A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist publicly supported Roe v. Wade in 1973

Evidence

When the Roe decision was handed down on January 22, 1973, W. A. Criswell, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, expressed his satisfaction with the ruling. “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” one of the most famous fundamentalists of the twentieth century declared, “and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 91

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing later: when and why did Criswell’s position reverse, and did he ever acknowledge the reversal?
• XREF: connects to: Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 92; Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 96; The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 87 (+9 more)

Related

• A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist welcomed the Roe decision as correct (similarity 0.95)
• Baptist leaders initially framed Roe as a victory for church-state separation (similarity 0.87)
• Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory (similarity 0.86)
• Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe (similarity 0.82)
• The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade (similarity 0.81)
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. (similarity 0.81)
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity (similarity 0.81)
• Conservative Christians originally welcomed Roe v. Wade as advancing religious liberty (similarity 0.81)
• Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue (similarity 0.80)
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s (similarity 0.80)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.79)
• Evangelicals adopted anti-abortion politics six years after Roe for political gain (similarity 0.79)
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons (similarity 0.79)
• Southern Baptist leaders were functionally atheological and rallied around gender politics instead (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #corroborates (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons #complicates (0.80) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 222
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s #corroborates (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 122
• Southern Baptist leaders were functionally atheological and rallied around gender politics instead #corroborates (0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 250
• A viable evangelical Left existed in 1973 but lost to conservatives #corroborates (0.72) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 120
• Proposed rallying issues for the Religious Right included gay rights before abortion #complicates (0.72) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 120
• The Southern Baptist inerrancy controversy was really a proxy war over gender #complicates (0.72) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 249