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National Right to Life will hold its 37th annual convention in Charlotte this month.
The group, which lobbies against abortion and embryonic stem cell research, will offer more than 70 workshops and sessions at the convention June 18-20, at the Blake Hotel, 555 S. McDowell St.
This year's speakers: National Right to Life President Wanda Franz; U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.; the Rev. Tad Pacholczyk, education director of the National Catholic Bioethics Center; the Rev. John Raphael, principal of a predominantly African American Catholic high school in New Orleans; author Kate Adamson and bioethicist Wesley Smith.
The convention will also feature a screening of “The Terri Schiavo Story,” a new film hosted by writer-speaker Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic and evangelical Christian. The case of Schiavo, a brain-damaged young woman, became a national news story in 2005 when her parents and some Republican members of Congress tried to legally bar her husband from removing a life-sustaining feeding tube. Schiavo died in March 2005.
In the weeks leading up to this year's convention, abortion has been much in the news: Anti-abortion activists protested President Obama's speech at Notre Dame, a Catholic university, and a man was arrested in Kansas for allegedly gunning down Dr. George Tiller, a physician who performed late-term abortions. (National Right to Life condemned the killing in a recent news release.)
The Washington-based National Right to Life Committee, which also held its 2001 convention in Charlotte, is the country's largest anti-abortion group, with affiliates in all 50 states and more than 3,000 local chapters. This year's meeting – “2009: Stop the Abortion Agenda” is the theme – will be co-hosted by North Carolina Right to Life and South Carolina Citizens for Life.
Details: www.nrlc.org.
