Jesus has left the building.

Feb 19, 2026

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the nation's largest Protestant denomination, was founded in 1845 to support and protect a great evil: hereditary chattel slavery. That same year, Rev. Richard Fuller of South Carolina, one of the denomination's founders, published a letter defending slavery in the Christian Reflector. (This letter, and others by Fuller, can be found in the 1856 book, Domestic Slavery Considered As a Scriptural Institution Fuller's letter begins on page 1).

In the letter, Fuller insisted that hereditary chattel slavery — built upon and sustained by the forced reproductive labor of Black women and girls objectified as instruments for others’ use — was not a moral evil. He decried “abolitionist doctrine.”

One hundred and eighty-one years later, the head of that same denomination, is espousing a counterfeit abolitionist doctrine of White Supremacy and State murder built upon a great evil: the forced reproductive labor of women and girls objectified as instruments for others’ use.

Slavery is back in vogue.

In a denomination plagued by sexual abuse that it steadfastly refuses to seriously address.

Today, Clint Presley, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), came out in support of an “abortion abolitionist” bill being introduced in Tennessee. The bill would subject women and girls (at risk of being tried as adults) to the death penalty for ending their pregnancies.

Make no mistake: This is gender-based policy violence and the fruit of reproductive objectification.

“Without recognition of humanity, there is no impetus for humane treatment.”1

Human beings are not instruments for objectifiers’ use. When people make their own decisions “about pregnancy, whatever that decision,” it is an assertion of their full humanity and “an enactment of subjectivity and autonomy.”2

And when those objectified as instruments assert their full humanity, it can trigger the wrath of the objectifiers. As researchers have noted:

“Following the humanization that results from the decision to have an abortion, backlash is probable—sexism and objectification will likely manifest in ways meant to put people who have had abortions back in their places.”3

Today, that violent backlash to women and girls asserting their full humanity comes with the threat of execution — a demand for state violence blessed by the leader of a denomination founded in 1845 to support and protect the great evil.

As it turns out, the SBC has remained pro-slavery at its very core, with a theology built upon and sustained by the forced reproductive labor of Black women and girls objectified as instruments for others’ use.

As Ja'han Jones points out, “What is slavery if not claiming dominion over a body that isn’t yours? And in this case, right-wing lawmakers are claiming ownership over the bodies of pregnant people because they claim to have a vested interest in the babies those bodies can produce. It is literally forced labor.”4

Yes, slavery is back in vogue in the SBC, but Jesus has left the building. ■

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