'Jane Roe' honored at LU pro-life conference

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.