Speakers

Detailed Bios

Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput was born September 26, 1944, in Concordia, Kansas, the son of Joseph and Marian DeMarais Chaput. He joined the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, St. Augustine Province, in 1965.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from St. Fidelis College Seminary in Herman, Pennsylvania in 1967, he earned a Master of Arts in Religious Education from Capuchin College in Washington, D.C., in 1970. He was ordained to the priesthood on August 29, 1970. Archbishop Chaput received a Master of Arts in Theology from the University of San Francisco in 1971.

Archbishop Chaput was ordained Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, on July 26, 1988.  Pope John Paul II appointed him Archbishop of Denver on February 18, 1997, and he was installed on April 7 the same year.  As a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput was the second Native American to be ordained bishop in the United States, and the first Native American archbishop.  He chose as his episcopal motto: “As Christ Loved the Church” (Ephesians 5:25).

Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Philadelphia on July 19, 2011.

For the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Archbishop Chaput is currently Chair of the Subcommittee on Native American Catholics; a member of the Committee for Cultural Diversity in the Church and the Task Force for Health Care; and a consultant to the Committee for Pro-Life Activities.  He formerly served on the Committee for Divine Worship, the Committee for Migration, the Committee for Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and the Task Force on Strengthening Marriage.

He is author of two books: Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics (Servant, 2001) and Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life (Doubleday, 2008); and numerous talks, articles and pastoral letters.  His writings and discourses are available at www.archden.org/archbishop.

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Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey

Elected in 1980, Rep. Chris Smith (R-Robbinsville, NJ) is currently in his 16th term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Smith, 58, currently serves as a senior member on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and is chairman of its Africa, Global Health and Human Rights Subcommittee. He is also chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), and serves on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. He also serves as “Special Representative” on Human Trafficking for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and as an executive member of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Previously, he served as Chairman of the Veterans Committee and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Operations and the Subcommittee on Africa.

Smith has long chaired a number of bipartisan congressional caucuses, including the Pro-life Caucus (29 years), Autism (13 years), Alzheimer’s (11 years), Lyme Disease (seven years), Spina Bifida (seven years), Human Trafficking (seven years), Refugees (seven years), Combating Anti-Semitism and serving on caucuses on Bosnia, Uganda and Vietnam.

According to the independent watchdog organization Govtrack, as of October 2011 Smith ranks third among all 435 Members of the House over the last two decades in the number of laws authored, and eighth among all Members of the U.S. Senate and House.

He is the author of America’s three landmark anti-human trafficking laws including The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, a comprehensive law designed to prevent modern-day slavery, protect victims, and enhance civil and criminal penalties against traffickers, as well as more than a dozen veterans health, education and homeless benefits laws, and laws to boost embassy security, promote democracy, religious freedom, and health care.

Smith is the author of the $265 million Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 which established a nationwide program for ethical research and treatment using umbilical cord blood and bone marrow cells. That landmark law was reauthorized in September 2010 for another five years.

He is also the sponsor of H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

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Representative Jean Schmidt of Ohio

Jean Schmidt is the first woman ever elected to represent Southern Ohio in Congress.

Congresswoman Schmidt begins her third full term with the 112th Congress, having been first elected to Congress in a 2005 Special Election. Congresswoman Schmidt will continue working on the issues she has championed since first being elected, including child nutrition and women’s health, and, most importantly, cutting federal spending and eliminating government waste and burdensome regulation.

Jean Schmidt has been hailed as a well-established Member of Congress who “has steeped herself in the issues and matured in office as a savvy, more bipartisan player, and is a tireless, disciplined advocate for the people of her district.” (Cincinnati Enquirer Oct. 30, 2010)

Congresswoman Schmidt serves on the House Committee on Agriculture and is the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Nutrition and Horticulture. She will also continue to serve on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

A lifelong resident of Clermont County, Congresswoman Schmidt holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Cincinnati. She has held various public offices and continues to be actively involved in civic and community groups. She served for two terms in the Ohio House of Representatives and served 10 years as a Miami Township Trustee, helping make it a world-class community for families and businesses.

She resides in Miami Township with her husband Peter. They have one married daughter Emilie, who with her husband Nick, has blessed them with two wonderful grandsons, Michael and Anthony.

She is also a co-sponsor of H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

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Representative Ann Marie Buerkle

After decades of work in the pro-life movement as a local volunteer and advocate, Ann Marie stepped up to challenge pro-abortion incumbent Representative Dan Maffai.  She is the first woman elected to Congress from New York’s 25th Congressional District.

Ann Marie graduated from St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing as a Registered Nurse in 1972 and went to work in New York City’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.  In 1977, she graduated from Le Moyne College with a Bachelor of Science Degree.

In 1991, Ann Marie returned to college, this time to earn her law degree. She graduated from Syracuse University College of Law in 1994 with a Juris Doctorate degree.

She worked in a private law firm, and in 1997 was appointed, by then Attorney General Dennis Vacco, as an Assistant New York State Attorney General representing the State of New York on behalf of Upstate Medical University.  For 13 years she served in this capacity, and in 2010 she took a leave of absence in order to pursue a seat in congress.

Representative Buerkle has donated her time and experience as a pro bono attorney for the Central New York Women’s Bar Association as an advocate for Vera House, a shelter for victims of domestic violence.

Ann Marie Buerkle is a recognized volunteer and spokeswoman for her local Right to Life chapter and campaigned heavily on a pro-life platform, and a commitment to rescinding taxpayer funding of abortion in health care reform.

Congresswoman Buerkle voted to defund Planned Parenthood of the 300 million in taxpayer dollars it receives each year and has since become a prime target for Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion lobby. In March 2011, the Susan B. Anthony List and Live Action’s Lila Rose stopped in Syracuse, NY to thank Rep. Buerkle for her courageous stand as part of its Women Speak Out: Expose Planned Parenthood Bus Tour.

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Rev. Stephen Fields, S.J. (Abortion and the Natural Law:  Exploring the Concept of Intrinsic Moral Evil)

Fr. Stephen Fields is an Associate Professor of Theology since 2000 and an Assistant Professor from 1993 at Georgetown University. He entered the Jesuit order at Wernersville, PA in 1977 and was ordained a priest in 1986. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant to Germany for 1991-1992. Fr. Fields served as a Bannan Foundation visiting professor at Santa Clara University from 1996-97, as the President of the Jesuit Philosophical Association from 1996-97, as the Donald I MacLean Chair at St Joseph’s University during the Fall of 2006, and as the Loyola Chair at Fordham University during the Spring of 2009.

At Georgetown University, Fr. Fields teaches “The History of Christian Thought,” “John Henry Newman,” “Christian Mysticism,” the “Catholic Vision of Love,” “Augustine-Anselm-Bonaventure-Aquinas,” the “Problem of God,” “Transcendental Thomism” (graduate), and “Nature and Grace” (graduate).

He is also the Chaplain of the Georgetown Council of the Knights of Columbus.

http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/fieldss/?PageTemplateID=134

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William V. Blazek SJ, MD, FACP (Ethical Controversies in Evolving Medical Technologies)

William Blazek, SJ, MD, FACP is a board certified Internist, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Jesuit Scholastic. He has taught across all four years of the Medical School curriculum in ethics, patient interviewing, physical diagnosis, and pharmacology. He has also served as a clinical preceptor for GU medical students in the Ambulatory Care Course.

In August 2008, Dr. Blazek was appointed to the Defense Health Board, sitting on the Subcommittee on Medical Ethics. This Federal Advisory Committee to the US Secretary of Defense provides independent scientific advice and recommendations on matters relating to health care delivery, research and policy for all members of the Armed Forces and DOD beneficiaries.

He has served as Vice-Chair and Member Scientist on the MedStar Research Institute – Georgetown University Medical Center Joint Oncology Institutional Review Board. The board is charged with the protection of human research subjects undergoing experimental chemo and radiation-therapy.

His academic interests include investigating the practical application of ethical theory in military clinical settings as well the bioethical ramifications of the mechanisms of research and development of military material. He has been a frequent guest speaking on bioethics on the national radio broadcast “Morning Air,” and a recurrent contributor to the Newsweek.WashingtonPost.com conversation “On Faith.”

Dr. Blazek entered the Society of Jesus following residency in Internal Medicine and professed perpetual vows in 2003. He is a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield in Saudi Arabia and Iraq where he served as an Infantry Officer in the 101st Airborne Division. Among his military awards are the Bronze Star, Southwest Asia Service Medal, and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He is a graduate of the US Army Ranger, Airborne, and Air Assault schools.

He is currently completing studies for ordination to the priesthood at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry.

http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/wvb2/?PageTemplateID=264

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John Keown, D.Phil., Ph.D. (History of Pro-Life Law)

Having graduated in law from Cambridge, John Keown took a doctorate at Oxford. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales, winning the Prize for Advocacy. He soon became the first holder of a newly-created lectureship in the law and ethics of medicine at Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship at Queens’ College and, later, a Senior Research Fellowship at Churchill College.

Professor Keown’s research has been cited by distinguished bodies worldwide, including the United States Supreme Court, the Law Lords, the House of Commons, the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, and the Australian Senate, before which he was invited to testify. He has served as a member of the ethics committee of the British Medical Association and has been regularly consulted, not least by politicians and the media, on legal and ethical aspects of medicine.

He has also developed an interest in the ethics of war. His paper in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought was the first to consider whether America’s War for Independence satisfied the criteria laid down by the ‘just war’ tradition. (See link on right.)

He has also written a play based on one of the classic cases in bioethics: the trial of Dr. Leonard Arthur for the attempted murder of a newborn baby with Down’s syndrome.

Professor Keown is currently completing a book on law, medicine and life for Oxford University Press. He is also co-editing a collection of essays by thirty of the world’s leading legal philosophers in honor of John Finnis.

Professor Keown has published widely in the law and ethics of medicine, specializing on issues at the beginning and end of life. His three books, all published by Cambridge University Press, have received universally glowing reviews.

Abortion, Doctors and the Law (1988) was described in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine as ‘a much needed authoritative guide to the history of the law on abortion and an excellent case study in the social history of medicine’, in the Annals of Science as ‘a clear and illuminating work of scholarship and distinction’ and in Legal Studies as ‘excellent and timely… thorough and dispassionate’.

http://kennedyinstitute.georgetown.edu/ourpeople/keown.cfm

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Brian Clowes, PhD (International Abortion Situation)

Best known as author of the most exhaustive pro-life informational resource volume, The Facts of Life, and for his Pro-Life Basic Training Course, Brian is the author of nine books, over 90 scholarly and popular articles, and has traveled to 35 countries on five continents as a pro-life speaker, educator and trainer.  Perhaps most importantly, Brian authored the report which helped sway legislators in the 2001 defunding of the UNFPA by the Bush administration.

Dr. Brian Clowes is a graduate of West Point, a former A-Team leader for the Army Special Forces (“Green Berets”), and holds a PhD in Civil Engineering and Systems Science. Since 1995, he has been HLI’s Director of Research and Training worldwide, and is one of the most accomplished and respected intellectuals in the international pro-life movement.  Best known as author of the most exhaustive pro-life informational resource volume The Facts of Life, and for his Pro-Life Basic Training Course, Brian is the author of nine books, over 90 scholarly and popular articles, and has traveled to 35 countries on five continents as a pro-life speaker, educator and trainer.  He has appeared in the documentaries “Blood Money” and “Maafa 21″ as an authority on the dismal past of Planned Parenthood. Perhaps most importantly, Brian authored the report which helped sway legislators in the 2001 defunding of the UNFPA by the Bush administration. Brian and his wife, Kathleen, have seven children and combined have over 50 years of pro-life experience, ranging from rescues, sidewalk counseling to counseling pregnant women and assisting in litigation against abortionists.

http://www.hli.org/index.php/about/hli-experts

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Steven Mosher (How Reproductive “Health” Programs in Africa Contribute to the Spread of HIV/AIDS)

Steven W. Mosher is an internationally recognized authority on China and population issues, as well as an acclaimed author, speaker. He has worked tirelessly since 1979 to fight coercive population control programs and has helped hundreds of thousands of women and families worldwide over the years.

In 1979, Steven was the first American social scientist to visit mainland China. He was invited there by the Chinese government, where he had access to government documents and actually witnessed women being forced to have abortions under the new “one-child policy.” Mr. Mosher was a pro-choice atheist at the time, but witnessing these traumatic abortions led him to reconsider his convictions and to eventually become a practicing, pro-life Roman Catholic.

Steven has appeared numerous times before Congress as an expert in world population, China, and human rights abuses. He has also made TV appearances on Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, The Today Show, 20/20, FOX and CNN news, as well as being a regular guest on talk radio shows across the nation.

He is also the author of the best-selling A Mother’s Ordeal: One Woman’s Fight Against China’s One-Child Policy. Other books include Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World, China Attacks, China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality, Journey to the Forbidden China, and Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese.

Articles by Steve have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, The New Republic, The Washington Post, National Review, Reason, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Freedom Review, Linacre Quarterly, Catholic World Report, Human Life Review, First Things, and numerous other publications.

Steven Mosher lives in Virginia with his wife, Vera, and their nine children.

http://www.pop.org/about/our-president-803

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Vicki Thorn (Science and Theology of the Body)

Vicki Thorn, founder and executive of National Office of Post Abortion Healing and Reconciliation and Project Rachel. Vicki has been working and helping women and men wounded by abortion since 1984, when she decide to start a post abortion ministry. She was driven by a desire to help a friend of hers who suffered from post abortion trauma, but as she admits herself she did not know how to help her friend. Since that time Vicki spoke, wrote and most importantly worked with women and men suffering from post abortion after math. Over the years, helping others overcoming the complications of post abortion aftermath, she learned that abortion touches the lives not only of the women who have abortions, but those of their families, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and, of course, the fathers of the babies.

Vicki also spoke on countless of occasions to young people about the biochemistry of sexual relationship, an area often overlooked by many professionals. She believes talking to our teenagers and particularly about biochemistry of sexual relationship can be very beneficial.

She has also been appointed a Corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

http://www.healing-after-abortion.com/our-contributors/

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Jessica O’Connor-Petts (Adoption’s Role in the Pro-Life Movement)

FFL former Board Member Jessica O’Connor-Petts became pregnant shortly after graduating from university in 1996 but continued with her plan to move to Washington, D.C. to work in public policy and row competitively. With the loving support of family, friends, and caregivers, she made an adoption plan for her birthson, including four joyful weeks with him after his birth. Ms. O’Connor-Petts later completed an MBA, and works with a management consulting firm in Washington while continuing to row competitively. She also volunteers with organizations that serve birthmothers. Ms. O’Connor-Petts’ birthson, his little sister and parents were part of her wedding in 2003, with her birth son serving as ring-bearer.  She and her husband now have a 3 year-old-son who enjoys spending time with his big brother.  Ms. O’Connor-Petts is available to speak on a limited basis in the Washington area.

http://www.feministsforlife.org/cop/speakers.htm

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Father Francis J. “Rocky” Hoffman (Media and the Pro-Life Movement)

Serves Relevant Radio®, a Catholic talk radio network, as its Executive Director and as host on the network’s program, “Go Ask Your Father.” Ordained by Pope John Paul II in 1992 as a priest for Opus Dei, Father Rocky holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome), a B.A. in history from Northwestern and an M.B.A. from Notre Dame.

Father Rocky has served as chaplain of Northridge Preparatory School in Chicago, and for the past fifteen summers as chaplain for Youth Service International in isolated and impoverished areas of Mexico. He is a regular contributor to The Catholic Answer magazine.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Father-Rocky/122446947765378

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Sisters of Life (Changing Lives One Heart at a Time)

The Sisters of Life is a contemplative / active religious community of women founded in 1991 by John Cardinal O’Connor for the protection and enhancement of the sacredness of every human life. Like all religious communities, they take the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They also are consecrated under a special, fourth vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.

Reverence and gratitude for the unique and unrepeatable gift of each human life made in the image and likeness of God fuels the prayer of each Sister, their first mission in building the Kingdom of God and the “Culture of Life.” It also provides the starting point for their interactions with others, especially relationships in community between the 70 Sisters (who come from across the United States, Canada and New Zealand), and in their apostolates.

Inspired by the love of Christ our Spouse, the author of Life, they desire to pour out all our gifts of nature and grace in the apostolate, that nothing of the gift of life, and no one to whom it has been given, should be lost.

They welcome pregnant guests to live with them, assist pregnant women in need of practical assistance through their Visitation Mission, host retreats at Villa Maria Guadalupe Retreat Center, and invite those who have suffered abortion to hope and healing through day and weekend Canaan Retreats. They also fulfill the important task of directing the New York Archdiocesan Family Life / Respect Life Office.