Abstract
A co-sponsored program with the Siena Symposium for Women, Family, and Culture.
Session Two of the day's program on themes of Western influence, African hopes, and the clash between them. This event will feature a presentation by Obianuju Ekeocha, Culture of Life Africa Founder and President, followed by a panel discussion featuring Teresa Collett, University of St. Thomas School of Law Professor; Mary Rice Hasson, Catholic Woman's Forum Director at the Ethics and Public Policy Center; Janet E. Smith, Sacred Heart Major Seminary Professor; and Deborah Savage, St. Paul Seminary Clinical Professor.
A Message for President Biden: The Unified Voices of Africa by Culture of Life Africa
Keynote Speaker & Panelists
Obianuju Ekeocha is an internationally acclaimed strategist, speaker, author, social activist and documentary filmmaker. She was born and raised in southeastern Nigeria. She is the founder and president of Culture of Life Africa, an organization dedicated to the promotion of an authentic Culture of Life in Africa and beyond. She is the author of Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism of the Twenty-First Century (published by Ignatius Press and now translated and republished in Spain and Saudi Arabia) and she is the Executive Producer of the award-winning documentary Strings Attached.
Obianuju has advised many African, European and North American legislators and political influencers on issues concerning women's health, youth, families, healthcare, foreign aid, education, and culture. She has also worked closely with religious leaders across the African continent and has co-authored a number of pro-life declarations with different African Catholic episcopal conferences. She has planned, organized and facilitated many major pro-life conferences, strategic seminars and March for Life rallies in various African countries.
Obianuju has travelled the world extensively speaking in 65 cities across 24 countries. She has been welcomed as a guest speaker at many high profile meetings and events including policy briefings at the White House, the US State Department and a number of Parliaments around the world including the European Parliament. She also frequently addresses her concerns at various United Nations conferences and events. She has been featured by numerous broadcast networks, including BBC and Al Jazeera where she has defended the sanctity and dignity of every human life.
Consistent with her love for the wonder of life, Obianuju also currently works as a Specialist Biomedical Scientist in the United Kingdom. Prior to her current position, she was a Medical Laboratory Scientist at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital. She holds a Master's degree in Biomedical Science from the University of East London and a Bachelor's degree in Microbiology from the University of Nigeria.
Teresa Stanton Collett, J.D., is professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she serves as director of the school's Prolife Center. Collett received her doctorate at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. As a well-known advocate for the protection of human life and the family, Collett specializes in the subjects of marriage, religion and bioethics in her research.
Collett has published numerous legal articles and is the co-author of a law casebook on professional responsibility and co-editor of a collection of essays exploring "catholic" and "Catholic" perspectives on American law. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as before legislative committees in several states.
Mary Rice Hasson, J.D., is the Kate O’Beirne Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., where she directs the Catholic Women’s Forum, a network of Catholic professional women and scholars. Mary is also co-founder of the Person and Identity Project, an initiative that equips parents and faith-based institutions with the resources they need to counter gender ideology and promote the truth about the human person. An attorney and policy expert, Mary has been a keynote speaker for the Holy See during the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, addressing education, women and work, caregiving, and gender ideology. She also serves as a consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family, Life and Youth and recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against the Equality Act. Mary and her husband Seamus Hasson have seven grown children, and one granddaughter.
Deborah Savage, Ph.D., is Clinical Professor of Philosophy and Theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she also serves as the Director of the Masters in Pastoral Leadership Program. She is a recognized scholar of the work of Karol Wojtyla/Pope St. John Paul II. The focus of her research is in philosophical and theological anthropology, with a particular interest in questions concerned with the nature of man and of woman and the meaning of human action in the world.
She was one of five other women scholars who co-authored the document Sharing a Spirit of Discernment: Recommendations from U.S Women Seminary Professors, a reflection on priestly formation prompted by the abuse crisis. It was submitted to the Vatican in February 2019.
Janet E. Smith recently retired from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, MI. She is the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and A Right to Privacy. Self-Gift is a volume of her already published essays on Humanae Vitae and the thought of John Paul II. She edited Why Humanae Vitae is Right: A Reader; Life Issues, Medical Choices (with Christopher Kaczor); Living the Truth in Love: Pastoral Approaches to Same-Sex Attractions (with R. Paul Check); and Why Humanae Vitae is Still Right.
Professor Smith served three terms as a consulter to the Pontifical Council on the Family and also served as a member of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, III for 8 years.
She has a regular column in the National Catholic Register, has received three honorary doctorates, and several other awards for scholarship and service. She has appeared on the Geraldo show, Fox Morning News, CNN International, CNN Newsroom, AlJazeera, and has done many shows for various series on EWTN. More than two million copies of her talk, “Contraception: Why Not,” have been distributed.
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