Forty pastors and regional leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention have signed a letter calling on the Trump administration to crack down on individuals who mail abortion pills to states that have abortion restrictions in place.
In a letter sent to President Donald Trump on Monday, the group of leaders from over 20 states asked the commander-in-chief “to stop the mail-order distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone,” the first drug in the chemical abortion regimen, “which now accounts for more than 60 percent of all U.S. abortions.”
“Shield laws in pro-abortion states now protect providers who illegally ship mifepristone into prolife states, in direct violation of federal law,” read the letter.
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“The case of abortionist Margaret Carpenter, who shipped abortion pills to Louisiana and Texas, illustrates this growing threat. Yet governors like New York’s Kathy Hochul refuse extradition and enact new laws to further shield violators.”
The signatories urge Trump to restore the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s protocols for mifepristone, which were loosened during the Biden administration to allow the distribution of the pills via mail. The letter also urges Trump to direct the FDA to reassess approval of the drug and order the U.S. Department of Justice “to enforce the Comstock Act to protect states’ rights to uphold pro-life laws.”
“Women, unborn children, and the rule of law urgently need your leadership,” the letter concluded.
The letter was spearheaded by Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Christian conservative advocacy organization the Family Research Council.
Perkins, a Southern Baptist pastor, told The Christian Post on Wednesday that this is “an issue we’ve worked on,” especially over the past couple of months.
“I’ve been talking about it with pastors,” explained Perkins. “We drafted the letter for the pastors to take a look at, they agreed to it, and so that’s how it came about.”
Perkins said FRC has done “a lot of work with pastors,” including on the issue of abortion. The organization has longstanding relationships with SBC clergy, leading to many signing the letter.
At June’s SBC Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas, messengers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution calling for a ban on abortion pills.
“This was just really following up as an action item to that resolution,” Perkins said. “This did not officially come from the Southern Baptist Convention hierarchy, but just working with those Southern Baptist pastors.”
Perkins said there will be additional letters on the issue coming soon that will be signed by clergy from various denominations.
Although credited with appointing justices who voted to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 2022 and passing a law defunding the nation’s largest abortion provider, Trump has suggested that he might not push for limits on abortion pills.
In May, the Trump administration was continuing to defend from litigation a Biden administration rule allowing for telehealth access to abortion pills, The Associated Press reported. Last year, Trump stated that he had no plans to federally restrict access to medications like mifepristone.
“If the president wants to be consistent with the statements he’s made” regarding the right of states to ban abortion in nearly all circumstances, “then the FDA needs to change its policy and the DOJ needs to enforce Comstock,” Perkins said.
“You can’t have both. You can’t respect the right of states to protect the unborn, and allow abortion pills to be mailed into those states. Those are mutually exclusive.”
