Ave Maria hosts right-to-life conference

Jun 9, 2005 / 22:00 pm

Prominent academics discussed the latest scholarship on right-to-life issues last weekend at the annual University Faculty for Life conference, June 3-5. This was the second time Ave Maria School of Law hosted the conference.

University Faculty for Life (UFL) was founded in 1989 to promote research, dialogue, and publication by scholars who respect the value of human life from its inception until natural death.

The conference featured more than 25 presentations by scholars of law, political science, theology, philosophy, history, nursing, and communications.

Fr. Thomas King received the Rupert and Timothy Smith Award, which recognizes distinguished contributions to pro-life scholarship. A professor of theology at Georgetown University since 1968, Fr. King was the founding president of UFL and led the organization until 2004. He still edits the UFL newsletter and serves on the UFL board of directors.

John Keown, who holds the Rose F. Kennedy Chair in Christian Ethics at Georgetown University, delivered a plenary address on his own scholarship on euthanasia and the experience of euthanasia in Europe.

Richard Wilkins, professor of law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University and managing director of the World Family Policy Center, gave the second plenary talk on the relationship between international law and the right to life. He described the efforts to create a right to abortion as a matter of international law and presented the need for "coordinated and coherent pro-life academic involvement in the international policymaking arena."

Conference sessions also included a panel discussion on the Terri Schiavo case.

For more information, go to: www.avemarialaw.edu