‘Jane Roe’ honored at LU pro-life conference
Chet White/The News & Advance
Norma McCorvey (facing) was honored at Liberty University’s convocation on Wednesday.
Thirty-six years after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in America, Norma McCorvey — the woman at the center the case — received a standing ovation from a stadium full of pro-life, evangelical college students.
McCorvey, better known as “Jane Roe,” was honored Wednesday morning at Liberty University during R.O.S.E. (Reclaiming Other’s Sacred Existence), the school’s first pro-life conference. McCorvey was present but did not speak at the event. Instead, a pro-life
commercial she starred in last year was broadcast on big screen TVs in the Vines Center to a crowd of about 10,000 students. In the commercial, McCorvey, who said she never went through with the abortion, called her court case the “biggest mistake” of her life.
Today, McCorvey is a Christian and a pro-life advocate.
“You read about me in history books,” she said in the commercial, “But now I’m dedicated to spreading the truth about preserving the dignity of all human life.”
McCorvey was praised by university leaders, including Mat Staver, dean of LU’s law school, and SGA President Matthew Mihelic, the student who conceived the event.
“The student body of Liberty University stands with you and we have your back,” Mihelic said.
Last spring, Mihelic ran for student body president on the platform of unifying the student voice on abortion. Record numbers of students came out to vote, he said, and the conference is the culmination of his vision.
“We know we are the largest evangelical university in the world and we intend on using every ounce of that grassroots influence to stop this blight on American history,” Mihelic said in a news release. “Under our watch, our generation will fight with all our might to make abortion history.”
Staver, the keynote speaker, drew on personal experiences, Christian values and legal arguments to make the case for why abortion should be categorically illegal. He charted his transformation from a young, pro-choice preacher in the 1970s to the staunch anti-abortion advocate he is today.
“I was a pastor and I didn’t know anything about abortion,” Staver said. “I thought it was just a blob of cells … I would have said I’m pro-choice because I didn’t think it was a life.”
At the end of the talk, Staver rallied the students to be leaders in “restoring the culture of life” in America.
“If we don’t stand together for those most vulnerable and innocent children in our very midst, if we drive by an abortion clinic and never even realize the holocaust that’s taking place, then God help us, because all the other liberties we enjoy are illusory.”
In a show of solidarity, students wore white and black T-shirts they said illustrated the lives in their generation that were lost to abortion. About 25 percent of the students wore black, representing death, and 75 percent wore white, representing life.
LU sophomore Amanda Haas, a member of the SGA, said that Liberty students are the future pro-life movement.
“We want our generation to be known as the pro-life generation,” she said.
The abortion debate takes center stage at Liberty the rest of the week.
Wednesday afternoon, the law school hosted panel discussions led by Ergun Caner, president of the Baptist Theological Seminary and Graduate School, and Staver. They addressed the Bible’s position on life and the role of the judicial system in the abortion debate.
Today and Friday, leaders from the pro-life movement will speak on campus, including the Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., founder of the nation’s largest African-American pro-life organization; Carol Everrett, a former owner of an abortion clinic that facilitated 35,000 abortions; and U.S. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.).
The conference ends on Saturday with a workshop on student activism hosted by Liberty’s newly formed chapter of Students for Life.
Reader Reactions
Thank you havin. The more I read of these anti-abortion comments, its clear they seek to impose their religious values on the behavior of a secular state. I respect your right to believe what you want to believe. No one forces you to have an abortion, yet I also do not want your beliefs impeding my right to exercise my civic rights.
And you have clearly illuminated the greatest weakness in religion, the bible. It is a collection of hundreds of texts from various regions and various periods, edited and translated thousands of times from the originals, most of which do not exist anymore. Its origins are as diverse as the cultures involved in its production. It is so filled with contradictions, paradoxes, and absurd supernatural references that it makes star wars look rational. Yet some of the individuals on this board would have that serve as a guide for the development and execution of modern secular law. The two should not interact. If only because there is a large segment of the US voting population whose origins are neither christian NOR jewish.
ttginlbc,
I do very much agree with you, however God and the Bible usually find their way into any argument about abortion. I have no problem with that however as I am a Christian. However, they still aren’t very good arguments against abortion for those who do believe in them as in the book of Numbers, God tells Moses how to perform an abortion on women who are accused of being unfaithful to their husbands. Obviously if God were so anti-abortion, He wouldn’t instruct a prophet on how to end pregnancies, no matter how they came about.
And finally, another analogy.
You claim that it is fair to show women pictures of fetuses and warn them of the risk.
Let me take another approach. Your church, and the Falwells, eagerly supported the war in Iraq. You still do.
So, I think therefore I need to bring massive pictures of eviscerated, wounded, and dead Iraqis and wounded US soldiers in hospitals to Liberty. I will fly a banner of them over your campus, and post them at the ROTC stations.
I assure you, these images will be FAR more horrifying than any abortion images. They will also, like abortion, have taken place legally via the United States statutes governing international affairs and the conduct of military operations.
If anyone can show me convincingly why, without referencing god, religion, scripture, loose interpretations of the constitution, or similar laws in other nations, abortion should be prohibited, I’d love to have that discussion. End of sermon.
And finally, Charisse, there are some intuitive and real differences in your analogy.
First, a truck barrelling down the highway at “me” has physical form that I can visualize through my senses. I can hear it, smell it, and step out of the way. If you chose to warn me, I would be grateful.
God, eternal damnation, or whatever your analogy suggests, however, has none of these qualities. And never well. They are not based in reality - only in YOUR version of reality. They are real to you because you choose to believe in them. I personally find that concept absurd. I have that right, as you have that right in the United States. I suggest you consider the same for abortion. If I were a woman, I would have the right to have an abortion. You have the right to tell me i’m wrong. I have the right to think you are incapable of clear rational thought, and ignore you on my way to the clinic. If you try to deprive me of my right, I have the right to sue you.
And furthermore, consider the following:
1. The laws on consent, waiting periods and literature regarding abortion in Virginia are demeaning to women and to the idea of citizens being capable of making independent, reasonable decisions.
2. I do not recall seeing Liberty hosting a “pay for unwanted living children” seminar. When they devote as much money to paying for meals, clothing, insurance, shelter, and medical care. If you are going to take away a woman’s right to remove a child from HER body, You had better be willing to pay for her needs.
3. The only time i will even have a conversation with someone about abortion is if “god” doesnt come into the picture. I’m sorry but a group of two-millenia old texts censored and poorly translated by the Catholic (then universal) church in the first-fifth centuries, together with even older texts, do not strike me as a justifiable sanction for modern law. These texts have no scientific backing, and are highly interpretive. I do not recognize them as either infallible or accurate, and thankfully neither does the constitution.
Allow me to preface these comments with two statements: 1) I am adopted and was born after Roe v. Wade. 2) I and a previous partner chose to have a legal, safe abortion due to an unforseen pregnancy and the potential for signficant changes in our quality of life.
Liberty University has once again shown its ignorance and arrogance. The laws of the United States state that abortion is legal. Despite thirty years of wrangling by Christians, none of whom, I might add, do nearly as much to provide for the 6 billion people already on this planet, it is still legal. It is a safe, effective procedure by which women may prevent an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy.
Here is why I support abortion:
1. As a male, I will never carry a child, nor will I ever give birth to one. I will not face the challenges of childbirth, breastfeeding, or post-partum depression.
2. Contrary to what the church states, life is not intrinsically beautiful. Millions of men and women die every day by war, famine, disease, hunger, and suicide. A staggering percentage of existing children (20%) in the United States are hungry at some point during the day. Life is beautiful for those who choose to take advantage of their assets and are fortunate enough to live long enough to develop them.
3. The United States does not recognize legally a state religion. Heaven is not a legally recognized reality in the United States, nor is God. Despite what our money and court mottos read, there is no God according to the US constitution. What exists is a nation of laws. Abortion is one of those laws. The reason that is true is that the arguments against abortion are based in scripture not recognized by the United States constitution and case law. Abortion is far safer than most invasive surgical procedures, and it prevents thousands of unwanted children each year.
Pro-life? What about the lives of children who live in poverty, crime, broken homes, and in hunger?
If half of the energy expended at this conference were directed at “helpless children” who have actully been born, just imagine what could be accomplished.
And apparently so should the children who attend daycare and preschool at LCA.
How is that mocking? It’s showing the true and graphic horrors of abortion. If a woman is considering aborting a 10 week old fetus, she should see what it looks like.
Ridiculous. They mock women and a women’s ability to know what is best for her own life.
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