News

WASHINGTON, DC, January 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At the first Law of Life Summit presented by Ave Maria School of Law at the National Press Club Saturday, a crowded room of law students from various colleges around the United States gathered with pro-life leaders to hash out ideas for taking an active role in bringing an end to abortion in America. 

Fr. Michael Orsi, chaplain of Ave Maria School of Law told the assembled leaders, legal professionals and future lawyers, “This is a very crucial time in the history of our country.”  Religious freedoms, he said, “are being challenged by this Obamination of an Administration.”

Image

“They’re trying to force Catholic institutions including our colleges and our hospitals to give not only birth control, contraceptives but to force them to do sterilizations,” he said.  “And graciously they’ve given us one year to put this into effect. That’s intolerable.”

He concluded: “We must now take action before it’s too late. We will not be bullied. If any pastors or Rabbis or ministers or priests are worried about losing their 501c3’s, ladies and gentlemen you might as well lose your tax status before you lose your life and your freedoms.”

The summit heard from leaders including Stuart Nolan of the Legal Works Apostolate; Professor Carter Snead of Notre Dame School of Law; Dana Cody of Life Legal Defense Foundation; Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America; Anne Carmichael of the Vitae Foundation; and John-Henry Westen of LifeSiteNews.com.

Special guest Nellie Gray, the founder of the March for Life, closed the summit with a keynote address recalling that men of her generation went overseas to die to stop the holocaust.  To now see the holocaust of 55 million aborted American babies is unfathomable, she suggested.  She called on pro-life Americans to unite, putting aside divisions caused by allowing for exceptions, to protect all life in the womb.  We must unite, she said, “with no exceptions and no compromise.”

Organizer Royce Hood was given high praise for bringing together an all-star cast to launch the Law of Life Summit which is planned to have its next meeting in 6 months.  Dr. Pat Castle, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force and co-founder of the National LIFE Runners team, emceed the event, keeping speakers to their allotted time with his commanding presence and friendly insistence.  Castle thanked LifeSiteNews for launching Life Runners as a national organization with our coverage of their activities.