New York, NY — Participants in the 10th annual Proudly Pro-Life Awards Dinner April 29 expressed confidence that they were winning the battle against abortion.
Benjamin J. Stein, a movie and television personality who was one of the honorees, reported that he used to get booed when he presented his pro-life views to college groups, but now got “wild applause.”
“I believe the tide is turning in our favor,” he said.
Stein also said pro-life forces owed a lot to President Bush and Republican Party. “Without the Republican Party being on our side, this would be a lost cause.”
The Proudly Pro-Life dinner, held in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, is a fund-raising event of the National Right to Life Committee to benefit its Educational Trust Fund.
NRLC staff said attendance was about 700 and many were students from northeastern universities who received tickets purchased by benefactors. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus were listed among the dinner sponsors.
In an evening that spotlighted figures from the entertainment world, awards also went to Margaret Colin, an actress currently appearing in the Broadway production of “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,” and to Jennifer O'Neill, an actress and model known for her roles in “Summer of '42” and other movies.
The event's honorary chairwomen, actresses Patricia Neal and Celeste Holm, did not attend, but Msgr. James Lisante, master of ceremonies, read a letter from Neal saying she was proud to be associated with the dinner but was away helping with a hospital project. Msgr. Lisante also placed a telephone call to Holm at her New York apartment during the dinner, and had the audience sing “Happy Birthday” for her 84th.
Colin, who spoke at the beginning of the event so she could leave to make the evening performance of “Joe Egg,” said she had been pro-life since she was in the eighth grade.
She said her mother had influenced her and her brothers and sisters in that direction, and she was passing the same message along now to her sons.
Msgr. Lisante, former director of The Christophers and still host of the organization's television program, recalled that Colin had been his guest on “Christopher Closeups,” and had talked there about her pro-life convictions and her position as honorary co-chair of Feminists for Life.
O'Neill, a spokeswoman for Silent No More, an advocacy organization dedicated to helping women who are suffering emotional damage from having undergone abortions, said she received widespread support in her efforts to “get the truth out.”
She herself had an abortion when she was a young woman and her doctor and other people around her all said the baby was “just a blob of tissue,” she recalled. If she could have seen an ultrasound picture of the baby, “I would have chosen life,” she said. Women in such situations should be supported emotionally, financially and in other ways, and be given “every option except abortion.”
O'Neill, too, expressed optimism about the pro-life movement's progress and the chances for banning partial-birth abortion. “I'm encouraged by our president,” she said.
Wanda Franz, a professor of child development at West Virginia University and president of the National Right to Life Committee since 1991, said the organization, formed in 1973, was “stronger and more influential than ever.”
David N. O'Steen, who directs the committee from its headquarters in Washington, told Catholic News Service he was “very encouraged” by signs of progress in the pro-life movement.
Among the signs, he said, was not only the election of a pro-life president, but congressional action, students speaking out against abortion and polls showing public opinion was increasingly supportive of the pro-life position.
He said he expected that the bill against partial-birth abortion, approved by the Senate, would pass the House and receive the president's signature later this year. Enacting the legislation would not affect a large percentage of abortions, but “the educational value would be enormous,” he said.
Assuming a challenge to the bill would reach the Supreme Court, O'Steen said a critical issue would be whether the court ruled that the 1973Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion implied approval of partial-birth abortion.
(This article courtesy of Steven Ertelt and the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
