By Kathleen Gilbert
NOTRE DAME, Indiana, February 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An innovative academic program designed to equip the next generation of pro-life advocates is one of the initiatives in store for the University of Notre Dame’s new Human Life Fund, said Dr. David Solomon in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) yesterday. (See yesterday’s LSN report for background info on the fund: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09022308.html)
Professor Solomon, a deeply pro-life philosopher who has been teaching ethics for over forty years, is the founder and head of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. He told LSN that pro-life associates at the university had been brainstorming for about a year on how to energize pro-life activity at the most prestigious Catholic school in America, before they arrived at the idea of the Fund and the academic program.
“Our big plan, which I think is very exciting – we want to start a two-year volunteer program at Notre Dame, where students can volunteer to do pro-life work in a crisis pregnancy center, or work for a diocese or a Catholic school, and we would give them three summers of training – legal, theology, philosophy, [etc.],” Solomon explained. After two years of work, candidates would receive a Master’s degree correlating to their pro-life training.
Solomon said the pro-life program would be similar in structure to The University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), which prepares future Catholic school teachers with rigorous training in a broad variety of undergraduate disciplines.
The program is still in the planning stages, Solomon said, but its founders hope to get it underway in the summer of 2010, and are already looking for student volunteers.
Solomon believes the pro-life plan is unique among Catholic higher institutions of learning. “As far as we can tell, nobody else is doing anything like that,” he said.
Although the University of Notre Dame has not officially vocally espoused a pro-life identity in the past, Solomon expressed optimism that the administration would embrace the pro-life academic program.
Solomon also discussed with LSN the overarching goals of the newly established Human Life Fund. Asked what he and others hoped would be the fund’s primary effect, Solomon noted that Notre Dame alumnus and pro-life supporter Bill Dotterweich, who gave the fund its first major contribution, was concerned that “most of the pro-life activists at Notre Dame, the students, came here as pro-life activists, and virtually no students once they were at Notre Dame were made into sensitive people about life issues.” Solomon said that he agreed with that analysis.
“He (Dotterweich) wanted us to do something that would increase the number of students who were simply sensitized to the moral dimensions of the issue,” the professor said. “And that’s kind of our main goal – is to create events and occasions to help students feel comfortable expressing pro-life views and living out a life built around a commitment to these views.”
Solomon says he has been “struck” by statements by students that he felt showed a great need for more thorough education in pro-life culture. “Lots of kids wanted to try to express the view that they were deeply pro-life, but they thought there was something wrong with saying you were pro-life because it expressed a kind of judgmental attitude,” he noted.
Solomon also said that he had discovered a great deal of ignorance amongst his students about the basic legal and philosophical issues surrounding abortion and other life issues. In his medical ethics class, “I would say 80% of the students believe that Roe v. Wade allows abortions on demand only in the first three months of pregnancy, and after the first three months you have to have a ‘special reason,’” he said.
While Notre Dame students are generally pro-life at heart, the professor explained, “they’re not prepared to argue – and in this past election, the Notre Dame student body was overwhelmingly in favor of Obama.”
Solomon emphasized the need for intellectual maturity in the face of “dark times.” “We want to produce people who are versatile intellectually because it is going to be a tough battle, and depending on how many Supreme Court appointments come out of this administration, it could get tougher in a hurry,” he said.
“But, we’ve got pretty powerful forces on our side.”
To contribute to the Notre Dame Human Life Fund:
– Electronic: https://supporting.nd.edu/make-a-gift/
– Direct Contribution: Send check or stock contribution to:
The University of Notre Dame
Department of Development
1100 Grace Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556-5612
tel: 574-631-5776
(be sure to specify that your donation is for the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life)
– Endowments and bequests: For information about the establishment of an endowment which would provide funding to The Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life, and for information about how to include The Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life in your will, contact the Office of Gift Planning.
For more information, go to: https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Notre Dame University Establishes Pro-Life Fund
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09022308.html