The Southern Baptist Convention Wednesday approved a resolution against in vitro fertilization, calling on members to “advocate for the government to restrain actions inconsistent with the dignity and value of every human being.”

In an afternoon vote in Indianapolis, voting members, or messengers, passed the resolution, which calls on Southern Baptists to support adoption and reproductive technologies that affirm the “unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage.”

Debate dealt with the use of IVF by Southern Baptists, as well as the embryos produced that are never carried to birth.

One messenger from Ohio said he has one son, and another on the way, because of IVF.

“I have 10 embryos that I love, and with every bit of my being, we will have or see born into a Christian family, and no one can stop us from making this disposition,” he said. “I am for the sanctity of life, and for the sanctity of embryos. I am against the idea that this technology is so wicked that it cannot be employed.”

The resolution was authored by Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southern seminary professor Andrew Walker.

Mohler, the head of the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, said Monday that the Alabama Supreme Court got it right on in vitro fertilization when it said embryos should be protected as human life.

Following a Feb. 16 Alabama Supreme Court decision that declared frozen embryos children, the Legislature moved quickly to protect IVF clinics from criminal and civil liability. After critics called the legislation a “Band-Aid fix,” Republican legislators signaled they would study the issue further.

The court’s ruling stemmed from a lawsuit regarding the unauthorized destruction of frozen embryos at a Mobile clinic in 2020. It decided that the parents could seek damages under an 1872 state law for the deaths of their children.

Following the ruling, several IVF programs closed due to legal risks to patients and providers. The Mobile health care system that provided in vitro fertilization (IVF) care said the clinic will stop the services at the end of the year, citing lawsuits over the fertility treatment.